Damn, it's hot!

Damn, is true. It is sweltering here at about 31*C, but really feels like 39*C. In other terms, it is 88*F, but feels like 102*F, and if you add in the humidity of about 85%, well, everyone is glowing. Yes, it is hot, sticky and I find myself moving towards any breeze that comes my way like a dog leaning towards the wind, while hanging out the car window. I have been sweating all day and felt really warm, as if I had a fever. A sore throat cold settled in the other day, with a lovely deep cough, which would make sense of a ever coming too. But alas, no fever, I think it is just the heat. I have never really spent continuous time in a hot tropical climate where the heat doesn't really let up, ever. So how does one react? Well, I find myself slightly irritable. And as a teacher of middle school kids, if you lose your sense of humor and lightness, things get ugly. So I am trying to be on my best behavior as it goes. 

Overall, I would say that in the heat you:

 1. eat less

2. drink more water and green coconuts

3. feel sticky all the time which makes bug bites insanely itchy

 4. invite yourself to as many homes with pools as often as possible

 5. shower at least twice a day (and my water was out the past two days. ugh!)

6. laugh less and complain more

7. be less motivated to do anything worth any physical effort

8. lock the kitties out of your house when they pounce on your head at 4:30am (regardless of snakes)

9. drink more (not water)

10. cook less and thank god I live near restaurants now

In all this complaining which I hate to do, I moved into my new place about a month ago and the pool is done. That doesn't mean it is completely full but swimmable at least. There is much to do around the perimeter and get the pump working, etc. but at least I can jump in and cool off. Lovely! My door opens right to the pool and company will always be there. I give up privacy for coolness. I don't care either. I am attaching a few pictures that I took the other morning. I will add a few better ones soon. 

I still don't have reliable internet at home, so when I get home on the weekdays, after a 25 minute sometimes harrowing motorbike ride or a 30 minute carpool and walk out to the rice fields, I tend to stay there. And on the weekends I walk to a place with internet but not always early enough to get all the calls in. I hope this will change soon. I either have to buy a stick that provides internet and pay a monthly fee or wait for my landlord to fix the situation. 

So I want to make some more phone calls but the timing is a bit off. I want to hear about the Jingle Bell run in Bend, the rain in Portland, the snow on Mt. Hood and everything in between.

Miss everyone!

Pic 1=My little round house, looking from pool.

Camping, Eating and Sweating

Time has been flying the past few weeks! I just spent the past week camping with my Grade 8 students in West Bali National Park on a remote island, for a coral reef survey. The Green Studies theme for this group is conservation, so we worked with an organization, the Odyssey Institute, and spent the days learning how to do a scientific study looking at reef indicator species: fish, echinoderms and the substrate. Our classroom was in the ocean: snorkeling and counting species. The kids did great although just imagine camping with 14 mostly immature boys where hormones and bathroom humor go a long long way. Needless to say I loved it all: the group of adults was refreshing, the kids were entertaining and the water was bathtub warm and beautiful. The weather was a mixed bag of extreme heat, and rain sprinkled with lightening and wind. But to sit around a camp fire and watch the stars and embers was something I didn't realize I missed so much. (Pictures coming soon) And to be able to swim in the water every day was so lovely. I brought a frisbee and the kids really took to playing 500 in the shallow water to cool down. That, charades and a cribbage board completed the entertainment factor. Oh and the fruit bats that flew overhead at night were the biggest I have seen so far. Outrageous!


A few hours after we got back form camping, it was time for Thanksgiving dinner. I was graciously invited to a student's house, his parents hosting a sit down meal of 70 people or so. I had no expectations other than I heard the food would be excellent. I went with my co-workers, catching a ride on a motor bike, as it was in the neighborhood. The house was Bali divine and absolutely spectacular, with a view that was surreal. The company was great, food absolutely wonderful (full turkey dinner with pumpkin pie) and the house...well just check it out:

http://enzodalverme.photoshelter.com/gallery/G0000t9Wz6FClepQ

We just stayed up on the main floor, as all the rooms and private quarters were off limits. But you get the idea. I just walked around sipping these fabulous icy grapefruit cocktails the host kept feeding his guests, with my mouth gaping open and telling everyone that I really could live here. But in reality, it is a little big for my taste. :)

I did make a few calls home at school yesterday in this tiny window I had between teaching. It was so great to talk. I realize that I need to call home more often. It is just such a weird feeling. It makes me excited but homesick at the same time. I am happy in the moment then a bit sad afterwards. But then I look around, take a deep breath, drink in the humidity, find someone to play with and all is better.

The weather really is hot now. I had no idea what this could feel like. Like the cold-sideways Portland rain, the humidity and warmth just slowly sneaks under your skin and settles. Of course unlike P-town weather, this heat appears in the form of heat rashes, flushed skin and a permanent facial shine. A teacher yesterday said, "I feel like I am the only one who sweats this much." We all laughed at her silliness. Everyone has a glow. And if you walk anywhere, which all of us do all the time, you are just hot. There is no humility in the sweat that pours through your clothing. I spent most of the day yesterday with our middle school kids and visiting Indonesian middle school kids playing field games. It was so hot, with the sun just beating down, I had to pull them off the field every 10 minutes or so and make them drink water. One student was so hot even after drinking a bottle of water and sitting in the shade for 20 minutes, I bought him a green coconut from our little Warung (outdoor cafe) on campus to drink and he was better in a few minutes. The green coconuts replace electrolytes like nothing else. I try to drink one a day at school. But I need to figure out how to open them on my own and buy them near my house and store them in the fridge.

So now post T-Day, I am just gearing up for the next few weeks of school. My new landlord says I work too hard as he watching me return late every day. And since I leave before most are up and return almost at dark, it is true. But then again, I am the only one in my little complex that has a day job. And as most teachers know, the work begins after the kids leave the classroom. Which usually happens before school, after school, at lunch, on the weekends or during any possible break. Although my new motto is to not go in on the weekends now. Bali or not, teaching is time consuming. So until I switch careers, I am in the mix of working hard.

I have decided that I need a mosquito net in my new house. Screens or not, those little buggers find their way in and I have new bites in random places that the sheets can't hide. A friend had some camphor clear lotion the other day that takes the itch out of the bites and I just bathed in it. She ended up giving it to me. With the heat rashes and bites, it can be a mix of itching and squirming throughout the day. But it's really not that bad. A seriously hot shower (sounds counterintuitive but it works) will take the itch out of any rash or bite. And our little pool is almost finished where I live and that will be great! A day or two away...can't wait!

Off to do some errands now on this sunny Saturday: find a dry bag for my computer, buy a  mosquito coil metal tin, exercise and swim in someone's pool. Ahhhh, the weekends are nice.  More later!

"America is for wimps"

That is what a fellow GS comrade texted to me once I made it home in the twilight and pouring rain, dodging lightening over my head as I scurried along the rice field pathway, after motorbiking from school in the biggest downpour I have ever experienced. The roads were so flooded and the rain came down so hard, I couldn't see a thing let alone break, since the flooded streets knocked my break power out. Good to know at the top of a hill. I knew leaving school that day, looking out at the darkening sky and sheets of rain that I had to toughen up and just do it. I had yet to ride in the rain.

Now I have seen plenty of little motorbike accidents and heard of many more, involving slick streets, miscued swerves, etc. So I made it to my motorbike after trudging across the river, up the trail to where I parked it with an umbrella in one hand and with my computer tucked in a plastic bag in the other. I donned my one-sized-fits-all poncho and helmet, stuffed everything in my new saddle bags and heading into the rush hour traffic. I drove like a granny on Valium and was passed by a million people, managing to make the cross-traffic turns and splashed my way through the giant puddles. Good times. I parked (still can't ride the skinny rice paddy trail to my house on motorbike yet) limped up the path and stopped at my friends, Teri & Steve's house, on the way to mine. They filmed my entrance, like a wet mop, laughing as I dripped into their house. I attempted to wait out the rest of the rain but the storm only got worse with darkness, thunder and lightening. So after arriving home and texting back that I wasn't struck by lightening and there were no termites flying in my kitchen, I was good. Hence the "America" text back.

Yes, the other night I discovered that near Nov 1, the termites come after the rains and swarm any lights. So the other night when I looked down at my kitchen floor after just walking in, I saw it moving. I thought, what the hell? What now? (It's always something here). And I saw millions of wings and writhing wormy bodies on the white tile floor of my new house (update on that below). The kitties were having a blast eating them up but I managed to sweep them mostly outside and off the counters. Then the next night I came home, showered and went downstairs to discover they were now in my kitchen, thousands swarming while I had showered. I couldn't take it. I had stepped into a National Geographic episode of what happens in Nov after the rains come...the flying ants. I grabbed a beer and headed outside, unable to turn the lights out let alone breathe, so I just gave up until they dropped their wings, about 1/2 hour later. I cleaned up that mess. Then I figured it out: turn on the outside lights, leave the inside ones off and wait until they pass by. Oh, and I saran-wrapped the last unscreened window with duck tape. (that will be fixed soon). But of course, I did this the other night and watched them all swarm outside my giant glass doors and eventually slide in underneath. They swarmed inside again. I gave up and after trying to stuff the bottom of the doors much to the chagrin of the kitties. I turned out all the lights around the house and sat outside again, drinking another cold beer. (Yes my drinking has increased here. But don't worry. I know my gene pool).  I watched the termites fly to my neighbor's light and swarm. Good.

So much has happened since I wrote last, I think I have to very short updates:

1. I moved to the rice fields, near Ubud. I joined our GS teacher carpool of a great and lively group. I motorbike, carpool or sometimes ride my bike in to work. But since the rains have come, I try to carpool the 4 days we do. One day we all ride in on motorbikes.

2. My house is a little, two-story, round, multi-windowed, thatched roof, newly built house that over looks the rice and an almost finished swimming pool. I am excited. There are 6 houses here, and my landlord is great. I feel lucky to have found it. I loved the Bamboo Village but I wanted windows, doors, screens, tile, more community and a pool. Oh and to be able to walk to a coffee shop, which is where I am right now. :)

3. I have been working a lot but came to a realization the other day that I should temper that. I am here to experience Bali and not just GS. This came to me after a lengthy carpool discussion about work, and then I arrived to find my classroom had been completely swamped/rained on after that big storm I described. New leaks had surfaced (I am on the top floor)  and all this student work was destroyed on my desk. I couldn't control it and although I was frustrated (again) I let it go and so went my need to work as much as I have been. I will try to not go in on weekends any more but I will do my best and call it a decent effort.

4. Ultimate Frisbee is alive and fun at GS once a week. We have had about 20 people show up, including students and us older players. I love it even though the field is short and the humidity is 85%, with an average temp of 85%. Sweating is just part of the game. Water isn't enough afterwards. Coconut really replaces the electrolytes. We play in tennis shoes or barefoot, although I prefer shoes since sweaty feet get you nowhere. There are a few really solid players that are fun to have out there. I am going to try to go to a few Asian tournaments after Christmas break.

5. With the change of seasons officially upon us, bodies adjust accordingly, or so we hope. I found that the intense moisture and heat brought a body rash that was excruciatingly annoying. After two days, I found the wife of a co-worker who is a healer and she gave me some advice. Oh, thank god. It cleared and all is well. But after being covered here and there with various bites from who knows what, I didn't need a heat rash. Jeez. I had been bit by the smallest insect that somehow got me in bed. I looked to see this painful bite and it was so small it looked like a pin prick. But it hurt so badly I couldn't bend over for a day. So now when I see the giant spider scurry in my bathroom, or the small biting flies nesting near the whiteboard, or the multi-colored millipede-thingy in my bed, or round hopping bugs on the stairs, or giant black bees near my desk at school, I don't flinch as much. I just swish it gently away. Then I shiver with, "what was that?" It's all good.

6. Love sitting outside at night and watching the fireflies dance through the ride fields. That and the raucous thunder and ligthening that woke me up the other night, shaking the bed, blinding the house and freaking out the kitties who huddled in the crook of my arm. I tried to count "1 one thousand, 2 one thousand" to see how far it was away. I didn't make it to "1." It was right over head. I have never experienced that intensity before, ever.

7. Attempted a night out with GS folks to hear Jason Mzak play. By the time we made it to the south of the island, and into the gigantic concert venue (near the beach), we caught the last song and two encores. It was a long night in the car after an already two hours in a sticky, rusted little bus, to&from a VB game that I co-coach. The kids play for about 20 minutes but there and back to GS takes two hours in traffic. So after getting back to GS at 5pm and heading straight to a concert (via picking up people at various places not along the way, dinner and outrageous traffic) it was another five hours in the car. I got home at 2:30am. Next time after working a 10 hour day, I think an additional five hours in the car isn't worth it. Call me crazy.

Well. That's the latest for now. Pictures soon.