Shila Travels: Thirty. Seven. Degrees.

Ohhhhhhhh my god.

It's Sunday morning, 9:30, and the power just went out. There are no words to describe how hot our house is!!!!!!!!!!!!

I woke up in the biggest sweaty mess of my life. When the power is out, our house literally feels like an oven. Literally!

I mean, even when we HAVE power, we don't have air conditioning (our work doesn't either) so we're in a perpetual state of melting. We can never escape the heat. But when we can't even turn on our fans?! Saaaaaave meeeee!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday was 37 degrees and it was SOOO intense to be alive and moving around. I just can't even describe it. I can't believe I used to find it hot here. Every single thing we did felt like a huge hurdle. There was sweaty clothing and many dizzy moments. This is by far the most extreme physical experience of my existence, particularly because there's no reprieve. When we hitch into Gabs, the air that blows from the open windows of the car is so warm that it feels like someone turned on an industrial heater. I don't know which is worse: the intense sauna-esque still air, or the feeling of heat blowing on your already hot self. It's just a whole new level!!! Home is boiling. ork is boiling. Outside is boiling. Everything is too hot to touch. Before, at least it was cooler in the mornings and evenings. But from the 5am sunrise to late, late evening, it's almost always above 30 degrees. At this rate my laptop is going to melt.

I'm handling it okay, but it varies from moment to moment. Mostly it makes me break into mildly hysterical/exasperated/hyper laughing. What else can you do?! The places my clothes are getting sweat spots are increasingly more awkward/hilarious. Kate and I are continually cracking up about our never-ending state of extreme sweatiness.

Other times I get really really really panicky because I can't escape it and I feel like I'm going to spontaneously burst into flames. Sometimes it feels like the heat is addling my brain!

The best part of my day used to be a cold shower, but now even our cold faucet is warm. In the afternoons the cold water is actually HOT!

It's just beyond anything I've ever experienced. It's SO SO SO intense. Next week is going up to 38!

Annnnnyway. It won't be long before we're diving into a Canadian winter. I can't wait for some relief from the heat!

Since I'm coming home so soon, I've been thinking a lot about the things I'm looking forward to. Here's my top 10 list:

1. Duh, seeing all the people (and cute doggies) I love!!! I can't even wait! My heart is bursting at the seams on this one! <3 <3 <3 I can't even wait for back rubs and hugs and love.

2. Also duh: I can't wait for the ability to regulate the temperature. Sweet baby jesus this will be the absolute best thing in the entire world. If I'm too cold I can turn on the heater. If Im too hot I can go outside hahaha. It will be beeeeautiful to have these options!

3. Comfy clothes! It's so hot that we despise wearing 99% of our clothing. Everything is too hot, too sticky, wayyyyy too much fabric. I miss feeling cozy in sweaters and spandex pants and all-around comfortable things. Nothing feels cozy here!

4. I'm SO excited to never wear sunscreen!!! I've been really disciplined with wearing SPF60 everyday, but it's really, really tiring. There's no question that it's 100% necessary, but there are so many cons. I'm in a never-ending state of feeling grimy because of it (wind + sand + sunscreen = filthy!), it's wreaking havoc on my skin and clothes, and I'm pretty tired of continually worrying about burning to a crisp. In Canada we relish in the sun. Here, the sun has kind of become a fiery enemy you try and avoid at all costs. I miss enjoying sunny skies!

5. Mobility!!! Getting from A to B is hands down one of our biggest challenges here. We don't have a ton of freedom. When I remember that I have a (super awesome luxurious stylin) 2001 Echo waiting for me, it's almost too much to wrap my head around! The thought of not taking combis anymore, or of getting groceries and simply driving them straight to my house without a bunch of complicated steps in between, is increeeedible.

6. I can't wait to eat all the things! Grant family, I'm coming for dinner at all of your places.

7. Continuous electricity will be really, really appreciated!

9. Actually, I think it will be REALLY nice to be connected to the internet and have cell service again. As nice as it has been to do some heavy duty disconnecting (we only get online at work), I miss being able to call my people up and just chat. I miss looking things up when I don't know what they are. I even miss the ease of txting people pointless things.

10. NO MORE BUGS! Oh my god, I can't even WAIT to be in a place where the bugs aren't mutant and frightening. It definitely impacts my days and nights- I twitch at every little sensation, and I always cringe when I open a cupboard. It will be the bessssst! Canadian spiders are such a cinch!

There are of course lots of things that I'll miss here, but I'm in full on denial mode about that at the moment. I might make a list for that, but not now. My impending departure is something I'm mentally avoiding.

Some things that happened this week:

- We had a super cool thing happen to the sun this week! We were just working away when all of a sudden everyone went NUTS yelling for us to come outside. The sky was CRAZY! We initially thought it was a solar eclipse, but later found out it was an optical halo. I've never seen anything like it!!! It was blinding, so I mostly looked at it from the pictures I took. Wikipedia says this halo thing has to do with ice crystals in the sky. How the heck is there ice crystals when it's 37 degrees out there?! Science people, educate me. Anyway, it was a really really neat thing to see.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(optical_phenomenon)

- On Monday a lovely peace corps volunteer had us over for Indian food, and it was VERY spicy and VERY delicious!!! There were three peace corps people there, and hearing about their experiences made me respect them SO much. To commit to a placement in an unknown place for TWO YEARS is the most intense thing ever. I feel like even a 6 month stint has been a considerable thing to take on, so they get 100000 gold stars for coming to this small village and making the best of it.

- I had a super fun session with the kids this week making 3D snowflakes. These snowflakes are something I make every single year for Christmas, so I felt a little nostalgic making them. Usually I use prettier paper, but the scrap paper we used didn't turn out bad at all. These snowflakes are definitely tricky to make, but the kids were impressively patient and concentrated! I was very pleased.

- I worked in Phakalane, a 30 minute drive from Mochudi, both Thursday and Friday. Phakalane is where the director of SSI lives, so I went there for some quiet and uninterrupted work time. I've been powering through the fatherhood research, it's REEEEALLY crunch time. My goal is to hopefully finish it all by the end of this week, so here's hoping. It's at a point now where I'm feeling pretty stressed about the workload. It's just hard to get things done at SSI with constant phone calls, kids tapping on my shoulder, and staff coming in and out. Send me some good focus vibes this week k?!

- As for the puppy situation, good news!!!!!!!! After much drama, a couple restless sleeps, and some heavy duty negotiations, we've managed to purchase the pup and bring her to a LOVELY new home! Sunshine's new owner is an avid dog person (he already has half a dozen) who has three small kids. The situation was stressful as hell, but it couldn't have turned out better! The kids even called us to thank us for their new friend. This dog is in GREAT hands :)

- On Friday night I was in full on crisis mode when the charger for my Mac died. My laptop is a total lifeline here and Apple products are hard to come by! I was in a panic Saturday morning to find a charger in Gabs since the one and only Mac store was out of stock. In a HUGE stroke of luck (it was uncharacteristically simple for this place) we found a store that had a charger, and were in and out in under 15 minutes. I couldn't believe it! I was pretty worried I wouldn't have a computer for the rest of my time here. Phew!

- We couldn't seem to escape the heat at all on Saturday. We saw Thor (it was good) and the theatre was boiling. Then we ate at a restaurant and it was boiling. It was so warm that I had to put ice cubes in the yogurt/muesli thing I got.

- Saturday night we went to Trevor Noah, an AWESOME comedian from South Africa! We'd seen all his stuff before we even knew he was touring. When we were in Cape Town we tried to get tickets but everything was sold out. Luckily, he made a stop in Bots as well. It was super funny! And pretty cool that we got 95% of the jokes, since a lot of it was specifically to do with Botswana. What I love about this guy is that he manages to make super intelligent political commentary while still being super hilarious. I loved it! The pre-show was soooo random (an all-male dance troupe, a free style rapper, a graffiti artist, men jumping through flaming hoops), and Trevor himself was so so so great!

- Today, luckily, the power returned at about three. Later in the evening we went to Gabs for a birthday dinner for one of our lovely peace corps pals. It was really lovely overall, and we even had exceptionally great luck finding a hitch back past dark. Usually we avoid hitching at night at all costs, but we had a couple friends make sure we were safe, and the guy who picked us up was awesome. Winning!!!

18 days!!! EEK!

The pictures are super bad quality and all out of order because I had to email them to myself… sigh, technology problems as usual. Too hot to fix it. Anyway, you get the idea :)

Peace and love!!!!!!!

Thinking of Canada this Remembrance Day <3

Send me your thoughts!

shilaleblanc@gmail.com

Shila