Last Friday afternoon was very hot, while yesterday we had our first
experience of serious raining, with a 30 minute deluge shortly after the
service, so we thought it is high time we gave you an overview of Rwanda’s
climate, which is shaped by two factors: latitude and altitude.
We are just a tad below the equator (check “contacts” for more
precise details), so it should be very hot and humid, but we are at approx.
1500mt, which means it’s never too hot and not very humid; all in all… one of the
best climates on Earth!
Basically a constant summer, or late spring, depending on your
standards: temperatures average between 30 during the day (32 is very high) and
19 at night (16 when it’s “cold”). There are two rainy seasons: one goes from
October to November, the other is starting soon (just started?) and will last a
couple of months, so we arrived in the short dry season; however, it won’t mean
2 months of monsoons, simply a few hours of rain nearly every day.
As Italian citizens, it’s not really hot, but 7 years in
Ireland, i.e. a lifetime for the kids, have changed our perceptions, so at times
we feel slightly roasting, especially during those 2-3 hours around noon, if we're outside, but in those cases we are relieved by seeing some local people walking under the shelter of umbrellas:
they feel it too!
On the other end, when the morning is cool, maybe after a rainy
night, with the sky still cloudy, and the locals, wearing jackets or other
unusual warm items, ask us if we don’t feel cold, we answer that in Ireland those
22-3 degrees are just one step below a heat-wave…
On the whole, we really like it: nice and warm, you just need to
drink a lot, and sugary drinks help, which means we use a great deal of
delicious local fruit juices, like pineapple, passion-fruit, mango, strawberry
(the best are the concentrated ones, buy 1 litre, make 5); unfortunately, we’ve
also fallen in line with the local customs and the two adults can’t go a day
without their coca-cola, coming in cheap 300ml glass bottles, very eco-friendly
as you give them back to buy more (you can buy “new” ones only in the big supermarkets
in the city centre, while in the mini-shops around the city you must bring your
empties, or buy coke in plastic, which is nowhere near as to taste and definitely harmful to the environment, giving the total lack of recycling
facilities).
Language curio: they call them all “Fanta”, regardless of the real
content (Coca-Coal, Fanta Orange, Fanta Lemon, Sprite).
Latest weather update: this morning, while we post this, one of Kigali’s
many hills has disappeared from our view: a big white cloud (or is it fog?) has
shrouded the whole place, making it quite surreal, as the view can be more or
less clear depending on the days, but the hill was always there…
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