Harmattan

Wikipedia on the harmattan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmattan

My favourite bit is: In Niger, people say that men and animals become increasingly irritable when this wind has been blowing for a while, giving it a bad reputation.

Dust and wispy spiders

It is great being back in Accra. I’m seeing it with fresh eyes and appreciating the things I loved about the city when I first arrived. The heat is also amazing after a taste of the winter cold. But the weather has changed. The sun is no longer as bright, rendering my new sunglasses a bit redundant and the sky is overcast in a haze of dust. Harmattan!

When I stepped off the plane last week at 5.30am, I was hit immediately by the humidity. When I stepped into my house, I was overwhelmed by the musty, earthy scent of dust, coating my face, covering every exposed surface in a red film, thickly caking the floor, which no matter how many times I washed, wouldn’t get clean.

As I mopped, I realised a new species of bug had joined our household and was scrambling hurriedly up the wall to escape my cleaning. In addition to the red ants and the occasional cockroach (giant ones, always in communal areas, always flipped on their backs, always dead, bizarrely), there are now some very wispy spiders. So wispy it’s hard to distinguish them from their equally wispy webs.