Klima

It's been really hot here. Some days the temperatures are in the 90s but I suspect the heat index is higher with the humidity and the stored heat radiating from concrete and asphalt. I don't remember last summer being this hot. We kept our windows open and had a constant breeze running through the apartment. It was still overly warm but bearable. The downside with open windows and nice breezes is the dirt coming in and covering everything. This summer, the breezes have not been running through the apartment as much so it turns into an oven. Sometimes even when we did get some breezes, they felt like they were coming out of the furnace that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown in. It gets hot enough (in the kitchen) that the peanut butter is runnier, A's gummy vitamins are almost melting, and even the chocolate G brought home this afternoon for A (after being gone for 4 days, he wanted to treat her) melted within minutes of sitting on the counter.

As I write this, we're getting a klima installed in our bedroom. A klima is an AC unit, similar to the AC window unit in America. It does the same thing but looks different. A klima has two separate units: one outside unit that is attached to the wall outside a window, which is connected through a drilled hole in the wall to an inside unit that is hung high up on the wall against the ceiling. We can take this klima wherever we move.

We have a klima in the salon (as they call the living rooms here). It was already there when we moved in the apartment so that was nice. This klima we definitely cannot take if we move. It's wonderful to sit in the air-conditioned salon but the klima doesn't cool the rest of the apartment. Poor G and A sleep drenched in sweat in spite of the overhead fans in their respective rooms. I have been sleeping on the couch in the salon for back support and for the AC. I still get hot and sweat in my sleep when the AC shuts off periodically.

I feel like a pansy for getting a klima, when I have friends who don't have one. Some of them were telling me that they take several cool showers and even get up during the night to take one. Some are fortunate enough to live high up on a hill where they get fresh breezes (in other words, no dirt are blown in) and sleep on their balconies. My language teacher tells me she sleeps on the floor occasionally because it's cooler. I think it's worse in India. I've had friends living there tell me that they put the bedsheets in the fridge and put them on the bed at night at an effort to cool down enough to sleep.

So, yes, I may be a pansy but I've had my fair share of suffering from the heat while growing up in Florida. I've experienced heat exhaustion and passed out briefly. I've also nearly thrown up from the heat. I remember playing soccer in summer league, in 90+ heat, and then heading straight for the sinkhole to swim and cool off after a game every Saturday morning. I worked an entire summer outdoors for 40 hours a week in jeans and boots.

Anyway, I'm thankful for the klima, especially in the last days of pregnancy. I'm thankful that I can shut the windows and not have to clean up the dirt covering everything, especially since I'll be too tired from lack of sleep to clean up much when the baby's born. I'm thankful that my tiny 2-day-old newborn, soon after coming out of the pristine environment of the womb, won't be breathing in smog and dirt while she sleeps in our room.

I have 15 days left til the due date but I really need to stop counting down because it could be sooner or later. These days, I'm sleeping less and less. I don't know how one can be so tired and still be unable to sleep. I can't even nap anymore. Somehow I function okay during the day. It's probably by the grace of the Father.

I'm still very excited about the baby coming soon...