Four kinds of hot

When people ask me about the weather in Niger, I say there are seasons here--but they're just four kinds of hot. Hot, hot and humid, hot-windy-dusty, and REALLY hot.

We arrived last summer in the rainy season, which is 105 F and 100% humidity every day. When the rains stopped in the fall, it was still just as hot.

It's January now, wintertime, so it's hot and dusty, with the harmattan winds blowing off the Sahara, coating everything with dust-sized sand. It goes up to about 90 F, and it cools down at night. We go swimming every day, all winter long. It's the only tolerable season.

The completely intolerable season comes in March, April and May, when the temperature mounts into the 120s, the 130s. It cools down at night...to about 100.