How's the Heat?

Enjoying homemade yogurt-popsicles as a way to cool down!

It's that time of year. It always seems hot in here and then it just gets hotter. Due to it being over 80% Sahara, some people consider this the hottest country in the world. We are living it and yet it is sometimes unbelievable to us how hot it is. Last year it didn't hit us until May. This year it hit in April and I am afraid we have a ways to go.

Today I pulled out the forehead thermometer, as I have a cold and my body is achy, maybe feverish. So I tried to 'acclimate' this sensor driven thermometer to the temperature of the room. It read 107.8 degrees. I decided to go for the under the tongue thermometer, as forehead thermometers probably weren't made with this country in mind.

We are already unusual compared to the typical family here because we do have ceiling fans, so we are trying to hold out and not install any AC units in our house to become even more un-relatable. But the heat makes it very difficult to sleep. When 8:30 p.m. comes we are all exhausted. The heat just wears us out. But when we do finally lay our head on the pillow one realizes the pillow is hotter than our body temperature. We can lay in sweat all night long. I try to turn over regularly so that the wet side is up for the fan, which temporary cools - God created us wonderfully! But again the pillow is the hardest part for me. It quickly is wet through on both sides. I guess I could start pulling out a new one while the first dries out.

Another example, we have some water stored in a special bag as a "solar shower" hanging on the wall in our bathroom. This inside wall has heated the water up to 104 degrees, with no exposure to the sun. Our home is now cooling down to 91 degrees each night and well over 101 in the day. Each morning I think, there is absolutely no point in closing the windows because it is so hot, but it is amazing how in the heat of the day outside 90-100 is refreshing inside. It is funny how your body will get used to a certain amount of exposure to the heat though. There was a day two weeks ago when it was 82 degrees in the morning, and El Padre decided he didn't even need the fan on, despite the fact that if our house in the US climbed above 72 degrees he'd be taking his shirt off.

We don't get many airplanes here, so even in my advanced age I get very excited when I think I hear a plane. I have been disappointed recently because that noise has just been our fans on high. We are grateful for the powerful ceiling fans we do have!

And so we do have much to be grateful for. I believe your prayers have been a big help because our electricity has been wonderful so far and our water has been very manageable. In addition our children do not have heat rash (it seems soaking their sheets has helped). I'll end with one of my favorite realizations that has turned my thinking upside down. So if the room that you are in is over 100 degrees, then a crowd of people in the room would actually be cooling the room down, right? Rather than adding "body heat" to a room, the more people you put in a room the more "body cool" you're adding!

-- La Maestra