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This week’s tale is a tale of change, bandied about over campfires and funeral pyres around the world for eons. A tale of woe, a tale of mystery, and surprise. A tale of inadequate insulation. As we wander our sunny village streets and draw grimy water from our wells, as we tell just one more bean joke under the stately Malian sun, it stalks. Behind the papaya tree, gold and green in a pale afternoon sun. Seeping in through the cracks in our houses or the cracks in my resolve. Insipid and yet obvious, proud and un yielding this monster of consistency, this creature of habit looms, lays in wait until her number is drawn. And according to the “Year of cute kitties” calander I’m looking at, the time is neigh. to the accustomed yet ill equipped Malian or worse still the incredulous volunteer, this behemoth of change strikes with more shock and awe than a George Bush themed weapons rodeo, eliciting a unison and universal cry across the arid sub-Saharan plain…..NENE BE NENE BE!! That means its cold people! And surly you mustn’t doubt that I am as shocked as you are. Mali and her ‘’seasons’’ can be loosely classified around what’s going in or coming up out of the ground. We do have ‘’wet season’’ and wet it is, rain in torrential and steady bursts, relative to the 7 months of the year when it doesn’t rain, It can seem pretty damp. There is also ‘’ hot season’’, and no that’s not some kind of passive aggressive Malian irony, there is a time of year that is decidedly hotter than the rest, temperatures I’m told top off at around 120 degrees. (Ill spare mentioning that that is farenheit, if it were Celsius we’d all be dead.) Yet this does leave room for the inevitable fall from grace, or stumble into absurdity that is ‘’Cold Season’’. It’s a relative term to be sure, with day time highs still hovering in the mid eighties, but at night, when she strikes, well…you just don’t see it coming.
I sleep outside. I sleep outside in a bug tent, placed on top of a foam mattress. This is preferable to sleeping inside in as much as my house has the exact physical and thermodynamic properties of a large pizza oven, the kind found at your trendy bistro, or lunch time hot-spot. Sleeping outdoors is a presumed and practiced necessity for anyone living in West Africa during at least 7/10ths of the year. The heat lulls you at first in to a false sense of calm, tempting you to believe that the air you breathe knows not from cool. How could a cruel and unforgiving sun yield so much of its power to orbital shift and particle deceleration. How could it get so damn cold this close to the equator? I heard it was coming…’’its coming’’ they said, that’s what I heard. Yet, having forgotten that a certain potent patent clerk’s theory of relativity was not also relative in its application, I was rendered mildly unawares as to the extremes to which these desert-esque environs can swing. I awoke one night unsure of the source of the restless, sleepless hours past, when I realized I was cold. A novelty at first, and one I took note of with fine accord. “ahhh cold season huh, livin’ the life here’’ yet several more restless hours later, sweating profusely under two heavy wool blankets (I might mention now that we were issued wool blankets and a great laugh was had by all… at the time) I dared not expose my skin to the sub-sixty degree weather outside at risk of a mild chill, the shivers, or worse..Being uncomfortable! Huh, I guess it is all relative.
Ok, ok trust me it’s colder than it sounds. We Americans, even ones of southern origin are tempered by a deciduous climate and longer, more resolute exposure to cold, so you’d think that after weeks of stifling heat, that a night in the fifties (just guessing at that temp) would be a welcomed relief, and as the evening cools, it is.
I wandered into Kalifa’s compound, around 7:30 for my usual night time glad hand, how’s the family type visit, but Kalifa wasn’t in his usual spot, brewing tea from a plant he calls ShokoroJe, or ‘’old white bean’’. The kids, sitting on an old animal skin, studying introductory biology in French by oil lamp and seemingly unfazed by the tempature, being shirtless and full of guile, directed me to the door of kalifas room. The entrance was draped over with a thin, pale blue cloth, embroidered with maroon stitching. I pulled it back and went inside. Kalifa lay bundled up under a floral print fleece blanket, next to a small metal cook stove, the glowing orange embers casting a pallor over the room. “Kalifa, good evening” “ahh Sidiki, good evening, my health might not be good” “oh, Kalifa, you sick, I’m sorry!” “no, no I’m not sick, but I might be later, it’s SO cold!!’’ well, as I had trotted over in a t-shirt, enjoying the sudden cool down from the heat of the day, I was struck with a strong sense of empathy and a false sense of security that I would regret later that night. I wished Kalifa well, and left quickly, my mind alive with possibilities. How cold will it get? Am I weak? Am I ready? Those kids didn’t seem to care, should I? Am I going to get sick? I hurried home to batten down the hatches, changing into long sleeves and pants, gathering blankets, and a light sleeping bag, I huddled into my tent, ready to brave the arctic night, but I only ended up fighting off the far less pleasant feeling of being sweaty hot and chillllllly cold at the same time. Ok, so I am still tinkering with the arrangement, less wool here, another shirt there, maybe I’ll get a stove like kalifa’s, I may even sleep inside, like a doughy pizza, waiting to crisp! Egad… weather wreaks havoc on the psyche, especially when you don’t see it coming.