Multiple Choice

When it is hot like this, it is hard to:
a) Protect your skin from sun damage so severe that you look like you just played in chocolate pudding
b) Wear culturally appropriate clothes, i.e. clothes that cover more than 13% of your body
c) Prevent embarrassing sweat marks on your bottom after sitting for lengths of time longer than six minutes
d) Do anything
e) All of the above

In a word, it's hot. In more than one word, it's so flippin' hot that I feel like someone roasted me lechon style and served me up for dinner at fiesta.

With that, the correct answer is obviously e. Duh.

The hot season began about a month ago, sometime around April 10. I arrived in this country April 1 of last year, and I remember a heat so hellish that it nearly inspired me to seek skin-thinning techniques at questionable wokwok doctors. This year, though, April 1 came and went and I was feeling just fine. The 2nd, 3rd, 4th came and passed with me at my normal rate of sweat and stink. Clearly I was now just "used" to the heat, I had acclimated. I didn't hesitate to brag about this fact to all of my family in sub-arctic Washington, and I reiterated that I was just super because heat didn't phase me anymore, no sir. Yay me.

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. It. Is. Hot.

So hot that I hate eating fresh-cooked food because it causes excess sweating, whereas room temp food only causes the normal amount of sweat. The air is full of hotness, hot hotness. It makes a person lathargic and lazy. And yes, it's true, hot air makes a person clammy and sweaty, to such an extreme that she can get any number of sicknesses/ailments. My list of past heat-induced sicknesses includes: walking pneumonia, fungus, heat rashes, and dehydration. This year I anticipate Denghe, more rashes, and perhaps even a sudden onset of bloating as all the juices in my body start to boil from the insane-o heat.

Aside from the physical discomfort, the hot season means that I can't wear anything more than once, which means laundry. Lots.

And of course there's the way the heat makes Katrina's hair curl. There is a huge value placed on appearance in this place, and though I try to fit the part of a professional by dressing appropriately, I struggle to keep my combo of sweat and curly locks in check. People who I don't even know will stop me on the street for a chat and then ask oh-so-casually if I own a hairbrush. Other classic comments:

"Hm. That's funny, did you just wake up? Because your hair looks like you just woke up."
"Well, I thought Americans were a clean people."
"Why do Americans look like their hair is always wet?"
"It looks bad. Bad."

I wouldn't write it if it weren't true.