Open Writing

We step out of the door, and the cold wind is ready to pick us up and whip us down the street. The sky is blue and high, the monkey-puzzle trees wave their arms in protest, leaning towards the north, while dust and litter bluster along the roads, and leaves swirl and dance in corners. This is Oranjemund in mid-summer.

Everyone has their “funny little ways” – things they do which they believe makes their lives more comfortable, easier to live. One of mine is to listen to or watch any and every weather forecast that I can. Particularly important to me are the predicted temperatures for the next day.

Leon, my husband, insists this is a waste of time – the forecasters always get it wrong anyway!

In spite of this warning, I wait each day, with baited breath, for those magical figures. They’re music to my ears. With this information tucked into my brain, I can gauge with reasonable accuracy how to dress each day: how much thermal underwear to pack into my gym bag, whether or not I’ll need a rain coat, or if I can – under very special circumstances - wear only the flimsiest of clothing, daring to bare arms and toes to the sun!

That was all valid until we returned to Oranjemund a few days ago. The climate here is what is known as “temperate”. There are few, and then only slight, changes in temperature through the seasons. Plants, not knowing quite what they should be doing at any given time of the year, flourish in spite of the sea-winds. They bloom, produce fruit and grow tall.

Most of our family, friends and acquaintances, on being told we were returning to the south-western tip of Namibia and the Namib Desert during mid-summer, commiserated with us. “You’re going to swelter!!” they all cried. They would be surprised to see me, sitting here in our cottage, wearing thermal underwear, a long-sleeved, light-knit top AND a woollen cardigan!

Night-time temperatures here seldom fall below a dew-laden ten degrees Celsius. Yes, dew regularly settles on this desert town. Day-time temperatures average between nineteen and twenty-three.

Of course, in winter there are days and nights that are four or five degrees cooler than the average. However, there is a strange, winter-time phenomenon, known as “East Weather”, which occurs when the wind changes direction and blows across the super-heated desert in the east towards the sea in the west. While this wind flails the town with desert-sand, temperatures soar into the low thirties. East Weather is the Namib’s equivalent of the Santa Anna winds of California, or the Mistral of southern France. When the east wind blows, tempers rise. It is a time when children quaver and mothers crotchet.

For the most part, along this south-western coast of Southern Africa, the prevailing sea-winds blow cold, damp air from the Atlantic Ocean onto the land, pulling temperatures down by significant degrees in what is known world-wide as the “wind chill factor”.

Since our return to the town a few days ago, the wind has blown constantly. Today it is restless and noisy, battering at the walls of the cottage, rattling the roof over the porch, and cutting through anyone walking the streets. It has constantly blown from the south-west, directly off the sea, screaming across the dunes and battering the town. The mornings are misty; yesterday it rained for ten minutes.

In Oranjemund, there’s no point listening to the weather forecast, the meteorologists completely ignore this part of the world! Days will be cool, the wind will be cold; there’s no need for me to be “crotchety” - I know I’ll need my woollies every day.

The cold Atlantic winds have blown the Bradleys into town - watch out, Oranjemund, “Here Comes Treble!”

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Isabel Bradley

Writer and Flautist

e-mail: flute@eject.co.za

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