Portrait

this is the problem with living on a tropical island. the world’s most unpredictable weather.

in this country, the met department doesnt need to worry about getting their forecasts right (they probably wouldnt anyway, even if it mattered), no one needs to worry about umbrellas for the rain or white shirts for the sun, because no matter what precaution you take, you’re probably going to be surprised during the course of the day anyway, and no one needs to pretend to know the seasons and the monsoons. you can count on the weather to be what you expect it to be just about as much as you can count finding marilyn monroe at your doorstep tomorrow morning. and she’s DEAD. sheesh. the best thing is how people always manage to complain about the weather. when it’s raining, and the roads are blocked with traffic that can’t pass, and children get sick dancing in the rain and in roadside puddles, and the drains in the neighbourhood start overflowing, we want it to stop and we want the sun. when the suns out, and the heat is just too much for your body to take without getting dehydrated, and its too hot to really get any work done, and its unimaginably still so that not one tree in your garden is moving in the wind, we want the rain. i wonder what sri lankans would do if they had to endure those nasty canadian winters, or those heat waves in india that people actually died from.

the heat is abnormal. extraordinary. absurd. and by all means, unbearable.

i live quite a bit away from colombo, or any of the main cities surrounding it. i live in a large, otherwise dangerously open house, with no front door, no front gate, no walls surrounding it, and hardly any walls within or around the main building/s. it has clay tiled floors under which there is a steady floor of water going from one paddy field to the other, high ceilings, loads of corridoors and loads of large windows (where there ARE walls). the house is smack bang in the middle of three lucious paddy fields, and has a big garden with lots of green including large, shady trees. and it’s HOT. 24 hours a day, even in the early hours of the morning or fairly late into the night, times at which on any other day you’d find me freezing my butt off and sneezing me head off, it’s HOT, and i’m pouring with sweat. i go to sleep uncomfortable. the sheets stick to me, and even my own skin on skin adds to the heat. i wake up in sweat, my hair stuck to my neck and face in perspiration. i toss and turn through out most of the night trying to find a more comfortable position that doesnt boil me half to death. and this is after i have resorted to sleeping in minimal clothing. everytime i step of out the shower, i feel refreshed, rejuvinated, cool and clean. HAH! what a joke. not fifteen minutes after having coming out of the shower, i’m heated up all over again and ready to take another bath. and this is after i have resorted to taking about three showers a day. scourge is another one of us affected by the heat, it seems. he still manages to find the enthusiasm and energy to work, and indeed, engage in other activities.

the heat is smouldering, smothering. and it’s turned up, full throttle. it’s too hot to do anything. you get tired easily, you get thirsty often. its too hot to work, to read, to write, to watch TV. all i do is dream about pools and showers, and any iced liquid. today, after class, i went to roots with a friend and downed three glasses of watermelon juice. it’s annoying. it SO hot, all the bloody time. it just takes away so much energy, and leaves you irritable, hot, and tired, and just waiting, waiting, waiting for a passing breeze, a rustle of a branch, a cloud in the sky indicating impending rain.

here is a health tip, as this heat can be detrimental, i’m sure.

drink lots of water all the time, and keep your body from getting dehydrated, and mark my words, it WILL have the tendency of doing that quite conveniently in this heat. keep consuming liquid, but most importantly, water, so that your body does not have the opportunity of overheating and dehydrating. fruits like oranges and watermelons (yum), or juice made from them can be especially thirst quenching and healthy in this weather condition due to the large quantitiy of water and liquid body in them.

those of you do believe in divine intervention, pray for this to pass. the rest of you, just do a rain dance. maybe it will work. one can always hope.