... high temperatures are over 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day. Time to turn on the air conditioning.
Or, in the case of Geekcorps, time to move into one of the two rooms that we can afford to air-condition. With the cost of electricity here being about 5-8 times more expensive than in developed countries, we have to think about efficient cooling. Until yesterday, I had an office to myself; now I share with two other volunteers.
The office I had to myself was cooled only by a ceiling fan. Surprisingly, I never felt uncomfortably hot; I just felt tired. Really tired. The mornings, when it's still only in the 80s, were pleasant. From noon until 4:00 p.m., I wasn't really sweating (or perhaps I was, but it was evaporating so quickly in the dry air that I didn't notice), but all I could think about was putting my head down on my desk for a little siesta.
That's the most noticeable effect of the heat: Inexplicable exhaustion and a corresponding drop in productivity. And I'm lucky enough to sleep in an air-conditioned room at night; most people here don't have that luxury, don't sleep very well, and are even more tired during the day.
How hot is it? 91 in our living room right now -- not bad, actually, considering it was 97 in here on Saturday.
In the afternoons, the water from our kitchen tap -- which is not connected to a water heater -- is almost too hot to touch.
When the breeze blows, it's not refreshing. It feels like someone just opened the oven door.
Chocolate liquifies within minutes of being removed from the refrigerator. For International Women's Day (March 8) my Russian friends gave me a chocolate bell. That day I got stuck in traffic for two long, horrible, sweaty, sunburned hours, but even if I hadn't, that little bell would not have survived the (normally) 20-minute trip to the commissary. I had to leave it on the floor of my car until 9:00 p.m., when it was finally semi-solid again, solid enough to pick up, anyway. Amazingly, the foil wrapper didn't leak, so I stuck it in the freezer and I'm thinking about eating it. It's only a little misshapen:
