Globally Warmed in Tete

Blimey, it's blistering hot today.  Well, to be honest, we've sweltered and schweated since Thursday but today I went to the trusty Norwegian weather site to check the temp - 42 deg C.  Dropping to a low of 40 by 23h00 later. Oh joy. 

One really should listen to one's more experienced mates.  The shocked, sympathetic faces in August when I revealed my October return trip. "October?  You're coming in October?  That's the worst time to be here!" before advising that they were making plans to hightail it outta town this month. And they have - Mauritius, Harare, South Africa...anywhere but here.

Fortunately a heavy workload has kept me desk chained in an air conditioned office, and I'm wondering if, having come so far, I can conduct telephonic interviews instead of travelling 10 kilometres into town.  That involves walking 50 metres or so outside, travelling from cool office to refrigerated car and really, that's to be avoided at all costs. 

At times like this I think of my schoolmate Sandy, living in Doha.  She often posts the temperatures she staggers under, and let me tell you, she wins hands down.  But when you choose to live in the desert, you get what's coming.  Everybody knows that deserts are hot, and at least she has wonderful restaurants and a choice of souks to trawl through.  So sorry, Sandy, no sympathy for you today.

The heat here is dry, you can feel your skin shrivelling and shrinking as soon as sunlight strikes it.  Yesterday my eyeballs, behind sunglasses, burned.  Not that scratchy irritation feeling, they burned as in the air was so hot, it punished the vulnerable bits it found.

There's that involuntary gasp from everyone as they enter or exit a building - relief on the in and shock on the out. On Thursday, my neck and shoulders were sunburnt from 4 or 5 trips between unit and office during the day - a distance of about 100 metres a trip.  What SPF factor can counter that few minutes exposure? Should I follow the elephants and have a riverbank wallow, donning a protective mud coat?

The curtains and blinds are now firmly closed during the day meaning that we live indoors and in the dark!  (Is this what they mean by darkest Africa?) because at 10h30 this morning the glass sliding door was hot. Not warm, hot. It faces south and gets no direct sunlight at all, yet it burned to the touch, and was allowing heat in. Don't be fooled, glass is a fabulous conductor of heat!

We persevered with a candlelight dinner outside last night, panting because even at 21h00, there was no relief from the heat - it felt as hot as it had at midday.  Good news is that the swimming pool is finished and filled, but believe it or not, the very last thing one wants to do is jump into it while the sun is shining - staying out of those piercing rays is our daily goal. So a roof over the pool is  planned -  bizarre!

I can quite understand those cave towns in Australia but that wouldn't work here.  We drove off road on Sunday, bundu bashing in search of a waterfall (which eluded us) but did stumble across some local mining activity and were totally enthralled by the seams of coal glistening just a shovel depth below surface. The banks above the road, excavated by the diggers, were layered like a Black Forest gateau cake; dark soil above coal above soil and so on down many metres.  If we created an underground home here, we'd be practising for the shovelling we're bound to be doing in the hereafter, getting hotter the deeper we plunged.

The very thought of planet temperatures raising 2 degrees makes me whimper. Please Sir, instead of global warming in Tete, may I request an ice-age instead? At least then the days of tepid gin & tonics will be over.  I'm rather tired of the ice melting faster than the drink slides down my throat.