Heat

"The first rhythm that they became used to was the slow swing from dawn to quick dusk.  They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten.  Toward noon, as the floods of light fell more nearly perpendicular, the stark colors of the morning were smoothed in pearl and opalescence; and the heat-as though the impending sun's height gave it momentum-bcame a blow that they ducked, running to the shade and lying there, perhaps sleeping" (Golding, 62).

This passage from Lord of the Flies describes very well for me the pattern of weather here in my village now during the hot season.  When I wake up with the sun at about 5:30, its not so bad yet.  I can go for a run or exercise in my compound, and the heat is not unbearable yet.  I can sit right ouside my kitchen on my makeshift bench, and eat my breakfast and read for a while before the sun creeps into full force.  By about 9, its time to stay out of the sun, so I sit in my veranda to stay out of the sun and continue to read or do laundry.  On market days, I don't really have a choice but to go out into the scorching noon sun to get some food, but on non-market days, I stay in the shade at all times.  Luckily, people are always sitting under a nice big mango tree or a straw hut drinking pito, which is commonly what I do when its too hot to do anything else.  Otherwise, the heat will get to me, suck out all my energy, and I will be forced to take a mid-afternoon nap, sweating profusely the whole time.  At the moment the schools are on break, so I really feel the rhythm of heat and activity that this passage describes.  Early in the morning, at about 3 or 4 AM, it is the coolest.  I always love waking up at this time to enjoy the slight, slight chill in the air, before the sun comes to start another day of the same routine.