One thing that still amuses me each day despite spending a couple of summers in the USA is when the sun sets and rises. When I arrived in North Dakota in late August last year as the summer wound down to usher in fall, there wasn’t much of a difference yet between the late summer and the early summer. The basketball coach had picked me up from the airport. I was fatigued and drowsy from the 30 hours I had spent moving across the globe. First things first, I was hungry and I couldn’t turn down a chance to eat a bowl of Chipotle which happens to be my favorite eat-out place in the USA. Nevertheless, the hunger couldn’t override the fatigue and drowsiness I was carrying and in less than 20 minutes of car motion, I requested for a stop at a restroom. I didn’t realize I had spent over 10 minutes away from the smiley gentleman who had picked me up from Fargo International Airport until when he asked, “Everything fine? I was worried.” I felt a knot of shyness hold my disgruntled stomach and the nausea in my throat dancing to the tune of fatigue. We once again got back on the highway to complete our 4-hour drive to Devil’s Lake.
Honestly, the thought of my new home scared me straight because of the name but if others were living in the “devil’s lake” and not getting harmed why not me?
I downed my bowl of chipotle and I felt like the days in high school when I ate a plateful of cassava at lunchtime. The worst bit was having a history or chemistry lesson after having such a meal. I would doodle throughout the notes books and later in the evening when sober, I would laugh at my work as I edited it using a classmate’s notes.
I dozed off in the co-driver seat. Three and a half hours later, I suddenly drifted out of slumberland. As soon as I opened my eyes, the strong sun rays forced me to blink endlessly. The coach noticed I was back to life and announced, “We are in Devil’s Lake.” I instinctively responded, “We have arrived so early.”
He smiled and said, “It’s almost 8:00 pm.” My eyes immediately widened further as I couldn’t believe the time. It was as bright as midday only that the sun was at an angle and not directly above us. The sun didn’t look like it was ready for the night. The only indicator for the time was the empty streets but I didn’t buy into that either as often streets in the USA are empty unless one is in the vibrant cities of New York, Chicago, Boston, and California cities, among others.
This year after I lived through one of the USA’s harshest winters (according to states, North Dakota ranks among the top 3), the sun finally arrived in mid-April. It was a deceptive sun – bright but cold like any winter day because of the winds. Thankfully as the month aged out, and May arrived, the rays got stronger. It’s interesting how my schoolmates spend hours laying out in the grass shirtless or in the shortest and lightest clothes to feel the sun kiss them. It’s like revenge for the six months we were stuck indoors and only wondered how the earth looked since all we saw through the windows was layers and layers of white fluffy particles piled up and spread out all over the earth.
I have attached pictures which I have taken at different times, especially and evening hours (8 – 9:00 pm). It’s amazing how the dark time (night) is about 6 hours and the rest of the hours are either a pale sky awaiting the sun or the sun itself not confident of where it should be headed.
