It ain't half hot Mum...

I haven't been keeping the blog up to date over the last few days as there was an awful lot going on. I was asked to give a retreat to the seminarians at the end of last week so, as you can imagine, that required preparation. I have been preparing for another workshop on the theme of vocation, I have also been helping a number of students with their written work and have had quite a few callers for confession - I suppose it's more appealing to go to confession to someone who is not always around the place. I was busy with masses in a parish over the weekend.

Of course, all of this was made quite a bit heavier by the fact that we had electrical problems here in the seminary. A man came in to repair something, which he did, but, after he had left we realised that quite a few of the rooms had been left without power and that the air conditioning had stopped working in many of the rooms. Unfortunately this happened at the same time as both the temperature and the humidity had risen significantly. We are just coming in to the rainy season here so high temperatures and humidity is not surprising, but it is not easy to keep going without the help of the air conditioning. It is almost 8.30am as I write this blog and already it is 32 degrees and 82% humidity. I have three hours of class later, finishing at 1.15pm - by that time I expect that both temperature and humidity will have risen as we will then be at the hottest part of the day.

It is quite extraordinary to experience the effects of the air conditioning breaking down. First of all breathing becomes a bit of a chore - it's a little bit like when you open the oven door and the heat takes your breath away. Everything begins to feel a bit sticky and, even if you have showered carefully, it is almost as if there is a film of dampness over everything - clothes in the wardrobe become damp, paper becomes damp too, making it difficult to write, and sleeping becomes very difficult. But one of the most frustrating aspects of this situation is the way in which insects of all sorts of shapes and sizes begin to infiltrate themselves in to your living space. Mosquitoes, cockroaches, flies, fruit flies, various type of ant, beetles, and spiders all appear as if out of nowhere. In fairness, all of the ones that I saw here this weekend were small, but I have seen, in the past, insects that are really quite big - sometimes as big as the tablet one would put in to the washing machine.

We are now back to normal and the air conditioning is back on - thank God!!! I do notice, however, that I now prefer to have it set at 25 degrees, rather than the 18 degrees that I favoured when I first got here. A certain amount of acclimatisation is inevitable I suppose.