Life is on the up and up

We finally broke down and got a small air conditioner for our bedroom.  I don’t even like air conditioning and have never had it before.  But last night was the first night in three months that I felt  comfortable in my own home!

For three months, we tried living as our Sri Lankan friends do—without AC.  Sleepless nights and colorful language ensued.  Is it any wonder, considering the 90-degree room in which we slept?  If we were lucky, it was only 85 degrees when we woke up in the morning, the year-round high temps and humidity rarely dropping at night.  Now I understand why novelist Michael Ondaatje, Sri-Lankan born author of The English Patient, wrote in The Cat’s Tablet that he didn’t know what a blanket was till he went to London as an adolescent.

Living in the tropics is exotic, but it is downright difficult.  It feels like the most difficult thing we’ve ever done—and we lived in a war zone in Palestine for five years!  For a number of reasons, including the heat, we contemplated leaving as soon as we arrived.  When we decided to try sticking it out, taking the “one day at a time" approach, we worried that we would actually go mad!  The hardest part is that there is no relief—not at work, not at home, our skin constantly glistening with sweat and our freshly-ironed clothes wrinkled.  Frequent cold showers—after work, at bedtime, in the middle of the night—give only temporary relief.

But now, that is all a thing of the past.  Last night I actually covered up with the bed sheet that mostly goes unused!  (Like Michael Ondaatje, we have no blankets on our bed.)  Bob is currently in France and Spain, walking the Camino de Santiago.  When he returns, it will be to a Sri Lanka that he no longer recognizes.  That is a very good thing.