cough cough

I woke up sneezing, and now I’m going to bed dry throated, scratchy, dusty, smokey.
The fields are on fire.
Today we went to the pool (there’s one in all of Kara) before we got in, the lifeguard grabbed his skimmer to get the biggest of the ashes out of the pool. Its VERY strange to swim with drifting ashes.
People have started to burn their fields. Most of the crops have been harvested, and as they are finished… they are set to flame. It’s “just the way it’s done”. Tonight I had to walk along a path through a field that was on fire.
I guess these are controlled fires… on purpose anyway. And sometimes there’s someone watching as it burns to see that it doesn’t go past where it should go. Not that there’s much that can be done if the fire decides it’s own path. (read back about the Kara Fire Department… big building, no trucks). I was told that one of the most beautiful sights to watch… though scary too… is the mountain on fire. The base of the mountain is maybe a ten min walk from the centre… The only problem is that Harmatan has come in so thickly I can’t see the mountain anymore! Visibility is pretty much nil. Today was the first day that I couldn’t even see the outline of it. Yesterday it was a looming shadow with it’s own halo… the dust was reflecting the sunset… very cool.

With the dust and the smoke comes the most incredible dryness… I can write my name on my legs with my fingernail…. and that’s after using lotion! I set my laundry out to dry on Saturday. It was all dry in an hour and a half! Ok, true enough it was covered in enough dust that it looked like I’d left it in an abandoned building for the last century… but it was dry!
I now have to dust off my chair and desk each morning when I go into the school room (and yes, I’ve closed the windows for the night) I also have to dust them when I come back into the room after coffee break and lunch… I’m only gone for ½ an hour… but it’s enough to collect dust! I’ll try to get some pictures of it… but I don’t know that the camera will do it justice!