Parody: Our father just said brrrr

Superstar and I tend to be the most impervious to changes in temperature in our home. But when it drops from the 80s to 39 degrees, even Dad can get a little chilly. Here's a song for the morning to the tune of Rejoice, the Lord is King!

Our father just Brrrr! It's cold 'cause our dad said brrr.
Everyone come inside and put on a sweaterrrr!
Put on some socks! Put on a hat!
It really is as cold as that.
Put on a layerrrr and say a prayerrrr
Because our father just said Brrrrr!

Welcome to Nigeria. Have a nice day. 2

Last year the electricity went out on campus. There was no announcement of classes being canceled, and if I had taught evening classes powerless in Nigeria I could certainly manage here in Texas. So I had started my lecture when we all got text messages canceling all classes. Sad.

The power going out is the #1 thing that reminds me of Nigeria. Any time there is a short power outage or fluctuation, Joy and I turn to each other and say, "Welcome to Nigeria. Have a nice day."

Well, turns out that isn't the only thing that gives us flashbacks. Tuesday the house's central air died. I noticed it was getting a little warm, but thought it was just me. By dinner it felt much hotter, so I checked the thermostat. Why was the house at 80 (normally 75) when the AC was clearly running non-stop? I cleaned the air filter, gave the machine a rest, checked the outside to make sure the unit was weed-free... nope. Nothing helped. We slept in 82 degrees.

Yesterday the AC guy came over and found out our outdoor unit had fried completely. It'll have to be replaced, or maybe the entire system. That's gonna be a pretty penny! The house crept up to 85. We were on to feed the missionaries and I really didn't feel like cooking the spaghetti squash or the bacon-wrapped chicken in the oven. So we spent an air conditioned hour at a pizza place.

I have no place to complain, really, since Joy is working with the cub scouts all week (afternoons and evenings) outside in the 96 degrees and humid. As we lay in bed last night, we talked about Nigeria and how the AC only sometimes worked to get the house down to the 80s, sleeping with two fans on us (one overhead and another pointed at us).

With most of the windows open and fans on during the night, we got it back down to 81. I was really rather hoping to get it down to the 70s since the low was 71ish last night. It's climbing up relentlessly again. Hopefully the AC people will have some options they can put in place before by parents come to visit next week.

Meanwhile, Princess is loving it. She wears warm pajamas, a hat, socks, and at least 3 blankets every night and complains the house is just freezing cold. Last night she was happy and comfortable for the first time in forever. Glad someone is. 

Mormon Helping Hands east of Houston

So there was this hurricane that hit Texas a while back. You might've heard about it </hipster>. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called for volunteers from around the area to drive down to Houston and other locales to help.

I went down two weekends ago with 10 other people from my local church and again last weekend with a new group of 10. Someone else was our team leader each time, but I served as assistant since I was going both times. We were joined by 150-200 others from our stake each weekend (that's the Weatherford area) and approximately 10,000 Mormons from Texas and other areas nearby.

No. I AM your father.

We arrived to help muck out houses. Mucking out means we took absolutely everything that wasn't salvageable (just about everything) out of the house to be trashed, tore out the sheet rock and drywall and insulation, and left a barebones skeleton frame in the house. The first weekend we spent the entire time helping one lady, whom I will call "Mary" - about 73 years old, she's a diabetic widow with some pretty serious mold allergies. Mold is one of the biggest problems from this flood as absolutely everything gets thoroughly soaked. Because of the mold, the house smelled absolutely dreadful and I was thankful we had taken the time to buy an industrial grade air filter because of my mold allergies. In the picture you can see the water line that went up to about 4 feet.

But if the water is 4 feet high, then it seeped up the insulation to 5-6 feet and that meant all the walls had to be taken down completely. We couldn't finish her house in one weekend, so we finished the job when we came back the second weekend. We also got to help another couple where the water had only gone up 1-2 feet. It still meant they lost most of their things and we had to remove the drywall up to 4 feet.

Drought in southern Africa

The number one, defining experience of Nigeria was the power going out. Multiple times every day. When new in country, this was shocking and disturbing. You'd be talking with someone or working or doing anything, and then suddenly the power would go out. When would it come back? Would it ever come back? And then it came back as the generator turned on. Only to turn off again when we switched back to public power. By the time we'd been in country a while, the power going out was merely a comma in a conversation - you keep going with what you were doing. Sometimes we'd turn it into a running gag: "Welcome to Nigeria! Have a nice day!"

When we came back to the States, there was a power outage in the first week or so. We turned to each other and said, "Welcome to Nigeria! Have a nice day!"

In preparing to come to South Africa, we learned they had the occasional problem with their electricity supply too - nothing to Nigeria's scale of course, but for several weeks this year they had rolling blackouts. So we were prepared with our standby jokes.
-----------------------------
The power has stayed on just fine. Oh. Right, developed country and all that.

But there has been a drought in southern Africa and last night our hostess came to inform us that they were out of water. City had just shut it off and no one knew when it would come back on.



She talked as if she expected it back on this morning or maybe last night, but it was entirely possible it would last more than a day.

In Nigeria when we ran out of water, it was because there was a strike at the water bottling plant, so we were boiling tap water for over a week to make sure we had something to drink. After that we stored up two weeks of drinking water. Besides, our stake here has been talking up emergency preparedness.

So our first reaction was to start filling every bucket, mixing bowl, and container we could find while we still had water at the upper house. We started asking a lot of silly questions, like what to do about toilets -- if they won't flush for days on end, where does a body ... do what a body does? In Nigeria, people just defecate on the road as a normal thing, in Italy #1 is socially acceptably, and in Texas they're both illegal. I worry that our hostess did not appreciate any comparison to Nigeria: yes, I'm sure there are parts of South Africa that are not developed, but I like to think that around here we are not where they are.... Not that things are illegal, one wouldn't just ... ugh.

But she humoured us in filling a bunch of buckets while our tap water still flowed.

This morning the water is back on. We'll see for how long.\
UPDATE: We have been informed it's not the drought. They are fixing the water mains and had to shut water off to various parts of the city to do work.

Today's Thunder Storm - Nigerian flashbacks

Today we had quite a down pore of rain. It was also a thunderstorm and Princess was getting into a bath and was nervous about the noise. The electricity went off a couple of times, but it did that yesterday when it rained as well. Then the electricity went off completely and stayed off.

Derrill and I say to each other in such a circumstance "Welcome to Nigeria."

The real difference of course that we expect the electricity to be on all the time here and in Nigeria we plan for when it will be off (always have things charged, use surge protectors, etc) and the private generator nearly always kicked in right after. So since we expect the power to always be on here, having it out is less convenient here. But in Nigeria we are trained to do without it when necessary. I must confess I was grateful just to have some electricity in Nigeria. How quickly we forget or come to expect. I am grateful for the ability to expect again. ;)

Oh I should mention that we got our electricity back on an hour later. Thank you land of the free and New Mexico customer support or whoever.

 - Joy

Temperature Feb-Mar - They have adapted

After an initially good few weeks, I have been failing to record the temperatures I'm measuring consistently.

In late Feb conditions remained as they had throughout Feb: highs between 97 and 104, gradually tapering off dust cover with another day of unsafe dust accumulations, and consistent 16% humidity.

By the start of March, there was a noticeable change in the weather. The dust has been blown much further afield, the sky is bluer ... and therefore everything is hotter. From Mar 1-10 there was not a single day when the high in the shade was below 104. One day while I walked outside - so measured under the sun but not in direct sunlight - the high was 111. It was well and truly HOT. The humidity also rose to 22-26%.

This week has been a touch more mild: highs ranged between 101-104.

This has also made a difference to the temperature inside the house, naturally. In Feb the unadjusted temperature in the family room/dining room was 82. We could bring it down to 79 with one AC unit and 76 with two. Now the unadjusted indoor temperature is 88 and we can only get it down to 82.

The Borg have adapted. (Source)

Today I realized that I have gotten accustomed to the heat. 82 feels cool and when we get our bedroom down to 77 I need the feather quilt. Today as I went to lunch, I thought the day was pleasantly warm. I figured the temperature couldn't be over 100, especially since yesterday's high was 101. I set the thermometer outside, had my lunch, and came back to check on it.

The temperature in the shade was 106. I took a brief walk in the sun and got a reading of 111 again. I admitted it was pretty warm, but it did not feel like the oven it was just a week ago.

How... Hot... Is iiiiiit in February?

For Christmas, I bought myself some thermometers. Strange kid, I know. The thing is, I cannot find good data on what the weather is around here, let alone what it is expected to be. The BBC predicts thunderstorms and rain when there's not a cloud in the sky and the temperature prediction never varies.

So at my lunch break (or another afternoon break) I take a thermometer outside and set it down in the shade. Then I walk around and read for 15 minutes until the number stops changing and record the data, both objective and subjective, about the weather.

If anyone wants to know what the weather is like in Yola, I'm going to update this post for the month, then create a new post for a new month:

Day	Time	Temp	Breeze	Dust	Subjective
30-Jan	1:25	91	cool	some blue	slightly warm
31-Jan	12:19	88	none	thin haze	slightly warm
1-Feb					lukewarm
2-Feb	4:14	84	cool	thick haze	cool
3-Feb					cool
4-Feb	1:38	99	warm	no blue	warm/hot and dry
5-Feb	12:15	97	slight warm	some blue	warm
6-Feb	1:43	100	warm	no blue	warm/hot and dry
6-Feb	5:21			thin haze	warm
7-Feb	9:45am			unsafe	cool
8-Feb
9-Feb	3:10	99	warm	some blue	20% humidity
10-Feb	3:50	88	cool	some blue	cool
11-Feb	12:00	96	cool	some blue	warm/hot
12-Feb	12:15	97	none	cloudy blue	warm
12-Feb	5:15	93	none
13-Feb	1:48	102			hot and dry
14-Feb
15-Feb	9:00am	84		cloudy blue	cool
15-Feb	2:00	100	none	cloudy blue	hot
16-Feb	10:45am	97	cool	thick haze	slightly warm

Some explanations below the fold

And it rained and it rained and it rained

I counted 10 flashes of lightning every 15-20 seconds. The wind whipped the rain up and sideways and every which way. It blew up and over the cars. Easily the coolest storm we've had here. It was all over in about an hour or two, though.

In good news, the flood waters are finally receding in Adamawa. Just in time for Pres. Jonathan to finally get around to promising some flood relief funding, more than a month after they started.

How Hot is It?

No I am not going to give you any statistics or even any numbers, but I thought it was so funny what happened the other morning.
Derrill came to talk to me after his shower and said “The water was cold. Quickly take a shower if you want to have the water cold.” He explained that the rain in the middle of the night had cooled things off enough for the water to cool down. Just as amazing Derrill said that he took advantage to the cold water (he usually just wants hot). It is hotter than it was in my hottest area in Costa Rica on my mission where we bathed twice a day to cool down. We bath here to get clean.
Prince hates hot water, but by the time we want to give him a bath the water is too warm for him to stand it. Luckily the water in our bathroom is not as warm in the heat of the day, so we have been giving him showers.
After a bath it is really hard to dry off. I do my best, but I am constantly forgetting which parts of my body I got dried already because of sweat accumulation. Infact I am getting so used to sweating that I do not always turn on the AC, feeling that it doesn’t make that much of a difference (it has been some better since Derrill has been doing his magic). If I really want to feel like the living room is cooler, I need to spend some time in our hot kitchen then it feels really great in the living room.
What has helped a lot if to hang out with princess in her room, it is smaller and there is less work that needs to be done by her AC which now actually works for the first time since we moved here. Yeah for getting it fixed.
Please come and visit us any time, we have plenty to drink . Love you all (I am really hoping to acclimatize to it one day)
Good to go to the kitchen for awhile, relative heat. Often coller outside because there is air movement.

The Zen of Air Conditioner Maintenance

We are blessed with 5 industrial-grade air conditioners in our home. There's the normal-looking AC unit inside, and a large fan outside connected to each. We are blessed that we don't have to pay the electric bill either (either for the national electricity, when it's on, or for the two generators that keep the lights on when it's not).

As the dusty season finally draws to a close and the hot season begins, we've needed to call on our air conditioners a bit more than previously. We've also needed to get used to our faces being rivers of sweat much of the day. My shirts are discovering new sweat lines I never knew I had.

We also seem to remember that our ACs used to work better than they do now. We call in maintenance, and they just tell us that it's on and there is at least modestly cool air coming from it, so they won't do anything. Grrr.

But one time when a guy was here, he did something! I watched. He took up the outlet hose, where the water is supposed to exit, and he stuck it in his mouth. He sucked on it as hard as he could, then gagged and choked out the yucky thing that he extracted. Water then flowed out of the outlet hose and the AC worked.

Lesson Number 1: When you are sucking the marrow out of life, you sometimes get a hairball.

I asked him, "So the next time we have this problem, should I do that?"

He looked very uncomfortable. It was part 'I'm a professional, you're not'; part 'this really isn't pleasant, kid', and partly something I had recently read in a book: the working classes in Britain hate to see one of the aristocracy doing any real work. That last is a look I've gotten to know fairly well. "Um ... no, sir" was his eventual answer.

I have since learned that when I do this, I also clamp my teeth shut. It increases the chance that whatever gunk comes out gets trapped between teeth and gums instead of going straight down to my lungs.

Lesson Number 2: "Stuff" Happens. If you grit your teeth, not as much of it will get in your mouth.

Weather: better than advertised

The impression I had gotten from people was that August/September was winter, so we'd better enjoy the cool weather that the rain brought while we could. It all ends in October.

So I did my best to "harden off" in those early weeks. I spent far more time walking outside than any of my more reasonable colleagues, trying to get ready for the big heat soon to descend. The winter was hot enough, with average temperatures in my kitchen at least 90 degrees already at 6am.

So here we are at the end of November and ... it's not bad! It's even better than "winter." Our kitchen is a mere 83-86 in the morning, and there are evenings and mornings when I go outside and it's downright pleasant! What happened?

Well, the rains stopped just like everyone predicted. That means that there is a fine layer of dust collecting in the air and the atmosphere. Just at the bottom of the horizon you can see that the sky is a little more brown than the sky directly overhead. If I haven't had enough water to drink, I can just taste the dust on my mouth and throat, but it doesn't seem that bad otherwise.

The dust keeps the sun's rays out, which keeps things cooler. The humidity is normally much lower too. It won't be until February or March that winds blow the dust out of the way and the terrible heat hits. At least, that's the story that is now explained to me.

Differences

What do I notice about not being in Nigeria so far?

1 - Real bananas. REEEEAL bananas
2 - Real milk.

No, okay
3 - It's fall. In Yola, it's still winter, which means my kitchen is a mere 90 degrees first thing in the morning. Out here, it's autumn. There are colored leaves. The weather is amazingly comfortable.
4 - While I was getting ready for bed, I realized that I do not actually need to unplug this computer lest a power surge blow out the battery.
5 - I look forward to trying out this soft-looking bed.
6 - I don't seem to have a phone that works in the US anymore.

Winter in Yola

It's winter. Boy is it ever. I mean, it sometimes gets down to 75 degrees at night, and it's only 85 sometimes. Can you imagine? A body can even be outside sometimes without breaking into a sweat!

Our weather widget from the BBC isn't that accurate about how often it rains, but we have had a few showers and the grass and trees are in full bloom.

Where you can really tell it's winter is inside. AC units here are pretty powerful and universally aimed at me. In The living room, it's aimed at the couch. In the bedroom, it's my side of the bed. I sleep with two blankets, you realize, because 70 degrees is just frigid.

For matriculation [right] , the AC units were so powerful that I got chilled even in my heavy graduation robes! At the faculty retreat, the setting was a more reasonable 80 and it felt like a pleasant cool breeze.

Incidentally, this is the first blog post written on my new iPad that all faculty got to help us be more effective teachers. So here I am teaching you about the weather.