The Harmattan winds

Wind, it is the invisible force that cools you on a hot day, makes the palm trees sway, and moves the sand across the Sahara desert.  Wind, it can be a destructive force in a hurricane or tornado, it can over time mold the land cape of a mountain, and it can take a boat around the world.  Wind, it is used to describe the change in direction that ones life takes, the flexibility of a person, and the unexpected. 

The harmattan winds are famous in West Africa, blowing south across the Saharan desert from January to March of each year.  This is our winter time, the dry season of the year in West Africa.  The last rains that we had in Dakar was in early October, the landscape has turned from the rich greens of the rainy season to the tans and red of the dry season.  The majestic baobabs with their gnarly branches dot the barren landscape.  The wind comes in great gusts carrying with it the sand and dust from the land into your eyes, your mouth, and into your house.  It whips around you making you wear a sweater and put a blanket on your bed at night.  This wind is constant either a gentle breeze or a great force but it is always present.  Everyday there is a new thin layer of this nearly invisible dust coating most everything around you, this is the harmattan winds.  Then every once and a while it blows particularly hard and straight south and on those days you see the dust in the air.  At first you imagine it to be some sort of smoke and wonder where there fire is but then you realize that it is dust.  This dust storm is like a fog, cars run with their lights on in the middle of the day, you can’t see more then 100 meters ahead of you, and you cover your eyes and mouth to protect them.  That is the harmattan winds.

While this particular West Africa wind was has been whipping about around me for the last 2 months or so, a different kind of wind, the poetic one, has been gentling pushing me towards a new direction and at times engulfing me in contemplation of the future. This particular wind will be taking me back across the Atlantic to Washington, DC.  I have accepted a new position, with a different agency, and will start my new job in early May.  The position will have a much more analytical focus and include using mapping as part of a way to understand public health data.  As I love maps and I love data, this position is a very good fit for me.  Though I am sad to leave Senegal, the friends I have met here and the people I work with, I am happy that I will be closer to family and friends and be at a job that better uses my master degree skills.  Not sure how long this particular wind will let me settle and stay in Washington, but I do hope that it is for a little while as I am looking forward to not moving for a little while.

I leave Senegal in a little less than a month.  In the mean time I have lots of things to do to finish my tasks here and to finish all the tourism I want to do.  Hopefully, I will catch up on some blogging as well and get a chance to share some of my adventure from the past 2 months.