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Veranillo winds August 9, 2014

July 10, 2014

Mid-July brings us into veranillo (literally, “little summer”*), the period in July and August when there is little to no rain. Since we’ve had little to no rain since May in this year of El Niño, the designation is rather pointless, other than to say that we probably won’t get any rain for a while yet. But it does help put a name to the wind here, which has become even more noticeable now.

The veranillo wind is the one saving grace in the dry heat, since it blows almost constantly. It is also a tremendous tease, because the only time a summer wind blows this hard or consistently in St. Louis, it means that rain is coming, while here it means the opposite. It blows in such gusts that I can hear it coming through the trees like a wave, pass over me, and continue on its way. This reminder of the sea is strengthened when the wind comes over the marsh. It makes a soft rustling as it moves through the reeds, then breaks like the surf on the forest’s edge.

* One thing I find striking about Latin American Spanish is the tendency to repurpose words rather than invent new ones. Instead of unique words for “dry season” and “wet season”, “summer” and “winter” are used, respectively. This hurts my head, not only because I consider those seasons to be defined by the tilt of the Earth rather than precipitation, but because for me, “summer” is the growing season and “winter” is the fallow one.

English probably goes too far in the other direction: At one point this summer, I was trying to figure out what the difference is, if any, between a “pail” and a “bucket”, and whether it mattered. But using tigre (“tiger”) to refer to any wild cat from an ocelot to a jaguar seems like a bit much.