Conditions on the Ground

It’s hot here.  And dry.  And dusty.  Yet still quite humid.  This really wouldn’t be that significant of a post except that these conditions significantly alter my daily schedule.  I’m usually up early, anyways, but now I’m mostly trying to get done everything I need to get done by noon, at least where it concerns leaving the house.  Having to walk out the gate anytime past 11am is rather unsavory these days, as we’re generally hitting mid-nineties by mid-morning.  Clouds are few, and shade is hard to find in most places here.  For some reason, the Azerbaijani idea of parks excludes shade trees.  Instead, they prefer munchkin trees.  It also hasn’t rained here in a long time.  Being by the sea, we’re still really humid, though.

I remember the same sort of thing happening in Bangkok, as I would walk 15 minutes to the ferry carrying me across the river to school.  It was a hot and sweaty walk.  Yet, in Bangkok, people love air conditioning.  Sitting in class was an experiment in freezing yourself.  Here, that is not the case.  There are some places that feature air conditioning, like at AccessBank, but for the most part, it’s just hot.  We’ve purchased a fan, but that doesn’t work so well when the electricity is out (on average, about three times per day).  For the most part, we get our stuff done during the morning, and then lay about during the afternoon, hopefully basking in fanned air, waiting for the early evening hours to deliver cool breezes.  The walks at night have been rather splendid lately.