Climate Change

It is still cold here. I guess cold is slight exaggeration, but according to everyone I work with, it is certainly colder than normal. Whenever I ask any of the teachers or anyone in my family when it is going to warm up, they simply say that it is usually warm by November, so any day now. I’ll believe it when I feel it. In the mean time, though, most of the Zulus love to use the phrase “climate change.” I hear it all the time. Everything about the weather is because of climate change. The terrible lightning that we have all the time – climate change. The hail storms that comes out of nowhere – climate change. The amount of rain in the past two months – climate change. The fact that it was one of the coldest Octobers on record – climate change. Definitely all climate change. I can’t help but laugh at the fact that this particular phrase has become such a constant in the Zulu language; although they do really like to talk about the weather. I certainly don’t want to argue the point – I am sure that climate change has something to do with the crazy weather that I am living with here. But when I ask anyone to go a little deeper and explain what climate change means or what may be the cause, I do get a lot of blank stares. I’m thinking of a few activities that I can do with the learners next year in Natural Science class to try to bridge this knowledge gap. With my luck, by then the weather will probably be back to normal.