Author, Stella Riunga Rop.
Brethren, greetings from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I am beginning to accept that maybe, just maybe, I am the human equivalent of a reptile.
My insides have stubbornly refused to warm up, even if the weather has. It was 16°C one sunny day last week and oh, there was no end to the fuss people made about it! “Lovely day, isn’t it?”
“Beautiful weather today, eh?” My friend, it was not even 20°C yet. On a similar day the week before that, I passed by a house where a certain gentleman was mowing the lawn bare chested. Bare chested at below 20°C, ha!
I still had my warm jacket tightly wrapped around my body and thermals on beneath my trousers on the so called ‘lovely day’. I do not understand the sun here. It comes out and yet it is not doing its work, that is, warming the earth. When did it start behaving like a jaded civil servant? Yes it gives us light, which I deeply appreciate, but the warmth part is missing. Oh yes, I did not tell you about yesterday.
Another sunny day but still not yet 20°C. Finally approaching decent temperatures and then we got into church and the fans were on. What were they fanning, exactly?
I had made the unwise decision to remove my jacket, so I just sat there and let goosebumps break out on my skin. After church we went to a local mall and found people there dressed for the beach. Bu-small small shorts only covering the bare essentials, sleeveless and crop tops.
Meanwhile, this immigrant had only gotten as far as unzipping her jacket quarter-way. Like a lizard, it was only after sunning myself for about two hours that I felt the sun’s heat begin to make its way into my blood. Until the sun gets serious, my jacket stays on.
As the Nigerians would say “E never reach like that!” Meanwhile people here are talking about summer. If summer is like this I better stock up on winter wear for my summertime. These have been the musings of a lizard.
Stella Riunga Rop
Dispatches from Canada
