Contemplating my navel. Err, I mean the weather.
Posted By Sika on March 25, 2009
There is a problem, I think, with the way we live in America. This time, I am talking about how divorced we are from the physical world in which we live. We can start with the fact that having lights on until the wee hours confuses the hell out of your body, which then fruitlessly tries to figure out when it will ever be night, because it would really like it to sleep at some point, ok then, fine, it’ll just collapse. And then, just as your poor, tired, mangled brain and body begin to recuperate–oh wait, there’s daylight again! Time to wake up! When is the frigging night?
Then, we can move on to air conditioning in hot weather and heating in cold and weather being something to be combated. Does it strike anyone else as odd that people have to be asked to set the indoor temperature colder in winter than in summer? It’s too hot unless I can wear a sweater in the summer, and it’s too cold unless I can wear just a tee-shirt in the winter. That makes no sense. (Please don’t say, but I don’t have an air conditioner. You know what I mean. And anyway, you probably bring layers if you’re going to big box stores or the theatre or whatever. That’s what I’m talking about.)
Ok, so now that I’ve ranted a bit and you’re only still reading because you love me so much (or some variation thereof), I’ll admit what’s really driving me: jealousy.
Pure, unadulterated jealousy.
This week the rains have mostly stopped and it has started to finally cool off. And suddenly David and I are spending great chunks of time, taking our laptops outside to work. We squint against the unrelenting glare and soak up an intense sun about which we would have spent hours complaining just last week.
Before I explain what caused our sudden behaviour change (no, we’re not pod people. Well, probably not. Ok, possibly not), I’d like to explain how normal discussions about the weather go*.
Rainy Season:
“The rains better start soon.”
“It’s too wet, the crops will rot.”
“It’s not wet enough, the crops will be stunted.”
“It’s too muddy.”
“Everything’s flooding”
“There’s not enough sun.”
“I don’t want to go outside, I’ll get wet even with an umbrella.”
“It’s too hot and wet and humid.”
“I just want it to be [insert cold or hot season here]”
“It’s too cold and wet.”
“There’s too much rain.”
“I can’t hear myself think!”
“The rains better stop soon.”
Cold Season:
“The cold better start soon”
“It’s too cold, I can’t work”
“I’m never warm.”
“I just want it to be [insert rainy or hot season here]”
“I’ve got 15 gajillion layers on and I’m still cold.”
“I want it to be warm enough I don’t need to have a cup of tea to get warm.”
“There’s too much cold.”
“When will cold season be over?”
Hot Season:
“It better get warm soon”
“It’s too hot, I can’t work.”
“It’s too hot, I can’t do anything.”
“Why can’t it be cold enough I can drink a cup of tea?”
“There’s too much sun.”
“I just want it to be [insert cold or rainy season here]”
“There’s too much heat.”
The thing is that we are not insulated very well from the weather. During hot season, our buildings–made of brick and topped with tin roofs–act like ovens. Dropped ceilings are supposed to make it a bit better, but mine doesn’t appear to work right. During cold season, they act like coolers. During rainy season, the noise gets so loud you can’t hear someone talking right next to you.
So, when the sun is out in hot season, you don’t want to get out in it, feel the sweat drip down your back, hear the pit stains being made in the last nice clothes you have. You’ll never cool back off. Your elevated temperature will be your norm for the rest of the day.
Similarly, in cold season, you never get warm. Sure, maybe a cup of cocoa or tea** warms the fragile bones in your fingers for a short time, but 15 minutes later any residual heat has leached out through the bricks until your skin temperature starts registering somewhere around 0 Kelvin. You might have a space heater, which doesn’t remove the cold, but does make it stop aching quite so much.
And rainy season is just wet and muggy and mud tracks everywhere. Except when it’s hot and muggy and too bright because it’s waiting to rain.
But the changes in seasons are so nice. Right now the nights and mornings are cool, but the sun is still strong and so you can go out and warm up. Then you can go back to your office and cool down. You can feel whatever temperature you want, and if you’re tired of being that temperature, you can change it.
It is so much more blissful because this wonderful, bask in it, bathe in it weather happens only a few weeks out of the year. It almost makes the lack of moderation the rest of the time worth it.
*Zomba is the third coldest area in Malawi, so our cold seasons are worse and our hot seasons not as bad as most of the country. Only Dedza (where we do training, in cold season) and Mzuzu are colder.
**If there is no “power sharing,” an annoying euphemism for random power cuts all the damn time. Even when there are also planned power cuts. Or if you have the time, energy, and fuel to get a charcoal burner or parrafin sove fired up.
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