Witness to the battle of the seasons

When I arrived in Lagos, Nigeria, on a dusty Monday afternoon late last month, there was no question about the season.

It was still Harmattan, when the fine desert dust blows in south from the Sahara, making the normally hazy light blue/gray skies more of a dirty tan color.

The seemingly never-ending Harmattan, usually over by mid-March, had stolen away my sliver of ocean view from the wide kitchen window of our eighth floor flat on Victoria Island. I’m always fascinated by the parade of several dozen odd-shaped oil tankers slowly waiting for their opportunity in the harbor, lining the horizon.

The tankers “disappeared” thanks to those dust-drenched Harmattan days, as was the horizon, blending in with the dirty-looking sky and haze.

The red tile roofs of the buildings between here and the water looked soft-focus, tucked inside their towering walls topped with barbed wire or glass shards or spikes. Even some of the dozens of cell towers or construction cranes from Lagos’ building boom that usually litter the view weren’t jutting upward so harshly.

In Lagos, the seasons aren’t really very dramatic. But there are differences and the people there welcome them.

This year, people were complaining more than usual. Not only was it sticky hot — as always — but it was a dirty, sticky hot that seemed to squelch your metabolism, making it feel like naptime all the time.

Bob and I had always joked about the Weather app on my iPhone when I’d call him from home in Oklahoma or Texas. The week’s highs at a glance — 92, 92, 92, 92, 92, 93, 92, in Fahreinheit of course, and about a thousand percent humidity. Stop the presses, we’d say, a heat wave on Saturday with that 93. And the lows were no different — 79, 79, 78, 79, 78, 79, 79 — never varying more than a degree, at the most two.

Who do you think decides — in some weather office somewhere — how one day of the week gets a 93? Or a low drops one more degree on a certain day, like there was a cold front or something.

After I’d been in Lagos about a week, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a bright flash of light off our balcony past the potted bouganvilla and palm trees. And then another. And then another. Lightning — the tiny delay and then thunder.

And the rain came down, at first hurky-jerky kinds of large, splashy drops. Then torrents. It was the first hint, the first clue that the rainy season was easing into its own.

The air smelled differently that night and into the next day. My ocean, the line of tankers was back.

Water filled up the gargantuan potholes, so the next day our driver Tom threaded our black, carwash-loving SUV down the muddy streets to pick up the things we needed. And then washed the car. And then washed it again.

But the Harmattan wasn’t done yet. It got dry and dusty again. Darn.

A couple ‘nother days and another thunderstorm. Hallelujah. The rainy season finally arrived for sure.

And the horizon was gladly back, yet again. And I had to remind myself — it never left.