Summer
It's "Summer". That time of the year when, in temperate regions, the sun is warm, the weather is nice and often dry (as opposed to wet and rainy) or balmy with the heat (and sometimes humidity) and people dress skimpily, regardless of the "ampleness" of their girth, because they can.
In the tropics, we do not have "summer" - the sun is almost always warm - yet we refer to the period of the months of June, July and August as "summer time". For us, those months are fraught with heavy rains and floods - what is "summery" about that?
Our schools organize "summer camps" to make some money and to provide a place for those harried parents, who did not or could not "go for summer" abroad, to put the kids for some hours each day. Parents, who have no idea what they want the kids to do during the long holiday from school and do not want to worry about what lessons the nanny will teach the kids or what weird and inappropriate TV programs they will watch with the kids.
It used to be "summer school" but that's old school and connotes "learning" at a time when kids should be resting from school work. Hence the new, hipper term - Summer Camp! Heck, it's NOT a camp, they DO school work (the little brains need to remember previous lessons learned, no?) and IT IS NOT SUMMER!!!!
This adoption of a season that is alien to us baffles me. To the best of my knowledge, I know we have only two seasons in Nigeria (and most of West Africa, if I have my facts right) - WET (Rainy) and DRY (Harmattan). It rains for roughly six months of the year, with variations in the quantity and regularity of rainfall and for the other six months, the harmattan winds blow, varying in intensity, heat and dryness. When is the "summer" then? Are there some months that I have missed (last time I checked, we had twelve calender months) Or is its use the result of our usual manner of blindly imbibing foreign cultures and practices without regard for the consequences in our lives? Has it occurred to us that our children are quickly losing (if ever they had it!) any sense of the heritage of their ancestors?
Do our children KNOW that "Summer" is not a Nigerian season?
Do YOU know it is not?
In the tropics, we do not have "summer" - the sun is almost always warm - yet we refer to the period of the months of June, July and August as "summer time". For us, those months are fraught with heavy rains and floods - what is "summery" about that?
Our schools organize "summer camps" to make some money and to provide a place for those harried parents, who did not or could not "go for summer" abroad, to put the kids for some hours each day. Parents, who have no idea what they want the kids to do during the long holiday from school and do not want to worry about what lessons the nanny will teach the kids or what weird and inappropriate TV programs they will watch with the kids.
It used to be "summer school" but that's old school and connotes "learning" at a time when kids should be resting from school work. Hence the new, hipper term - Summer Camp! Heck, it's NOT a camp, they DO school work (the little brains need to remember previous lessons learned, no?) and IT IS NOT SUMMER!!!!
This adoption of a season that is alien to us baffles me. To the best of my knowledge, I know we have only two seasons in Nigeria (and most of West Africa, if I have my facts right) - WET (Rainy) and DRY (Harmattan). It rains for roughly six months of the year, with variations in the quantity and regularity of rainfall and for the other six months, the harmattan winds blow, varying in intensity, heat and dryness. When is the "summer" then? Are there some months that I have missed (last time I checked, we had twelve calender months) Or is its use the result of our usual manner of blindly imbibing foreign cultures and practices without regard for the consequences in our lives? Has it occurred to us that our children are quickly losing (if ever they had it!) any sense of the heritage of their ancestors?
Do our children KNOW that "Summer" is not a Nigerian season?
Do YOU know it is not?
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