In the United States, we have four basic seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall.
In Uganda, there are two basic seasons: rainy season and dry season. In Mbale, rainy season takes up about 9 months of the year. I would pretty much call the Ugandan rainy season my perfect weather. It rains faithfully every day, cooling everything down to the perfect temperature. The days are warm, and the mornings and nights are cool. The only downside to the rain is the mud, and trust me it is everywhere.
And then there's the short but dreadful dry season. It starts around Christmas and lasts until the middle of March. The rain stops completely. The mud turns into dust and the dust covers everything. Every tree and plant turns brown with dust and you can see and taste the dust in the air. Since we don't have air conditioning, we leave all our windows open year round for air circulation. So it's necessary to dust the furniture almost every day. By about 10:00 every day it's too hot to play outside and we hole up in the house with the curtains closed trying to stay cool.
This dry season has been particularly bad, and we still have about another month to go. I'm not a big fan of the weather here right now. The heat makes you feel lazy and dull. So, in an effort to look on the bright side, here are some of the ways we are trying to beat the heat:
Swimming! We live near 3 nice pools where you can pay to swim for the day. The water is always ice cold and I'm not exaggerating. It is an amazing feeling to actually feel cold! In the last week Graham has learned to swim on his own without a floaty. He is so proud. And Molly is so brave! She kicks around the pool, even in deep water with her floaty on, and jumps in over and over.
Art projects. Yes they are messy and require some work for mom, but the kids love it.
Watching movies. Knowing that it's temporary, I'm allowing some extra TV time for those days when we're stuck inside and there's not much going on.
Not pictured: LOTS of legos, LOTS of play doh, homeschool (at least an hour a day, most days), books, puzzles, games (go fish is Graham's current favorite), etc.
