This month is the peak of hot season in Thailand. At the moment, the weather in Bangkok is reported online as 100 degrees, “feels like 117″. Ugh. My little Northwest-grown body doesn’t know how to handle this.
Unfortunately for me, I have one of the hottest houses in the community. This is mainly due to the corrugated metal roof and no drop ceiling or second floor to catch the heat. And because my house is surrounded on all sides by other houses, virtually no breeze reaches me at all. Even with a fan pointed at me and the door and windows open I constantly drip sweat from about 9 a.m. until after 5 p.m.
The upside to this is that it gives me added incentive to hang out in front of the community and chat with people there. There is quite a bit of shade and a nice breeze, plus an ice cream truck or fruit seller comes by every 20 minutes or so. There’s never a shortage of people to talk with, and to commiserate about the heat together (even the Thais are suffering. At first that was comforting to know that I’m not totally a wimp, but it’s also somewhat disappointing that I’ll never fully get used to this– the human body can only adjust so much).
I am frequently sweating through my clothes on the short walk from my house to the bus stop. There have been times on the canal taxi (more aptly described as a sewer boat) where I have felt sweat running down my legs and pooling at my ankles. I’ve had to guzzle water to not feel dizzy and headachy by the end of the day. I’ve started following the Thais’ example and taking multiple showers a day, and putting on large amounts of a wonderful menthol body powder that’s popular here.
Tomorrow (a delay of one day, for those I mentioned this to) I will be heading to Kalasin, an area up-country in the Issan province where a large number of Permsup residents are from. During the 3-day Songkran holiday in April Thais in Bangkok return in droves to their home provinces to be with their families. I will be joining some of my neighbors for a week in their village. I am really excited to be able to bond with Bang and her family and to learn more about Thai and Issan culture. But pray for endurance in the heat as I will not be able to escape into air-conditioning as I am able to do here at times. Luckily, the holiday has digressed from a time of Buddhist blessing through water-pouring into a national water fight. I hear that farangs are particularly targeted and that people frequently ice their water before dousing people. So that should help some with the heat. 
God has been using this time to remind me that this is a part of what it means to lay down my life here; he is teaching me how to be content no matter the circumstance; to identify with the people he has sent me to in this aspect of their life. And this season will end soon– the rainy season begins in May. So, praise God, I have found myself able to push through and endure more than I would have expected. Thank you to those whose prayers have also given me strength.
