Seasons of Mali

There are basically three seasons in Mali. Cool season is from November to February. Temperatures get down into the 70s at night and up to high 80s/low 90s in the day. It is by far the best season here. It's great. The mornings feel like spring mornings back home. We wear jackets and pants. It's a nice change. Very refreshing. I've decided it's the only season without difficulties. It's also probably the most productive time of the year. People can sleep at night and work without getting too tired in the day. You can tell why Africa hasn't progressed like other places- it's just too hard to live here. Once you're done living a day there's no time to work. Especially in hot season. This is from March until May. And well, it's hot. 110 + degrees. Often doesn't get below the 80s at night. The house feels like an oven that just bakes all time. There's no central air. So yeah, it's hot. At least we have fans and (now) A/C window units in our bedrooms. We can sleep at night. Malians, however, really have trouble sleeping this time of year. They sleep outside of their mud homes just because it's cooler. No one can get a lot of work done. It's just too hot. You're always tired, always needing a break...and a drink of water.  All this time (November to May) there's been no rain. Well, in March or so there are like 2-3 rains called mango rains, which if you don't have, the mangoes won't be good. But besides that, nothing. But then, the rains come. Rainy season is starting now and lasts until October. It's nice because it brings cooler weather, but it has its annoyances as well. With the rains comes malaria. With malaria comes prevention medications and mosquito nets. And as good as these things are, they are just annoying. (Though I must brag a moment and say that our boys can already swallow pills- they were even doing it last year which is pretty impressive in my opinion). Also a random note on mosquito nets- we bought new ones this year that are treated with an insecticide. Aparently the ones we bought were REALLY treated. The first night Dawson slept under his (Kenan and Silas'are old, but yes still have the insecticide) he woke up screaming in panic about his eyes hurting and then said he was itching all over. I put up the net and told him to come into our room. The boy was restless all night. I soon realized why as all around my eyes started burning. It lasted until the next afternoon. So we let it hang for awhile without being used. We started to use ours last night and thought we had let it hang long enough, but no, about midnight I woke up (thanks to Kenan) and realized I was all tingly around my eyes again. Our net hadn't breathed enough yet. But anyway, back to the point. There's also the problem of water always getting in the house from the rains. Our bedroom gets wet each time it rains. And our yard floods because the rain comes down with such force in such a short amount of time. Then after the rains, the flying termites come out. They are everywhere. It's like something out of the twilight zone- hundreds hovering on the windows trying to get into the light. And when they are really bad, they just fall in through the windows through the cracks we didn't know existed. But always, they get in the house. They fly around, end up in every room it seems and then within an hour or so, they die. And then that's when the ants come in and start eating them. Yes, this is going on in our house. Yes I try to prevent this but it doesn't work. So after franticly killing  the termites as they are flying around at first and trying to convince the boys they aren't going to hurt them, you finally just give up and go back to whatever you were doing, knowing full well the ants will just come get them in a little bit. The nights that they are really bad our night guard can sweep up a full bucket of them and there they are just buzzing around in the bucket. Gross. But actually a lot of Malians love this time of year. They love eating the termites. They say they are really good. And it's hard to take them at their word when their main staple of food is what every other developed country feeds their cattle. Seriously, one year when their was a drought and then locusts came in and ate all the crops, the US sent them cattle feed so the people could eat. Crazy. But anyway. One other annoyance I must mention are our windows. We open them when it rains as well as being open a lot during cool season. The open into the room. They are made of iron. The bottoms are way too close to the level of kids' heads. I can't tell you how many times we have hit them. Dawson and I have both already had stitches in our heads from banging the windows. I guess that will just be a right of passage living in this house. Dawson was pretty proud of his stitches when he got them. I wasn't so proud. But alas, that's life. 

Again, as I've said before, I'm not meaning to complain about life here. I just thought I would mention the challenges of the seasons since we are in transition right now. We are happy and enjoy living here. Brett made a great statement yesterday (as we were swimming in the pool) that we don't need to sit and wish away the days eagerly waiting to go to the US but find ways that we can relax and really be happy here. I think that's key. And the Lord is working and blessing us so that we can honestly say we're happy. Brett's coming home earlier each day which is great; he just decided that there will always be work to do and there's always tomorrow to do it. So that's nice. We have new friends who live IN KOUTIALA (have I mentioned them before?) who have young kids and enjoy playing with our boys. It's been great for Dawson to have another kid his age that he can talk to. And another mom of small kids that I can talk to. So we're doing well.  

Okay, enough talking, here are some pictures...

Our yard after a rain

The flying termites

The iron windows waiting to hurt us all.