The area round the church shows its seasons well just like the rest of the country. The community obeys the seasons just like the rest of the country. The tress by the church building obey the seasons just the same.
Some people think there are only two seasons in Zimbabwe, the Hot and the very hot. Well they are right apart from the fact that there are other thins going on in the environment than the production of degrees of heat. There are 4 seasons in a year as follows:
Some people think there are only two seasons in Zimbabwe, the Hot and the very hot. Well they are right apart from the fact that there are other thins going on in the environment than the production of degrees of heat. There are 4 seasons in a year as follows:
Summer:
Summers are best described by two words
which you must take seriously. hot, and wet. We have proper heat reaching
temperatures of over 30 degrees C. at times. The nights are not that cool
either. On hot days the night temperatures can be above 20 degrees. If you have
just arrived from a much cooler country, you will need to protect yourself from
both the heat and the more intense sunlight. Make sure you read about how to do
this before you visit.
The rain pours down in a particularly spectacular manner. It
usually comes in bursts of anything from half an hour to a few hours. Sometimes
the intensity is such that you cannot drive a car through the rain. The screen
wipers cannot wipe the water off the screen quick enough for you to see. In
such cases, you best pull over and stop because the rain will be stop in a
short while.
One symptom of the rainy season is lightning. Lighting kills over 100 people each year in
Zimbabwe, mainly through ignorance of its behaviour and the government’s
inaction on educating people to protect themselves against lightning. Zimbabwe is listed in the Guinness book of
records as the record holder on the country where the highest number of people
were struck and killed by one lightning bolt. This was in 1975 when 21 people
were hit in one take and killed. For such a small country it is amazing that we
continue to be affected by lightning this way.
That said, watching lightning illuminations at night in the rainy season is one of those sights you really would find exciting, frightening and interesting at the same time. The rule of lightning is that if you hear the rumble that follows the flash, you have been missed. They do say that one flash carries enough power to supply the whole world with electricity for several minutes. Pity we cannot capture it in Zimbabwe where the lightning actually strike transformers and other supply utilities rendering many regions powerless for some time each year.
That said, watching lightning illuminations at night in the rainy season is one of those sights you really would find exciting, frightening and interesting at the same time. The rule of lightning is that if you hear the rumble that follows the flash, you have been missed. They do say that one flash carries enough power to supply the whole world with electricity for several minutes. Pity we cannot capture it in Zimbabwe where the lightning actually strike transformers and other supply utilities rendering many regions powerless for some time each year.
Summer is for the sound of crickets of all descriptions. If you
come out at night and just listen, you will be amazed at the variety of crickets
singing in the dark. If you remember to bring recording equipment with you, you
will go back loaded with the beauty of sound from the Zimbabwean nights in the
country side.
Some crickets come out during day time and make their presence
known just as beautifully.
The summer is an active time when all life does its best to show
off what it can do. You get all sorts, insects, plants, animals and whatever
else. The worst of the lot are mosquitoes. This abominable insect comes out in their
millions to terrorise both man and beast, mostly in the nights. Anyone who has
had an encounter with mosquitoes never forgets it. The only effective solution is to have a
mosquito net. In 2014, the government distributed as many nets as possible to
the people.
The summer is a period of good health for most living things
including people. There is an abundance of food and there is a wide variety to
choose from. You will be able to sample as many different summer dishes as
possible.
You will also get a chance to work in the fields of crops. The
first thing you notice is that everyone, including children, and women in
advances states of pregnancy, work in the fields. It’s a survival thing. Some children get up
at dawn and work on the fields before they walk to school several kilometres
away. Visitors find this hard to take.
The rivers flow in the summer and sometimes you can see small fish
going upriver. The tadpoles from frogs and bullfrogs are everywhere where there
is water. The kingfisher is seen hunting here and there. The swallows are back
from Europe and breeding in their usual special places. The storks can be seen
flying in their groups.
The summer is alive. At
some point we will put pictures pertaining to the summer.
Autumn
The autumn brings out spectacular colours
of crops and other plants but continues to show an abundance of life from the
summer. If you look closely you will see that many living things are preparing
for winter. The insects are weaving their cocoons and going into pupae stage
before the winter. The farmers have finished harvesting and are putting in
winter crops, and gathering stocks from the harvested crops, for the cattle to
eat during the winter. The age old problem of how to store the new harvest is
brought to the forefront.
Farmers in this area farm mainly for their own food supplies and produce very little extra for sale. Of what they store, a good amount is lost to pests.
Farmers in this area farm mainly for their own food supplies and produce very little extra for sale. Of what they store, a good amount is lost to pests.
The autumn is a very short season and if you are not careful you
might miss it completely.
Winter
Winter is an interesting time of the year
in Zimbabwe. Temperatures fall to zero degrees but only for a few hours in the
night and early morning. By 10 o’clock in the morning the temperature has
picked up to double digits and sometimes can be described as hot. People wear
coats and require more blankets in their beds but it is not that cold compared
to certain parts of the world.
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| The sunrises are the best. Worth getting up early to see. |
The grass dries up, the trees lose their leaves, there are no
crops, there is less activity and people drink more and relax more, but remember
to go home before the temperature falls.
Spring.
Spring is an awakening time. All should be ready for starting the
farming cycle again. The trees display spectacular colours as they grow their
leaves back. The whole community change their conversations to include the
expectation of the first rains. The dust is unbearable. The cold is less and
less and the sun is back from the northern hemisphere and is preparing to
declare its full authority of these lands.
As the spring takes hold, the crickets come back with their new
year’s song, and will not be silenced till after the harvest.
Conclusion
We will try to get good pictures for each season, just to show the
differences in the look. But be informed that no amount of description or
pictures can be as good as seeing it with your own eyes. If you think we are
trying to get you to visit, you are thinking right. We see it as unfair for us
to keep all this beauty to ourselves. It should be shared by all who inhabit
the earth. We also should make an effort to visit other places, the Poles, the
northern hemisphere, the wetlands, and the the islands
Some of us think the earth and its beauty
was meant for all of us to share its beauty without restrictions.
Photographs do their best to keep
our memories fresh about what we have seen. Come and get your photographs.
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