Snow in Africa

People who aren't African's tend to think of Africa as a hot and dry and dusty place. Indeed we often get "foreign" visitors who toast is "dust in Africa". If you watch the news, any time you like there is some story lurking there of famine in Africa. Pictures of starving children are likely to tug at the world's heartstrings and, thank heaven, produce funds to provide food for these mites.

Along with the vast migrations of the Serengeti in Kenya, gorilla's in the equatorial rain forest and young thugs in pickup's committing horrific crimes and violence are iconic staples of how the rest of the world sees us. Just as we see the First World as a golden shining place of riches and better, safer lives. True but not the whole story.

A picture that does not commonly spring to mind is of snow in Africa. A friend phoned this morning to say that she wasn't going out as the snow that has fallen in parts of South Africa has snowed her in and besides it is too damn cold as our houses are really not built with this kind of weather in mind. She was quite grumpy but said her children who have never seen snow before were having a great time outside with snow ball fights and building snowmen and sledding on her kitchen trays. In the mean time while it isn't snowing here in Harare Zimbabwe and is not likely to (we would really know that there was something seriously wrong with the worlds weather systems if it snowed here) it is fresh and cold.