Tuesday is the heaviest
day for me so it was great to have got a good night’s sleep. I have three hours class with the same
students which makes for heavy going by the end of the morning. Sleeping has been good for the last few
nights because it has rained in the evening which has cooled things down
considerably. However, on waking this
morning, it was clear that this was going to be a hot one – and so it was. Temperatures rose steadily during the day –
arriving up to 34°
(92.3°)
- and even though it rained, it didn’t help. As a matter of fact, it was like walking
around in a kitchen where pots and kettles have been left boiling and there has
been no ventilation – wet, wet, wet!!!
During class today – and I’m not sure if this is related to
the downpour – there were lots of very black mosquitoes about – in my
experience mosquitoes have typically been a sort of browny colour but these
were distinctly black, and quite a bit smaller than others that I had seen,
smaller, but certainly no less bothersome.
Normally, mosquitoes come out at night so it wasn’t expected that they
would be around during class time and, as I have said before, I haven’t noticed
mosquitoes around here before anyway (there were lots when I went to visit the
Augustinian Seminary last weekend – probably due to their large garden and the
stream running through it). Because I
had to stay in class – a few mosquitoes would be a pretty poor excuse to walk
out – I got bitten quite a bit so I have had a lot of scratching of wrists and
elbows since. Obviously, the fact that I
am new here means that the mosquitoes tended to “favour” me with their
attentions.
Without doubt, the heat and the mosquitoes are the two
things that are giving me most trouble. I
have been ok with the food although I am beginning to notice the after-effects
of a diet based on rice which can cause quite a bit of constipation. I had been anticipating trouble in the other
direction but, so far anyway, I have been fine.
Though I am being careful with what I eat – this morning for breakfast
we had fried pork with bollos - bollos (bollo – singular) are servings of maize that has been ground and
then steamed and normally comes out being roughly the shape of a banana. They have the consistency and colour of Italian
polenta but are quite sweet. I don’t particularly
care for them and, anyway, I am wary of bollos;
in fact, I am wary of maize dishes generally. I have found them to be severe on the stomach
and that they can often provoke a dose of “trouble” – so I ate the meat but
stayed away from the bollos. Interestingly, peanuts (known here as Mani, or Cacahuetes) are also very harsh on the tummy. They taste slightly different to the ones we
have at home, a lovely flavour actually, but it is probably wise not to get too
carried away with them.
Apart from the obvious reason of caring for your health,
there is something else to bear in mind when it comes to caring for your
stomach. Generally, in Central and South
American bathrooms, the toilets have a little basket beside them. This is so that you put your used toilet
paper in to it. This is not an effort to
encourage you to recycle by using the other side!!! The fact is that the pipes for the waste from
the toilet bowl are not, generally, wide enough to cope with the toilet paper –
the toilet paper here would give the Andrex puppy a run for his money!!! It is
not that it is harsh or rough, it is more that it is much more substantial than
they type we would typically have at home.
Mind you it’s still not as bad as the greaseproof type we used to have
when we were in school!!! Generally,
this basket is emptied once a week so it is important to “keep a lid on it”,
literally.
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