"How do you like our climate?"

That was a question one of the New Vision editors asked me at a meeting the other day. Well, I said, I had just received an email from our daughter in New York, who said it was 12 degrees Fahrenheit; and a few days before we left Seattle, it snowed there. So we liked this climate fine!

One of the other editors laughed. "In our language (Luganda)," he said, "we don't even have a word for snow. Hail, yes, and ice. But not snow." ("But we have MANY words for bananas," another chimed in, saying there are more than 60 varieties.)

Theresa used to joke about the weather forecast on the New Vision site when we were still in Seattle: it always showed mixed clouds and sun and showers, and temperatures never more than a few degrees either side of 80. Well, that's exactly how it is. The equatorial sun certainly can be intense (I was careless for a half-hour yesterday and am paying the price today), and the walk to the market and back usually leaves us dripping. But often the temperature is just perfect -- and, as T. said last night as we sat out on a restaurant's lawn for a drink, underneath a giant Jack Fruit tree and next to a giant avocado tree-- both heavy with fruit -- if you squint your eyes and aren't in a place where you can smell the acrid smoke, it's very much like Hawaii.