Faux Fall

As I worry about my friends and family on the East Coast getting slammed with a hurricane this weekend, I'm also thinking about how wonderful the weather here in Malawi is.  Not to be self-absorbed or anything, but I mean this is a blog, so I've pretty much gotten over the fact that anytime I write a post, I'm being self-absorbed. So here I am flaunting fantastic weather to my friends and family, some of whom who are probably -- at this very moment -- being inundated with rain and severe winds. (Does this make me a terrible person?)

Malawi has the kind of weather I love. Okay, perhaps I wasn't quite ready for the cold of July, but I'm once again content with the warm, sunny days, blue skies, and cooling breezes that confront me every morning when I leave my apartment. In Blantyre, it never gets colder than an early New England autumn night, and the rainy season is laughably mild compared to what I became accustomed to in Costa Rica. Add fruit trees to the temperate weather, plus trees that seem to flower year-long, and it seems like a tropical wonderland. But what's even better is that here I can also be reminded of autumn in New England.

Since this year's rainy season has been over for quite some time, the greenness that was once so prominent has subsided a bit, and some trees have been losing a few of their leaves. There is one less-traveled street in particular that reminds me of fall in Connecticut.  It is lined with fallen leaves, slightly browned and crinkled at the edges -- not nearly as many as a proper New England street would have in October, but the smell of October is there. There's nothing quite like the smell of dead leaves underfoot, particularly when running.  It may be the memories of high school cross-country that intensify my feelings of contentment when I'm running in autumn, even if it is a faux autumn on just one short street in Blantyre. No matter the reason, running that street at sunset -- with the orange and pink western sky creating a quietness that belies the chaos of commuter traffic just one road over and the crisp brown leaves that crackle underfoot -- takes me back to Connecticut for a few minutes.