Missing Kenya #6: Equatorial Weather

This picture was taken in Nairobi, the day after we arrived in Kenya in December 2009. As you can see, the weather for that day was mild enough for t-shirts, but comfortable for long-sleeves for Maggie and long pants for everyone. In short, idyllic weather.

Pretty much everyday between then and now has been roughly the same. We do have seasons. There are the "long rains" and the "short rains". But I can't even remember when they are, because around Tenwek Hospital, the difference between the rains and "not the rains" are usual pretty unremarkable, with the exception of one dry spell earlier this year, which ended the night Ben was born, prompting the locals to want us to name him "Kiprop", which means "boy born during the rains".

We are at about 0.5 degrees south of the equator and about 6500 ft altitude. This means a few things:

1. The difference between sunset at the summer vs winter solstice is less than 30 minutes. In fact, I've never noticed any difference at all.

2. It never gets cold. I mean, Kenyans wear parkas at night, and maybe if I slept outside like many of them functionally do, I would sympathize more, but a sweater has always been the max need for me.

3. It never gets hot. This is surprising for most people, but shorts are culturally awkward here and this doesn't matter at all, from a comfort standpoint. It gets hot on the coast, but not at this altitude and not in Nairobi.

4. The temperature difference between a sunny lunch time and a rainy afternoon (the normal trend) is greater than any particular annual variation in climate.

5. We don't have a heater. We don't have AC. No big deal.

Overall, this is nice. There are some drawbacks, which largely come in various feelings of monotony. However, people consider this weather to be ideal for reasons which we can really relate to.