How Hot Is it???

I remember it clearly.  October 6, 2011.  3:15 a.m.   It happened while we were asleep.  As usual, my full bladder woke me.  I slipped into my Birkenstocks and shuffled to the bedroom door, turned the handle and pulled the door open.  My entire body knew something was amiss. 

Alex and I returned to La Paz Sept. 21^st.   It wasn’t merely hot; it was sizzling and even though we were exhausted the night we returned, the noise of the a/c kept me awake.  It took three nights for my brain to accept, ignore, and finally welcome the whirling sound.  And every morning since, at 3 a.m., when I opened our bedroom door, I was assaulted by a blast of hot air that ricocheted off the walls, ceilings and floors of our hallway and bathroom.

But on Oct. 6^th the air felt – comfortable! 

I returned to the bedroom, turned off the air conditioner, and relished the quiet.  I opened the window.  A cool breeze fluttered the curtain.  I lay down and closed my eyes and smiled. Then - a dog barked.  A car without a muffler sped past.  The guards across the street laughed.  I turned onto my side which blocked out half the noise.  But not enough to let me sleep.  After ten minutes, I got up, shut window, and then turned on the air conditioner.  In less than five minutes I was asleep.

In two weeks I’d gone from not being able to sleep with the noise of the a/c to not being able to sleep without it. 

On the cool morning of October 6th I couldn’t find Alex.  The office was empty and the computer screen was dark.  I became worried.  In the fourteen days we’d been back, Alex began every day by turning on the a/c and the computer in the office.  We drank coffee, read, played Mexican Train and occasionally ate dinner there.  Although we have bars on the windows, it was the heat that imprisoned us.

I went downstairs and found Alex on the patio – barefoot and grinning.  He said, “Judy, even the tiles feel cool.”  He wiggled his toes happily.  He said, “I feel as if I’ve been paroled.”  He then added, “This has been the hottest two weeks – ever!”  

During that unbearable fortnight we needed to complain.  But to whom?  The women who clean our house?  Most likely, their only cooling systems are fans.  I didn’t dare whine to my friends who stayed in La Paz the entire summer because the one time I did, they said, “This is nothing; it was much hotter in August.”

  When we were in El Norte I “Skyped” a friend and, on my computer screen, I saw her sweet face dripping sweat.  There was panic in her voice when she said, “Judy, the heat just doesn’t stop.”

Oralia, another friend who moved here from Hermosia said that In August she was ready to give up and leave La Paz and go back to Hermosia because the heat was “insoportable” here.

I think these die-hards should be rewarded with tee-shirts that read, “I Survived the Sumer of 2011 in La Paz.”

Two week in the heat of La Paz may not merit a tee-shirt but when it was hot I wanted to grumble.  But, if I shouldn’t complain to Mexicans who spend their summers here and I don’t dare moan to the extranjeros who stay behind, who can I complain to?  There’s third group, like Alex and I, who are able to escape a portion of time when La Paz turns into a 100- degree prison.

But some ex-pats swear they’ll never belong to this third group.  I remember asking a couple who recently bought a house here where they planned to spend the summers.  The man said, “We won’t leave La Paz!  We’re not on vacation; we live here now.”  Alex and I traded tiny smirks.  We’ve heard they spent July and August on the mainland and they’ve arranged to return there next summer.  Welcome to group #3. We are kindred spirits.  Grateful to be able to escape even though some feel guilty that we’ve “jumped ship”.

 So, if we must whine, it would be best to complain within group #3 because no one who has endured the entire summer heat wants to listen to us moan and groan.  Or we can wait until the next wave of ex-pats return to La Paz and when they complain about the 90 degree heat, we can say, “This is nothing!  When we returned to La Paz in mid- September it was 96 degrees every day … for two entire weeks!  And the water temperature must have been 87.  It was soooo hot we had to go swimming every evening.”