Mango Rains
I’d never heard this term until this morning. It was wonderfully ‘cool’- the most welcome respite to the incredible heat. The ground was soaking and it had obviously bucketed down in the early hours of the morning. The mango rains seem to be the pre-monsoonal rains that come sporadically at this time of year and bring momentary relief from the summer sun. April is mango season and currently all the trees are heavy with green fruit. Perhaps these rains are what’s needed to turn them all orange so that we can gorge ourselves on fat, juicy mangoes. I’m very excited for mango season to kick off in all its glory, but less excited about the prospect of it getting any hotter than it already is.
The past few weeks have been unbearably hot. Everyone had warned me about April and the heat, and yet no amount of anecdotes could have prepared me for this. The heat has been sitting around 38/40C with high humidity and a suffocating thickness that permeates every part of your body. I’ve sweated so much that I’ve started drinking coconuts in a medicinal fashion. It doesn’t cool at night and the houses are so poorly insulated here that they just bake. There’s seldom a breeze, and the claustrophobic nature of this concrete jungle means there is nowhere to escape. Air conditioning is incredibly expensive to run, though thank god my work sees the value in having a cool office so I get some relief there. I’ve been told that it’s not going to get much hotter, but it will get muggier. I’m off to Yangon soon and that’s supposed to be even worse than here.
Although I’m becoming accustomed to being damp all the time, it’s still pretty disgusting to sweat this much. And the Khmer people at my work don’t seem to sweat at all – though they don’t cycle to the office or go walking outdoors at lunch time which definitely helps their cause. It’s embarrassing turning up to work and having to dry your face with toilet paper. Embarrassing trying to have a professional conversation whilst mopping sweat from your upper lip. Though I guess with rainy season around the corner, which will mean a lot more humidity, I need to get used to feeling perpetually dishevelled. I think the thing I’m looking forward to most about going to Europe in August will be a lack of sweat. And pedestrian crossings – let’s be honest.
Things here continue on as ever. I survived the staff retreat which actually wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Although there was the Sunday morning bike ride through blazing sun and 40 degree heat for 2 endless hours with no water, no map, no emergency back up plan and some seriously crappy bikes. One colleague fainted. Another spent the rest of the day vomiting with heat stroke. I survived unscathed except for some sunburn. Everytime I asked how much farther it was until the end I kept being told ‘1km’. This went on for at least 10km. Nobody was particularly happy by the end but, in my workplace at least, Cambodians wont speak up or challenge orders. Which means they’ll endure the cycle silently and spend the rest of their day vomiting…. Definitely a cultural quirk that I can’t fully grasp.
Next Sunday I fly to Bangkok to see the boy. I couldn’t be more excited if I tried. I’m so desperately in need of a holiday and a break from Cambodia. I’ve got two full weeks out of the country and away from work. And then when I get back it’ll be the halfway point in my assignment. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t incredibly excited for that milestone. But I’m amazed at how much has happened in six months.
