Forward ever

The heat is on, on the street
Inside your head, on every beat
And the beat's so loud, deep inside
The pressure's high, just to stay alive
'Cause the heat is on

My parents were kind enough to pay me a visit for 2 weeks in April. It was great to see them… my first contact with people from my “old” life since arriving here in September. They’ve sent me an entry of their own to post, so here ya go:

Ma and Pa Stern, signing on…

THE CHAMPION OF HOT



Repeat after us: ni joto sana. It is very hot. Very, very hot. This is the temperature in Josh’s courtyard, (yes, that says 114 degrees). Note: it is autumn where he is now. Oh, you say, it must be cooler inside because of the many years that the locals have perfected construction techniques to maximize cooling.

Yeah, well, this is inside.



The first time we walked the 2k from Josh’s home to his worksite down Heartbreak Hill, as Paul calls it, he almost had heatstroke. Sue was fine, though. The locals thought she had lived there all of her life. She fit right in.



The heat at Josh’s site is way beyond what we have ever experienced . . . and it’s autumn. How he does this on his own after working all day in the heat remains a mystery.

Sue gave Josh a break from daily cooking and cleaning, which is often very hard to do. First, you have to go to the market and barter for food. Since Sue is Josh’s mother, people gave her extra! Next, clean food within an inch of its life and cook it forever in the heat of the kitchen area, (did we mention it was hot?). Then, clean dishes very carefully with boiled water. And during this whole process you never know if the power will go off and you have to switch to the kerosene or coal stoves, or if the water pump will die and you have to go scooping with the bucket. One time while Sue was cooking during a monsoon, lightning struck a tower near Josh’s house and came through the electric outlet onto Sue’s hand and out her foot. She lived to talk about it, albeit incoherently for awhile, but her hand hurt for a week. Doing laundry is also a trip. Water buckets in the courtyard and line drying. You have to time the drying for the hot sun times and avoid the rains. You would think things would dry in a second in that sun but NO, the humidity is so high it takes forever. If it takes too long for them to dry you need to wash the clothes again as they begin to smell like mold. And when you take the clothes off the line, you have to shake out the families of mosquitoes that hide in the folds. Great fun.



THE SHETANI

As Josh has explained, his island is populated by very nice people and very bad shetani. Popo Bawa is the most renowned, but there are others, and one of them paid particular attention to Paul. The Fan Shetani. First, while Paul was working on the window screens The Fan Shetani caused the overhead fan to attack Paul’s hand, slicing one of his fingers.

Then, a smaller fan on a stand attacked the other hand, slicing it open. Later when plugging in the fan, Paul almost got electrocuted. Finally, Paul expressed great regard for the powers of the Fan Shetani and decided to avoid Josh’s fans altogether. All was well. We were also at the whims of the ever-fickle Generator Shetani for power, which was iffy at best. This is the Island’s only power. Without it there is no way to move any air in the hot, humid house. Sleeping under netting in a hot house with absolutely no breeze is utterly oppressive. Our moods changed nightly as the power came on or off.

JOSH’S PETS

Outside of Josh’s front door you will find a motley crew of goats, cows, cats, chickens, and (at night) toads. Josh particularly likes the goats. The way they bleat loudly at all hours, with that piercing, fingernails-on-the-blackboard quality.



DALA DALA

The pubic transportation is by means of dala dalas. Imagine driving on the back roads of Maine. You see in the distance off in a field an abandoned pickup truck with a sapling growing up through the engine. Well, take that relic, clean it up a little, put some used tires on it, bolt two wooden benches along the side, weld some bars on it to hold up a roof, and you’ve got yourself a dala dala. When we were in one once, there were 33 people, a baby, and two chickens in it, along with a load of wood and various bundles of vegetables and clothes on the roof. Whenever we thought it was unimaginable to squeeze anyone else in the dala dala, Josh woefully whispered the refrain: “There’s always more room.” It is it unbearably hot, and a large amount of less-than-healthy exhaust accompanies the passengers.

THE BIRDS

They’ve got flying dogs. Josh says they’re a type of bat called flying foxes. No. They’re dogs. They’re huge. It’s like looking up and seeing a scene from a 1930s Bela Lugosi Dracula movie. Fortunately, they fly very high in the sky, which is why they survive, as explained below. The only other birds we saw in the sky were these big crows with what look like white vests. They fly very high too, which is why they survive. The ground birds are stupid, dirty chickens, which deserve to die but don’t. These are the only birds here. Why? Because the kids kill all of the other birds that are within slingshot range. Why, do you ask? Protein.

JOSH

Josh is skinnier and his hair is shorter.



He has been posted in a ridiculously hot spot and in a culture as foreign from that in Maine as you can imagine. He has withstood two bouts of malaria and one of dysentery. Through all of it, he works hard everyday and has become part of the community. Several families have adopted him as one of their own.



Josh has worked extremely hard in his school and community, and the people there truly are appreciative. And he has done it under the most difficult of conditions. We are truly proud of him, and after being with him for two weeks we now fully understand the magnitude of his accomplishments.

And, we do look forward to visiting him, and his new friends, again.