Acclimating

Oh my God, it’s hot here. I like warm, but this is really crazy. You sweat through anything you’re wearing within seconds. How do they function? I’m truly amazed that people survive, live, and work out here. The early to middle of the afternoon is the worst time of day. There’s no breeze, and the sun just beats down. Fortunately, we try to go visit facilities and have meetings early in the morning and get done by lunch, which, by the way, in Kenya is routinely from 1pm to about 2 or 2:30pm. Here, many places actually close for a couple hours in the afternoon, and many people rest in the shade or indoors and even take a nap. Not a bad idea if you can manage. Trouble is that sleeping can be difficult when there’s no real breeze to cool you off, definitely no air con, and sometimes, no fan even to move the warm air around.

The latter is because of the occasional “power rationing”. Apparently, this is a recent thing due to “improvements” being made to the nearby airstrip – yeah, there’s actually one nearby; it used to belong to the military and only recently opened up to private charters. Wajir is also not on the usual hydro power grid that is common to most of Kenya. Instead, they depend upon generators powered by diesel – pretty expensive option. So, anyway, that means, every other day, the power is nonexistent. This is where I’m glad to have brought along my Xantrex power source to power my computer and my Solio power charger to charge all the little things I can’t seem to do without (i.e., Ipod, cell phone).

Can I just say too how much I appreciate and am so glad that I bought and brought along clothes made of quick-dry materials? Sweating through ones clothes is not really all that comfortable or odor friendly, but with the modern materials used for many trekking clothes nowadays, it’s a lot more comfortable as well as conducive to quick washing and drying. I only wish bras were also made of these materials. Oh well. Except for that, I’ve packed away all my non-synthetic (i.e., cotton) clothing, which is probably just as well. Remember how I spent that first night in that Catholic mission and I saw a few bugs on the sheets? Well, it turned out the bugs didn’t eat me, but they sure liked my cotton T-shirt. I found in the morning that they’d managed to eat a number of holes in my “new” STOP program T-shirt that I’d got in Atlanta during training. Another oh well. The guest house I’m staying in now, Neyrus, although pretty basic, is comfortable and relatively clean (just ignore all the spiders, some live and some dead, hanging in the corners and other parts of the ceiling, and all the other common insects); actually, it’s a converted Somali family house, and the meals they serve are home-cooked and pretty tasty. All in all, not a bad place to call “home” for the next few weeks.

Tomorrow, we leave at 6am to travel far out in the district to assess some facilities. Why so early? So that we can make it there and back before dark and not get stuck having to stay out there where I would really be stuck in the bush with just the basics and nothing else. Just another adventure.