It's back!

After enjoying a delightfully cool month, the last few days have been showing us that hot season is quickly approaching. At night before bed, I've been watching the thermometer climb daily. For a few weeks it was between 71-73 degrees in our room at night. (much cooler outside- one morning it was in the high 40's. We hear this is not too common around here!) Then, three days ago it went up to 76... the next night 78... last night, 81. It's just after 5pm, and looks like it's already 82 right now. Not to be confused with outside temperatures- it's 92 outside today. But when it cools down at night our house stays fairly comfortable at night. Once hot season is really here, the heat never ends, day or night. The house never has a chance to cool down at night, and the heat from the sun radiates through the cement walls all night. So we are still very comfortable for now, with the nights cooling off significantly.

Don't worry about us enjoying ourselves too much though. To go along with the beautiful cool weather we get the harmattan dust blowing like crazy, coating anything and everything indoors and out with a layer of red dust. Just in case you want us to be those "suffering missionaries in Africa." ;) Don't want you to think that we are loving life here more than we should... (We really do love living here though- dust and all!)

Cool season really suprised me! In fact, this year surprised a lot of people. I've heard numerous comments from long termers out here who say that this is one of the coldest cool seasons they remember. We survived two hot seasons, but this was the first time I can really say that I enjoyed the weather here in Niger. Last year we missed the cool season, as we were in MA waiting for Silas to be born. This year found me huddling up under a blanket it my sweatpants and fuzzy slippers. It was down to at least 71 in here! Apparently my Alaskan and Canadian winter-loving self has acclimated to life here in Niger. Hopefully that doesn't mean we will totally freeze our next winter in the US!