For the past week we in Serenje district have experienced a strange anomaly: rain and cold weather in October. This is strange for two reasons: for one thing, when it rains in Zambia, it RAINS. We're talking torrential downpours, skies darkening and grumbling for hours if not days in advance, clouds billowing and lightening bolts flashing, rain so thick you could take a shower in it, the type of rain that brings a complete transformation of the landscape, leaves the ground itself in a different shape from how it found it. A teacher in my village the other day complained about this "London weather," which was completely and bizarrely accurate; the weather has been cold and damp, muggy and drizzly, like a petulant rainstorm that can't decide whether it wants to precipitate or not. The other day it drizzled. Drizzled. In Zambia. Weird.
The other, more obvious reason this week's rainy-cold weather has been so strange is this: October is the peak of Zambia's hot-dry season. Let me say that again: we have been having rainy cold weather this week, in the peak month of our hot dry season. Sooooo, something is clearly wrong here. I mean, two weeks ago I was visiting a farmer to help him plant a tree nursery, and when I went to stand up from planting some seeds I found that I had to sit down again, the heat and sun had made me too dizzy to stand properly. Now don't worry, Mom, I've been drinking plenty of fluids and carrying extra water when I go biking (and trying to avoid biking in the middle of the day, but this is harder than you might think, assuming you plan to go anywhere at all), but nonetheless during last year's hot-dry season and this past September I have been surprised at how easily I get dehydrated, especially since I don't usually require that much water to begin with.
Yet this past week none of this has been a problem; instead, I have been forcibly reminded of the cold-dry season of May-July, when the sky stays cloudy and gray as though it's going to rain (or as if it's mourning the end of the rainy season, as it never actually does rain), when the women wear blankets around their midsections as if they were citenges and the babies are all dressed in the best knit woolens their mothers can find. Where a week ago I was hiding from the heat in my hut, sweating night and day, this past week I had to drag back out the winter blankets and fleece jacket, freshly laundered and put into temporary storage on a shelf, and now I huddle around fires and under blankets. Cleary the world is confused about what month it is.
The difference between this past week and the actual cold-dry season is that the weather this week has not actually been dry. It has been humid, thundrous, and occasionally drizzly. I have woken up each morning to a yard of wet sand, and each evening find watering my garden and tree nursery largely unnecessary, as the clouds have not cleared long enough for last night's shower to sun-dry away. Each afternoon this week I have had conversations with the strong African thunder, my side boiling down to such statements as "I hear ya, I hear ya" and "oh shut up." Yesterday I faced a dilemma I was not expecting to experience for another month: the old "is it raining where the meeting is being held, and thus should I bother going?" question. If it is raining, no one will show up, which means there's no sense in my going and getting drenched for nothing. However, depending on the size and direction of the storm, it may be raining where I am and not where the meeting is taking place, in which case I should ride through and away from the rain to reach my meeting. That is not, you understand, a question I would usually expect myself to need to answer during the dry season. Yet here we are.
This early rain could, potentially, have more serious of an impact beyond simply freaking out the muzungus. Traditionally the early rains start in November and become well-established in December, eventually tapering off in early April. Farmers, then, are advised to start planting their fields in late November/early December, and some plant even later than that (because they don't start digging until the rain loosens the soil, and digging with hoes takes a looooong time). So if these early rains are a premature start to the rainy season, that means many Zambian farmers are already a month behind. If the rains start early, they could also end early, and that could mean a crop-killing drought in March or even February. On the other hand, if the farmers attempt to plant their crops early and this turns out to be just a temporary fluke in the weather patterns, their crops won't make it to January. It is too risky to change the planting schedule and therefore much smarter to keep to the regular planting schedule. So essentially we have no choice but to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.
All this is a long-winded way of saying: global warming is bad. Whether it's a massive cataclysmic event like the tsunami that hit japan or tornadoes and floods sweeping America or a subtle but noticeable and potentially harmful change in the weather, like the more-massive-than-usual amount of snowfall faced by New England last winter (followed by an unusually intense heatwave) or this early rain that could, potentially (and I don't mean to be an alarmist) be a sign of a drought, the bottom line is that our climate is changing, and at a more rapid pace than usual. We see signs of it every day. And while we can escape the cold fronts and heat waves with air conditioning and heaters, the developing world-- who rely on the current weather patterns to survive, whose daily actions are determined by the weather (no, really, they do not leave the house during rainstorms, ever), who have shaped their lives, their clothing and shelter, their sources and methods of obtaining food around the weather-- may not be so lucky.
Today dawned bright and sunny, still cold and crisp but holding the promise of a sky willing to hold its bounty off a little longer. Let's hope, for the sake of these people who have taken me in, fed me and shared with me what little they have, taught me and cared for me and encouraged me and loved me, that there are nothing but clear skies ahead.
