hectic

Allow me to talk about the weather.

If you want to imagine Cape Town right now, you can pretty much forget placid palm trees swaying gently under a happy yellow sun.

It’s been cold (“cold” is relative), the sky has been soupy with clouds, and it’s been raining on and off all day. More importantly, the wind is howling. HOWLing. Wisconsin audiences would recognize the racket outside as blizzard-like. I keep expecting to see a sheet of white. I keep expecting actual cold.

The air pressure dynamics of my apartment are hilarious. If a window is open so much as a crack anywhere, then doors become impossible to open. They slam themselves closed. Manage to pry open the door to the hallway, and elsewhere a new gust of wind starts up to compensate.

From my 12^th-story window this morning, I saw a plastic bag flying past from the street. It may land on the moon.

Down by the harbor, a cab driver tells me, people abandoning motorbikes left and right because they can’t keep them upright.

The papers are full of photos of people hanging onto poles. Trees falling over and damaging property. Bridges out. Walking down the street is the kind of battle that actually makes people think twice about their plans for the night. I struggle to keep moving, and gloomily cancel my running plans. Elsewhere in the Cape, rain, floods, Cape Times correspondent Melanie Gosling trapped overnight on the beat. Disaster.

One reporter tells me, true Capetonians soldier on without much difficulty.

The wind comes from the southeast. So we call it “the southeaster.” Duh. Other names include “the Cape Doctor," after the wind's supposed pollution-clearing effect. In this case, we also call it “the black southeaster.” It’s usually not this bad, but it’s a true force in people’s lives in the summertime, spiking for a few days before retreating temporarily. Of course the day will (probably) be sunny. But it's only "a nice day" if the wind holds back.

Later in the summer, we'll have dry vegetation, hot gusts, fires on the veld.