Winter in Dakar

To anyone back home winter here is laughable. I have a weather flasher that reminds me daily that the weather here is warmer by plusiers (many) degrees than it is la-bas (in South Dakota), so I'm not oblivous to it. When you'all have ice and snow alerts, we have some wind and a whoppin' 70 degrees. But that doesn't change the fact: I'm damn cold. My new host family looks at me and astonishingly says, "But you're from South Dakota!?" They once had a student from Minnesota who apparently went through the winter in their house with only one drap (sheet) and I currently have two though I wish I could ask for ten. Instead I've been sleeping in two pairs of pants, two shirts including my fleece, and a borrowed pair of men's sports socks (chaussettes is the word!).

It's not really cold, and I know this. I've gone through enough South Dakota winters to know real cold (freezing degrees chapping your face and that horrid north wind burrowing through every peice of layer you put on that morning), but perhaps it's all relative. However, probably the ultimate clincher is most homes in Dakar don't have a hot water tap (not to mention homes outside of Dakar that don't have running water at all). Those cold showers that used to be precious after a long hot day have now turned hellish and nearly unbearable -- I know a few people who went a good three days before getting under that cold faucet.

Part of it is just an expectation that it's supposed to be HOT here like the previous four months. But also people here I'm finding don't know how to live with the cold like on a 70-degree day we're all asking each other, "How's the cold?" and responding with shakes and moans and "burrrrrs" at the same time as I can see the guys back home say, "spring's a-coming" at 40 degrees.