10 ways to know it's hot

So right now it's the hot season in Chad , temperatures reach a peak at about 2pm, 45C  in the shade is common,  50 C happen on exceptional days each year. Our human bodies are normally at 37C, if you are very unwell with a fever you may reach 40C and we cope relatively easily with such temperatures. Once it gets hotter than this things get more difficult and strange things happen.

What's like living at these temperatures ?

Here are 10 ways to tell should it ever happen in England! An exceptional  heat wave with you peaks at about 32C so you have some way to go.

1)Your candles start to become spontaneous  works of art.

2).Your clothes from the drawers have that freshly ironed warmth. Plates from the cupboard are heated ready  for soup .   

3) The kittens stop moving and lie flat on the floor making you wish you could slow down too.

4) Whilst helping with homework Ruth and Rebecca object to the sweat running of my forearms and making their school books wet. The rest of the school has air conditioning! Operating gloves are wet inside when you take them off.

5)You drink at least 3 litres of water at work and more when you get in. You even want to add salt to your drinks and tea tastes better than coffee.

6) Proper evening ward rounds become impossible, everyone's sleeping outside, including us on the  veranda.

7) Your house walls radiate heat at night  and the fridge needs wet towels draped over it  to evaporate heat and keep it at 15 degrees.

8) Chocolate fondue arrives in the post.

       

9) It's hard to know which patients have a fever at 2pm is it the patient temperature or the air temperature that has been measured. The babies especially take on the temperature of their surroundings, which ones are really sick?

10) Plastic and rubber things crack up spontaneously  or become very bendy.

11) The cacti in the garden wilt ( I made that one up)

Hope this guide helps!!  When we wrote this we were  just back from enjoying a break from these delights in the swamp cooled guest rooms of a mission in  town and were excited by some unusual cooling rain fall .Its hot and sticky again now so we are counting the days just another few  weeks  we hope   before temperatures drop to more manageable levels and we stop counting every breath of wind. What's needed is a nice day at the swimming pool, like we had to celebrate Ruth's 18th birthday last month, ( the flowers are very beautiful but guess what they wilt quickly, I wonder why?)