I'm Hot, You're Hot, She's Hot, He's Hot

And sometimes that heat can be super bad. No, I haven’t fainted, or even gotten sunburned (which is really remarkable considering my heritage and the Peace Corps amazingly bold move of holding out on giving us the sunscreen they promised for a few weeks).

What has happened is I’ve gotten a rather nasty case of heat rash, or should I say what I thought was heat rash. It developed after a day of playing outdoors all over my back, which you probably already know from personal experience is not a fun place to have an itch. When I poured cold water of it, even though the air was quite warm, I shivered and shivered. Still, our Peace Corps nurse did not believe it was heat rash and instead thought it could be a reaction to soap or to laundry detergent. Luckily it went away after about 5 days. I switched to the local soap in an effort to avoid the soap which could have done that to me, and in an effort to trick the mosquitoes into thinking that I’m a local and it’s not worth it to bite me.

Some of you might know what’s like to go days without feeling AC in temperatures upwards of 85 degrees. But do you also know what that’s like without running water, beaches or pools? I am in no way trying to complain about what I’m going through. What I am trying to do is try to express as an outsider what life is like here for the majority of Dominicans. I would guess that most of them don’t even own a fan, or have the means to keep one powered either. Truth is, I praise my lucky stars that I was stationed here and no to Eurasia where it’s cold pretty much all year long and no one has heat. I’d rather it be 100 degrees and humid with no AC than it be 30 degrees and cloudy with no heat. And I swear, you just can’t beat the skies here!

So now it’s time for you to tell me when you and your body had a clash with nature. For example, my story would be when I went skiing in Chile and got the worst sunburn in the history of sunburns, puss coming out from all areas of my face, which was swollen and puffy and it hurt to eat, laugh or smile, or frown for that matter. I’m inspired to ask this because I’m so proud I’ve seen such lovely things and not gotten sunburned even a little. Nature must like me more here.