Summertime

Hot weather is here again. It hasn't rained yet, like it normally does
when it's warm, we've just had hot, sunny dry weather for about a
month now. All plant life previously lush and green has shriveled,
leaving a desicated, brittle landscape. Farmers have begun to burn
their fields, clearing them in anticipation of the first storms, which
should arrive sometime in October, creating permanently hazy skies.
Wind blows dust from the parched red earth, which combines with the
smoke to create thick orange smog. The barren lowlands around Tete
city that we traveled through on our way to English Theater had a
particularly strong post-apocalyptic feel; we kept wondering how
people survive, reminding ourselves how lucky we are to be assigned
our beautiful mountain setting. Even our town has trouble with water
this time of year, people travel farther and wait longer to draw water
from the deepest wells. With hydro-electricity providing our power,
outages are longer and more unpredictable now. Interest in school has
waned as the temperatures climb, with more empty desks in the
classrooms and more absent teachers leaving lessons untaught. Despite
the low humidity, mosquitoes are back, as is malaria. It's now common
to see people sleeping through the hot parts of the day on grassmats
in whatever shade they can find, escaping their tin-roofed homes which
can become solar ovens, ours included. Even though the really
unbearable heat hasn't started yet, we've already packed away our
blankets and begun using our fan at night. Still, we're spoiled with
one of the most temperate sites here in tropical Mozambique. Whenever
we want to complain we think of our friends in the really hot, humid
sites who don't have electricity - we can't figure out how they fall
asleep without a fan!