In the space of a week , it went from being between 87 and 89 degrees every day to being between 91 and 93 degrees every day. I wouldn't have thought that 4 to 6 degrees would make a big difference but it does--at least to me.
When I got here, I was so hot and sweaty all the time and it felt gross. At home, I generally don't sweat, even in the summer, unless I'm exerting myself, so to have the back of my neck and my hair damp all the time felt icky. Luckily, it only took about a month and my body adjusted and was back to mostly not sweating. Walking places would make me sweat, but once I got somewhere and spent ten minutes in the air conditioning, I was good.
Now, however, the rainy season is officially over and the dry season has begun. It's still raining a lot. But now it's even hotter and I am sticky all the time. I imagine in a couple weeks, I'll be used to it again but this week has brutal. I think partly it's because I have a cold so my head is full of goop. Whatever it is, it's been compounded by some water problems. First, on Tuesday morning, our power went out. I understand that I should expect frequent power outages during the dry season when everyone is running their air conditioning more often. Ours turned out to be a circuit breaker, but we didn't figure that out until after getting home from work on Tuesday evening, which meant on Tuesday afternoon we had to find a place to take showers. Our water pump is electric. When it doesn't run, neither does the water.
So, we loaded ourselves into a taxi and headed for our friends' apartments. Problem solved. Until last night. We got home from work and were greeted by a laundry room flood caused by a broken water pump. Someone from the school came over to look at it, but it couldn't be fixed until morning. That meant no showers and no ability to flush the toilets. Also, we couldn't do the dishes, so I imagine the roaches and ants had a pretty good evening.
This morning, someone else came to fix it. He's still working on it. I went to my friend's house for a shower again but, boy, was I cranky about it. Mostly, I was cranky because I felt bad all day yesterday from my cold and I was sweaty and clammy and when work was finally over I was looking forward to getting home and washing the grime off before climbing into bed. Oh well. Best laid plans and all that.
So, this week has been a little weird. I've been sleeping a lot because I don't feel good and I've been cranky. Also, my first round of classes is ending so I'm a little bit sad about that too. I've had 80 students for almost 12 weeks now and over the next two weeks, they will all move into different classes with different teachers. I feel like I'm just starting to get to know them, too. It's kind of a bummer. But also kind of exciting to get a whole new group of students.
One other weird thing happened this week. One of the Indonesian friends that I've made is a commercial casting agent and she asked me to come to a casting on Sunday. I have less than zero desire to be in a commercial but she's so nice I didn't want to say no. So, I went. I stood in front of a camera and did what the people behind the camera told me to do--pretend to be an excited tourist, fishing and riding a water buffalo. It felt weird and uncomfortable. I guess it didn't show because I got the job. On Saturday, I'm going to a village outside of Bogor to shoot a commercial. I'm consoling myself with the fact that I get to spend all day in a village with my camera and will only have to be in front of someone else's camera for a small part of it. And also, I get paid. It's still weird though, right?
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