What season is it?

We’ve been in Ecuador for three months now. Shouldn’t the weather be changing by now? It is still exactly the same as when we arrived. The sun still rises around 6 a.m. and still sets around 6:30 p.m. There has been little variation in the temperature, the mixture of sun and cloud has not changed and the amount of precipitation has remained about the same.

At first we were still expecting it to change within a few weeks. It felt like we were enjoying a nice long fall. But towards the end of October, when we started hearing reports of snow and minus temperatures at home, we began to realize that the weather we were enjoying could not be compared to home! We still wear only a light jacket, if any, in the morning and enjoy the intense heat of the sun by early afternoon.

Loja is in a narrow valley between mountains on the east and mountains on the west. A typical day begins with low clouds covering the tops of the mountains on the west. By the time we leave for school at 8:00 the sun is bright and hot. In the morning we may have a little rain shower but it never lasts long. Walking home between 12:30 and 1:00 is sometimes very hot. (Of course it’s all uphill on the way home, so that might have something to do with it.) When we go to our Spanish lesson in the afternoon it could still be bright and sunny but walking home an hour later, it could be raining. It may get cloudy around 4 and clear up again a couple of hours later. Or, everything could be reversed and we could start off sunny and have drizzle by the time we leave for school. You’ve heard the saying,”If you don’t like the weather here, wait half an hour.” Here it literally changes every few minutes some days: from sunny to cloudy to sprinkles of rain and back to sun again. But one thing is for sure: it is never cold!! Lojanos might disagree, as we have seen them dressed in down jackets, toques and gloves! We’d really like to tell them what real cold is!

We usually use the weather as a gauge to the length of time until Christmas. Since we can’t do that here, we have to look at the calendar and it really is just one month until Christmas. Somehow, I think I’ll have a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. We bought two Christmas mugs for our coffee but somehow it just seems wrong to use them in the summertime! There are a few decorations up around the city and our church was already decorated with a tree and lights this morning. But without snow and cold weather, it just doesn’t seem right. So do we miss the cold and snow? Maybe just a tiny bit. But I think it’s just nostalgia and we’ll get over it!