Heat

I spent the morning doing my first day of teaching here with a full week to follow. Thus, I was inside for the morning hours with several ceiling fans ensuring that the air moved and the heat was kept at bay. During the break, we sat with our feet in the pool. Small fishes came up and ate what I suspect are the remnants of dead skin and whatever else may be on the feet. This was a most unusual experience that I could only tolerate for a few minutes – it tickled too much.

Emerging towards the end of the noon hour, I felt the heat for the first time today. It was a blistering hot furnace blast onto the skin as the temperature had climbed to around 40. There was no breeze beyond what you could generate on the motor scooter. I met friends from Bangalore for lunch. Even though we were under awnings that kept us from the sun, sweat rolled across the back like small rivers had suddenly formed on the skin. There was no escaping the reality – it was hot.

It was also a day where it seemed impossible to get enough water on board. As fast as I drank, the skin, in an attempt to keep the body regulated, would let it out through the pores. I tried cold soda and lime, plain water and even a warm masala chai. None broke the heat’s grip.

As the day moved into evening, the humidity built. Surely there would be some rain to break the heat’s back.  The gift arrived a little after 8 with thunder that is unlike that at home. This thunder emerges like a roaring lion and gathers steam until there is a cannon blast that surely must be evidence that there is a war under way in the heavens. It crackles across the sky from horizon to horizon leaving no part of the countryside in silence.

And then comes the rain.  Or really, nature’s shower. It falls in sheets that are so completely enveloping that the only comparison is standing in a warm shower with the water on absolute full blast. The air begins to cool and the heat slowly dissipates. Of course, you know that tomorrow it will return with a vengeance – ah but tonight you can sleep.

The power is off as the storm has created a pattern where we have seen it come and go over the past couple of hours. It too will return and the fans will run again. But it is less urgent tonight.

The day has been delicious with its richness. Heat guarantees you will pay attention – you cannot just slide through the day unaware. The rain is welcome but it too is omnipresent. The day has texture, feeling, emotion. Such is life in the tropics. My God this is wonderful indeed!

Yesterday, I followed the school bus from village to village not quite sure where I was. My only hope was paying attention to my route so that I could retrace my steps. It seemed obvious that not many strangers go through these villages. Children would run by and wave. The women gave sly smiles wondering what this strange white man was doing going through the village while the men gazed with mistrust of a stranger in their midst.

On my return trip, an elderly man waved me down in the way hitchhikers do here. He hoped on the scooter side saddle and off we went. Some twenty minutes later, we entered his village. Out came his hand signaling I should stop. Off he got and headed into a side street. He spoke no English and my 5 words of Tamil offered nothing in the circumstance. Simply 2 strangers who shared a ride. Wonderful.