A Snow Storm: African Style.

It may become necessary for Ntate Moroosi and I never to work together again when the weather is looking bad. After yesterday (Thursday, July 23) he make it so. The reason we are looking at this like it is a trend is from the first time we were caught in a lightning storm in Ha Moahloli village. This was almost a year ago now and I'm sure I wrote about it on the ole' page already. That wasn't terribly safe hauling ourselves off the mountain and we could see the storm coming.
Yesterday we were out in Polatang village taking measurements of potato production. This was going to be the end of the measurements this week if we could have gotten it in. The day before watched the clouds roll in and the wind picked up, a clear sign that we would get weather. When I woke up yesterday morning the wind had shifted now coming out of the east. Jona, the lodge owner and local weather vein once said that when the wind shifts to an easterly origin the chill gets deeper with the arctic threat of snow. Every time I feel the winds out of that direction its definitely another 10-15 degrees colder. Everyone makes note of that when they see you too!
I dressed extra warm but didn't think we would get any precipitation until that evening with the way the sky looked open and the clouds scattered. My weather predicting abilities are about as bad as my ability to play basketball; mostly inconsistent and dependent on chance. Well just like before when Moroosi and I were caught by a speeding lightning storm this time were caught off guard. The winds were picking up by mid afternoon. All the other farmers were getting chattier as the clouds thickened and the sun took a hiatus. No sooner than 2pm those clouds from the east started dropping flurries. We could watch as the more easterly clouds began to drop the snow whiting out the mountains. Moroosi convinced everyone to pack up and get out of the weather. Everyone didn't need much convincing though since the winds sent the flurries of snow horizontal like pellets into our faces. This was also, unfortunately, the direction we all needed to get back to the village and back to town.
Now, I'm not new to seeing snow. In fact I enjoy the stuff. There's something clean and fresh about how it covers everything taking what was your typical view of the world and disguising that environment. A horizontal blowing snow storm in a treeless, monument-less environment, however, leaves one with little guidance.
We (Ntate Moroosi, four of the Bo-Me, and myself) started back toward the villages when not 100 yards from where we were Ntate Moroosi asks if I know where I'm going. I looked back at him and I could see this 70 year old man—his 10 kg rice Tastic bag he carries like a briefcase, two jackets, two sweaters, and a stocking cap on—covered in snow and still more flurries caking the front of him as the wind blew more. I wasn't much better with snow all down my front. He asked me if I knew where I was going because he felt the women were getting lost. These are women who have lived in this village for years. They had walked back and forth to these fields at least a dozen times each year for 30 plus years. And they are lost. That is how much of a mess it was turning into.
All the usual landmarks were gone. Less than one hundred yards was all we could see if anyone would brave the stinging snow flurries pelleting our faces as we looked for something that would guide our way. I thought he was joking and that everyone was fine. I still knew where I was at and where we were going (roughly south east) but I didn't realize others really were not sure. Trying to calm people down I made a few jokes that didn't work to distract people from their hysteria. Finally the women started to know where they were headed. Moroosi and I parted ways with the women; they left for the village and we headed around the ridge to town.
The weather was still going hard. Now both Moroosi and I were well covered with snow. There were a few people headed out of town back to their own villages. Because Moroosi was still extremely worried about being lost he kept asking these people if we were headed in the right direction. Using a colic, guttural growl for a voice he called out to these people for guidance.
Seeing Moroosi's reaction made me wonder if I under reacted! It was hard to figure where we were going, I must admit. EVERYTHING disappeared; the walking paths were all covered, the mountains either all looked the same or couldn't be seen, the village actually faded into a few indistinguishably spiked thatch houses, and it all looked so similar. Moroosi was completely disoriented until we finally reached the “main road” to the village—a wider dirt path for the pull carts to travel to and from town.
No sooner than we reached the junction of the main road then the skies started to clear and the sun peaked through; an welcomed annoying sight! I don't know what's next but maybe I will just call in sick the next time I have an inkling suspicion about bad weather!