Tear Reduction #3

It has been a hot week in Hoi An - averaging 95-100 degrees with sunny skies every day.  For that, I am grateful.  I LOVE the heat and would never begrudge a week of intense sweating at every turn.  I think we have all adapted quite well.  Our classroom is well over 90 degrees, and we have yet to touch the air conditioning.  It's almost like an unspoken challenge right now.  Can we make it through the final two weeks of school without succumbing to A/C?  Running around on the playground has lost its appeal.  Nobody jumps on the trampoline at recess.  There is a lot of quiet reading, drawing and painting happening.  Kids lay on the warmish marble floor to try to cool off, and we drink a lot of water.

Despite my love affair with all things hot and sunny, when I saw the storm clouds gathering this afternoon, I did a little happy dance.  The temperature dropped.  The wind started to blow, and I ran home to open all of the doors and windows.  Our house is an absolute sauna - soaking up the sun from sunrise to sunset and then retaining it all the night through.  Sitting at the kitchen table for ten minutes leaves me soaked in sweat from head to toe - just sitting.

Within minutes of getting every possible door and window open to benefit from the approaching storm, the rain came down - not in gentle little sprinkles, mind you, but in an enormous sheet that flooded the living room in less than thirty seconds.  One minute into the storm, I was sporting a poncho inside the house, just so I could get all of the windows and doors closed again without soaking myself to the bone.  Now the house was still an oven, but I also had an inch of water on the living room floor.  Grrr. I got out the squeegee and started squeegeeing the living room.  Ever done that before?

I pushed huge waves of water across the floor to the front door (where water was still streaming in through every available crevice).  Then, in order to get the water out of the living room, I had to push open the front door in gale force winds.  Naturally, the living room was then flooded anew.  I continued zamboniing (is that a word?) the living room for thirty minutes.  I was covered in sweat (as usual).  I kept trying to find the positive in the situation.  In the end I decided at least the floor was clean for a change, and all of those ants I despise (which I tend to kill and leave on the floor) were getting washed away.

Then Coconut arrived at the front door.  She had been hanging out in the rice paddy enjoying the storm - legs covered top to bottom in mud.  She pranced through my wet, clean living room, shook her flea-infested self all over the kitchen and settled down to chew on the dead baby bird she had dragged in.  I am not convinced this storm cloud has a silver lining.