heat. The Sequel

A typical dialogue between two Burkina Faso Peace Corps Volunteers:

PCV 1: It's hot. This hot season is so much worse than last year's hot season.

PCV 2: I don't think so. This year's hot season is nothing compared to last year's hot season.

PCV 1: How do you figure?

PCV2: Well, for starters, it got hotter earlier last year. Like, in February and it was consistently hotter than it has ever been this year. In short, last year I felt like dying. This year, I don't.

PCV 1: Whatever. This year got hotter earlier and it has been less windy and I'm sweatier and I think about heat more. Besides, my village chief SAID this was the hottest hot season he's seen since he fought with the Algerians during WW2.

And so on...

I, for one cannot say whether or not this hot season beats out last year's, but what I can say is that it's hot. Normally, I am not one that finds joy in conversations that focus on the weather--let alone blog about it--but the hot season here in Burkina Faso is such an event, I would be doing you all a disservice if I didn't blog about it (again). It's like the NBA playoffs, only sweatier.

From late March until the rains arrive in June, Burkina experiences a bit of a heat wave. Daily highs in the Sahel region generally lurk around 112 degrees but can often reach temperatures that I only thought were possible inside an oven that bakes casseroles. This rise in temperature, combined with an increasingly scarce water supply makes for lean times in the North of Burkina Faso. It has not rained since September, so everything (humans, trees, cows, lizards, flies, and so on) has thirst.

Ultimately, there is nothing pleasant and absolutely everything discomforting, despairing, and in general horrible about Burkina Faso's hot season. Unlike the cold, the humidity, or realizing that your company is relocating you to a small town in Indiana, one cannot prepare, nor get used to the heat. Instead, consecutive days of 115 degree weather produce a cumulative effect of misery manifested through fatigue, sweat, urinary tract infections, heat rashes, and a general loss of all creative and social faculties (this explains why I have not written a blog entry in two months). Let me remind my faithful readers in Barstow, CA, Orange, TX and even Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso: 115° IS a big deal when you live in a mud brick Lego Palace with sheet metal for a roof and no electricity that could satisfy my longing for Air-Conditioning...or even an oscillating fan. And the nearest cold drink? An hour's bus ride away.

During the hot season, everything seems to die except for the insects. They simply become more interested in humans. I guess when there is no water, no shade, nothing green, humans turn into a rather conciliatory alternative. Flies become particularly bold. The small black ones choose to sunbathe on my feet, whereas the larger, louder alpha-flies like to fly loudly and without relent about my head. It is a most persistent but nevertheless dissatisfying event.
Mosquitoes, after a four month hiatus, make a mysterious return and the cockroaches stop lurking in dark corners and start following me around, as if to say, "We're in this together, Turner."

Many readers must be assuring themselves that "Joel's just exaggerating. It can't be that bad."
Believe me when I say this: not only can it be, it is probably much worse than my feeble attempts at depiction can provide. The mind is good at erasing traumatic events, such as unbearably hot hot heat.

But there is good news. First of all, I am still alive. And while it isn't comfortable, and all my villagers talk about the heat as if it is the first time they've experienced it, they have proven that you can live with it. As can I. I survived last year's hot season and I am well on my way through this one.
Secondly, I can say, with a thick dose of certainty, that this will be my last Burkina Faso hot season. Only the most shake your head and sigh at of PCVs will tell you that they'll miss everything about Burkina Faso, including the hot season.
...Because we all know that the best part of waking up is a puddle of sweat on top of your pillow, a light hot breeze, and a thermometer that says 93° at 5am.

No, in time I may miss the snot-nosed 2-year old that urinated on me in the bush taxi. I may even miss going out to a restaurant where my choices of food are sheep head or goat stomach soup. But the heat? Ha! Sheesh! Scoff!