Last month when we were walking one morning, we noticed a halo around the street light. The Harmattan had arrived. My only experience of the Harmattan was on the movie Hidalgo. This annual event is a haze of really fine sand that blows in from the Sahara Desert and looks like fog that never lifts, it's been here ever since and the locals say it will continue another month. If you look at the Sahara on Google Earth you can actually see the sand blowing from space.
The sunsets really look like those beautiful, big, red, dusty, African photographs. The locals complain about having dry skin but I haven't really noticed it. They also say that the particles in the air make it cooler, but it still feels like August in a sauna to me. What I have noticed is the dirt it brings, and covers every nook and cranny overnight. The car looks like it hasn't been washed in 3 months, and it was washed yesterday! You dust the furniture and it is dusty again before you're finished dusting. I'm going to hire a local to sweep, mop and dust until the Harmattan passes. It feels like a micro-derm abrasion treatment on your face every day so I guess it's going to be good for me? I try not to think about what it's doing to my lungs as I breathe in deeply and savor the burning black plastic smoke, filled with sand. Cough, cough, cough!
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