Dust!

In the rainy season, we all complain about mud. Mud makes it difficult to travel, potholes fill with water and you can’t see any more how deep they are. Now, it is the dry season and we complain about dust.

In the Netherlands, people always talk about the weather. Here we all talk about the dust. It is very normal to meet someone and ask; how are you? How are you managing the dust? Half of Kumbo is coughing and complaining about catarrh.

Dust is really everywhere. Dust enters the house, if you touch a curtain you start coughing. Dust covers the floor, the tables, every time you touch something your color changes. If you buy something people first clean it but before you reach home it is covered in dust again.

People here say the dust gives free powder to women so we look more beautiful. I always say I feel more like a traditional warrior with it, you can draw patterns on your face! Your shoes are immediately covered and people go around with towels to clean them before entering an important office. Bike guys wear hats that cover their entire heads, women put a wrapper around their heads and clothes, we try everything to protect ourselves from dust.

The dust is the biggest problem when we travel. If you happen to have a truck in front of you, you can’t see anything because of the dust. When you drive you can’t open the windows because of the dust, but the sun shines so the car becomes like an oven. The ventilation of the car also brings in clouds of dust. So we try to leave very early before the sun really shines. In some parts the dust is so thick that we need our four-wheel drive to be able to climb the hills in it, or we just start sliding like in the mud.

My own road is manageable from my house down to the market. A small stream passes so people water the road every day; they take buckets of water from the stream and throw it on the road (yes, causing mud that makes you slip). But in places where no stream passes, or where no people live right beside the roads, the dust wins all battles. The only thing we can do is to wait for rain, and mud…