112 degrees and no AC

The thermometer keeps climbing higher, and summer is only beginning. Yesterday, our weekend finale, we woke up before 9 a.m. and the temp was already past 100 degrees. By most afternoons, when I'm coming home in my taxi, temps on digital signs typically read 46 or 48 C, which translates to upwards of 110 F or so. Every time we step outside, it's like “having a hair dryer blowing on your face,” as a fellow American colleague puts it. Obviously, we spend little to no time outside during the day – only as we go from the apartment to the car or to the local convenient store. Earlier in the year, we enjoyed the evenings for the cooler weather they offered, but now the nights remain hot even without the glaring sun. Still, it makes for great evening swimming!

Our apartment, thankfully, has air conditioning. At work it's a different story. Though usually air-conditioned, the AC has been broken for the past two weeks in the teachers' offices. Entering our offices is like walking into your grandmother's third-floor stuffy attic, nicely heated by the greenhouse effect from a few side windows. The heat makes us all quite lazy and sleepy, which can't be good for the work ethic around here. In contrast, the classrooms have amazing air-conditioning - so much so that when I teach I find myself blowing on my hands and stamping my feet to get some blood into them. Then when I return to my office space, I actually spend the first few minutes basking in the heat with pleasure – but then all too quickly I start sweating again.

An odd phenomenon about living in such a hot climate is the lack of cold water. Now that it's June, turning on the cold-water faucet is definitely NOT the way to procure cold water. It will, however, give me the perfect warmth-level for the kids' baths. If it gets any warmer, I will have to start filling the tub early and letting it cool off before putting the kids in! Usually, if I happen to burn myself while cooking, my first reaction is to stick my hand under the cold faucet. That is no longer a wise choice. For this reason, we have started to keep a bottle of cold water in the fridge. For drinking water, however, we buy huge plastic bottles and pump the water out of the top. It stays cool enough for us at room temperature.

If the cold water is bath-water warm, you can imagine how often we use the hot side of the faucet! Almost never. At least it's easy for Misha to do everything he needs with the cold faucet only, from brushing his teeth to washing his hands to taking a bath, with no need to use the hot and risk burning himself.