The final travel piece I wrote while living and working in Niger in 2005-6. A couple of weeks later, I left the country and travelled overland through West Africa for a month by myself. If you’ve enjoyed reading these pieces, I hope to write up my travel journal from my time on the road in West Africa- if nothing else it was quite the experience- and hope to have some of it posted here. When I can find the time…
The Rains Arrived Last Night
The rains arrived last night. We’ve been waiting for weeks now, since early May, since the heat. The heat and the dust. You never really get away from it, though you can step into your air-conditioning, jump in the pool on a Sunday afternoon. Every time you step outside, the sun pounds your shoulders, takes your breath away. The dust gets everywhere, until you don’t really notice it, except when something ordinary and everyday takes on a fine orange hue, and you see the smudge-marks where your fingers disturb a fine layer of sand on your toilet seat, on the door-handle, on the screen of your computer.
