'"SNOW" DAY IN VAN RIEBEECK PARK, SOUTH AFRICA!!
The banner headline in the CITIZEN newspaper read: THE BIG CHILL! Folks around this part of South Africa have been talking about what was to be the coldest weekend in years...the temperature was going to drop down to about 16 degrees Celsius. People were warned about taking their dogs/cats in for the weekend. Homeless shelters were told to prepare for a deluge of new customers. The talk on the streets was centered on the weather.
I'm having difficulty understanding what all the fuss is all about. Then today it happened. While driving to the local grocery store my Corolla was pelted with hail-"stones" the size of large pieces of salt! I was very much reminded of the salt distributed by trucks back on Michigan roads when a snowstorm had hit. Only this wasn't salt...it looked like the hail was making an attempt to be like little stones of snow.
What made things even more interesting for me was the fact that the "snow" was accumulating along the side of the roads, looking like...well, "snow." I even rolled the window down on my car, extended my open hand, and tried to grab some of the stuff as it smacked against everything in sight. Like a kid, I whipped my hand back in from the cold and pinched a few pieces of the hail together and quickly deposited it in my mouth. It tasted just like Michigan "snow."
The stuff was disappearing as fast as it appeared. Within just a few minutes the dark clouds above opened up a bit and a ray of sunshine peeked through what had obviously been clouds full of some kind of moisture. The "Big Chill" was over before it began!
On the drive back to our home, I saw a few people walking by the side of the road...all of whom were bundled up like they were trudging though an icy storm in far away Siberia. One woman had a colorful, wool blanket wrapped around her head. I could barely see her eyes peeking out through the head-covering. Others had heavy-looking scarves tightly placed against their faces. The smell of burning wood was evident as a street-vendor gathered close to flickering flames set in a metal barrel.
I'm home now. The slippers are on my feet and a cotton t-shirt was added under my usual sweatshirt worn for this time of year. Winter has begun, I guess. But to me, it will be a "real" winter when I see kids making a snowman (or should I be politically correct and say a "snowperson?"). Yeah, I'll need a snowthing with lumps of coal for eyes and a carrot nose. And please don't give it arms made from the fronds of a palm tree!
Look, this is May in South Africa. They tell me winter will really kick in when June comes around. I can't wait. This is all pretty funny to me because the only way I'm ever going to respect a South African "winter" is when the school authorities declare a "snow-day" for the learners and teachers.
So, I'll wait for that day to come, here in South Africa. Yeah, yeah, I know...Hell will freeze over before my school, Norkem Park High School, has a snow-day! My Fulbright counterpart back in Flint, Michigan had two snow-days during her winter. Good luck on me having even two minutes of a snow-day here!
UPDATED WEATHER REPORT:
Now we have "Operation Snowball" in THE STAR Ekurhuleni Edition of the daily newspaper (out of Johannesburg)! The headline reads: 'Beware of frostbite as cold front stings." The South African Weather Service is predicting 1 degreeC today (Monday, May 22). It is supposed to "warm" up to about 10 degreesC.
Well, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary today. Oh, the dried up, brown leaves from the deciduous trees in our neighborhood litter the street and lawns, but where's the snow? When we have snow in Michigan one can always hear the snow plows on the streets/highways. You hear the "beep, beep, beep, beep" of the over-sized trucks as they rumble down the snow-blocked thoroughfares. I'm missing that here.
If anything changes, I'll let you know right here...you can say you saw it first here! The weather folks are now saying we can expect some cold rain. COLD RAIN! How does that compare with a real Michigan snowfall, let's say a foot or two? Clearly, it doesn't. And when it does, well here I go again: "Hell will freeze over before you'll see a REAL winter in South Africa!"
I'm having difficulty understanding what all the fuss is all about. Then today it happened. While driving to the local grocery store my Corolla was pelted with hail-"stones" the size of large pieces of salt! I was very much reminded of the salt distributed by trucks back on Michigan roads when a snowstorm had hit. Only this wasn't salt...it looked like the hail was making an attempt to be like little stones of snow.
What made things even more interesting for me was the fact that the "snow" was accumulating along the side of the roads, looking like...well, "snow." I even rolled the window down on my car, extended my open hand, and tried to grab some of the stuff as it smacked against everything in sight. Like a kid, I whipped my hand back in from the cold and pinched a few pieces of the hail together and quickly deposited it in my mouth. It tasted just like Michigan "snow."
The stuff was disappearing as fast as it appeared. Within just a few minutes the dark clouds above opened up a bit and a ray of sunshine peeked through what had obviously been clouds full of some kind of moisture. The "Big Chill" was over before it began!
On the drive back to our home, I saw a few people walking by the side of the road...all of whom were bundled up like they were trudging though an icy storm in far away Siberia. One woman had a colorful, wool blanket wrapped around her head. I could barely see her eyes peeking out through the head-covering. Others had heavy-looking scarves tightly placed against their faces. The smell of burning wood was evident as a street-vendor gathered close to flickering flames set in a metal barrel.
I'm home now. The slippers are on my feet and a cotton t-shirt was added under my usual sweatshirt worn for this time of year. Winter has begun, I guess. But to me, it will be a "real" winter when I see kids making a snowman (or should I be politically correct and say a "snowperson?"). Yeah, I'll need a snowthing with lumps of coal for eyes and a carrot nose. And please don't give it arms made from the fronds of a palm tree!
Look, this is May in South Africa. They tell me winter will really kick in when June comes around. I can't wait. This is all pretty funny to me because the only way I'm ever going to respect a South African "winter" is when the school authorities declare a "snow-day" for the learners and teachers.
So, I'll wait for that day to come, here in South Africa. Yeah, yeah, I know...Hell will freeze over before my school, Norkem Park High School, has a snow-day! My Fulbright counterpart back in Flint, Michigan had two snow-days during her winter. Good luck on me having even two minutes of a snow-day here!
UPDATED WEATHER REPORT:
Now we have "Operation Snowball" in THE STAR Ekurhuleni Edition of the daily newspaper (out of Johannesburg)! The headline reads: 'Beware of frostbite as cold front stings." The South African Weather Service is predicting 1 degreeC today (Monday, May 22). It is supposed to "warm" up to about 10 degreesC.
Well, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary today. Oh, the dried up, brown leaves from the deciduous trees in our neighborhood litter the street and lawns, but where's the snow? When we have snow in Michigan one can always hear the snow plows on the streets/highways. You hear the "beep, beep, beep, beep" of the over-sized trucks as they rumble down the snow-blocked thoroughfares. I'm missing that here.
If anything changes, I'll let you know right here...you can say you saw it first here! The weather folks are now saying we can expect some cold rain. COLD RAIN! How does that compare with a real Michigan snowfall, let's say a foot or two? Clearly, it doesn't. And when it does, well here I go again: "Hell will freeze over before you'll see a REAL winter in South Africa!"
posted by JOBURG JOURNAL at 11:27 AM
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