Saturday, September 15, 2012

This heat is driving me mad


September is the worst month of the year here. It is not just hot, very hot, it is also very humid. The sweat drips off you day and night, unless you have air conditioning which we don’t, and doing even the simplest jobs becomes a chore.


Dominicans seem to cope with it much better than I do, and they do intelligent things like sleep or sit on the patio in a rocking chair.  I on the other hand get grouchy, and things that I can normally cope with become great frustrations. Everything seems much worse when it is hot.



 This is what has done my head in this week.

1. The water tank on the roof was leaking. Solution was to empty the tank, repair with a patch, refill and job done. The menfolk turned on a tap in the kitchen to empty the tank and decided it was not emptying fast enough. Personally I would have turned all all the taps and showers in the house, but no, it was decided I knew nothing and the intelligent solution was  to cut through the main pipe from the tinaco with my bread knife.


Result was it emptied quicker, but then had to buy new piece of pipe, stick it to old pipe with the heat from a candle and taypee, then wait for 2 days for tinanco to dry so patch set. Result no water for two days, and I had to shower with a bucket  – remember it is very hot.  Now all back to normal. I am just waiting for the pipe to start leaking.

2. The cutlery drawer. I was under the obviously misguided impression that those plastic things you put in the drawer for cutlery had different segments so that the knives could go in one place, the forks another.



I was wrong. Everything gets thrown in everywhere. It doesn’t matter how much I yell, how much I sort, nothing changes. I can cope most of the time, but not at the minute when it takes all my energy to open the drawer let alone spend an hour looking for a teaspoon.




3. Youngest step son does the cooking, which is just as well as if it was up to me in this heat we would be living on sandwiches with no cooking required. When he opens the essential maggi stock cube, which goes in everything he cooks,  I would walk two yards to the rubbish bin in the kitchen and put the empty foil wrapper in there. Too much effort.



Open the cutlery draw and throw it in there. Why? So not only do I have to hunt for my teaspoon, I have to wade through loads of shreds of foil and crumbs of stock cubes. I can just feel the cockroaches rubbing their paws together in anticipation of their midnight feast.




4. The electricity is rubbish at the minute. Off 12 hours a day, and now, when it is roasting hot, they seem to have decided to turn it off at night too. The inverter cannot cope with running 15-20 hours a day, so bed time becomes a blissful time of lying naked on top of the covers, soaking wet with sweat, listening to the mosquitos whining in your ears about to strike and praying that the electricity will come on. You call them up to ask what the problem is, they tell you there is a problem, no idea when it will be fixed, and wish you a good night. GRRR.



5. Finally toothpaste. When I was a marketing lecturer I used to explain that people used to squirt their toothpaste the length of the brush.




If the manufacturers wanted us to use more they made the brush heads longer, or the hole in the tube  wider, and we blindly carried on in the same way, but using more toothpaste. In actual fact, according to dentists,  you only need a little squirt, not even the whole length of the brush.


Recently we appear to have been getting through a lot of toothpaste. Imagine my horror last night when husband brushed his teeth and I saw him squirting the toothpaste on the brush. Not just the full length of the brush, but twice, once on top of the other. A DOUBLE DECKER line of tooth paste.


So those are the things driving me mad this week. I am sure there will be more next week and the week after that until it gets cooler in November!

13 comments:

  1. I definitely coincide with a few of your mad list, Lindsay :) The lack of electricity is driving me mad too. I am also looking forward to the upcoming cool season..

    Have a pleasant Sunday.

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    1. You too Mari! I have no idea how to manage to cook in this heat either!

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  2. Oh Dear
    the only thing I can come up with is Icepacks of some kind lol
    thats what I do in Texas if there is no luz( hurricane season)
    we know humididity and heat
    I also put my feet in a pale of cold water,works everytime
    but Icepacks are a lifesaver and a mister hooked to a waterhose if outside
    thats if you have water
    Manu

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    Replies
    1. Good idea Bri - if there is water, and if there is electricity to work the freezer to make the ice packs!

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  3. You poor old thing. The heat does make us grouchy. It has been in the mid-thirties here in Portugal, we've had visitors and we were all on grouch alert as the heat sapped our enrgy and patience.

    Your cutlery draw made me laugh :)

    I would def be doubly grouchy with no electric.

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  4. I entirely agree with all you say Lindsay. My wife is Dominican and house is full of Dominican relatives. The only thing you left out is toilet paper, all the females seem to use sufficient for an elephant even after a quick pee-pee! Richard

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    1. You have given me an idea for a blog post Richard. The things Dominicans over use - toilet paper, oil, mistolin disinfectant. And the toilet paper over use means the bucket we have to use to put it in as you can't put it in the toilet, is constantly overflowing and though it is a man's job to take out the kitchen garbage, it is apparently a woman's job to take out the toilet paper!

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  5. Hello Lindsay,
    Great blog and you have my sympathies on these latest struggles with heat. You are so correct about heat making us irritable, especially during the night. Nice to know that the seasons will soon be changing.
    Reading this latest entry made me laugh but also made me curious about Dominicans. Granted they are not concerned about wasting a lot of toilet paper, or about arranging silverwear into the drawers, or even tossing trash into the basket; but what are they very particular about? What things are the average Dominican obsessed with?
    Stay cool!!!

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    1. The obsessed list is very long! Appearance. Always immaculately groomed and dressed. Hair cut perfectly - males and females, my house seems to be constantly full of youths with gillette razor blades trimming the others' beards and hairline. Nails beautifully done. Perfectly dressed, with everything matching or coordinating. Always showered and fresh smelling. Next obsession would be food. If they don't eat at noon they die. Family also is an obsession in the nicest possible way. I could go on!!

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  6. What a great obsessions list - don't forget about their music! don't know how the same beat, same volume can be playing at 12 midnight as well as 6AM.

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    1. Definitely music! And cell phones, constantly talking on them!

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  7. But yesterday we had thunderstorms all day (at least in Santo Domingo) which resulted in me having to carry my own shopping to the car because if the Empacador got wet evidently this would lead to immediate and painful death from pneumonia. And then it was blissfully cool all evening. An English autumn almost. And we went out and all the Dominicans were saying "it's soooooooo cold, I'm going to get the flu". Alas today it's back to hot.com.

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    Replies
    1. How nice to be cool! It keeps looking like rain here and we get the odd bit of thunder but nada. Umbrellas out everywhere but to shelter from the sun not the rain. Poor packing guy - you were supposed to stay in the supermarket till it stopped raining, even if it meant waiting an hour or two. Remember here in the DR it rains muriatic acid and not water. The sooner this heat is over the better. At times like this I long for air con!!

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