Damp

                                        Humidity                     

                    "It ain't the heat, it's the humidity!"
                                     Yogi Berra

Learning to live mas here means being wet all the time. The actual temperatures are ten or more degrees lower that what is normal for this time of year in Birmingham, but the humidity is something else! It feels like a wet blanket laying over you every minute of the day and night. The people here never complain as we Americans do. They don't even wipe away the sweat that's oozing from their skin. They just wear less and endure. Houses are open to the breeze if there is one, and otherwise it's ignored.

Every morning about this time, the surfers gather outside our house to assess the waves. If they pass muster, they go home, collect their boards and hit the surf. Humidity is no problem for them as they're wet all the time anyway. Watching the way people acclimate to their environment is fascinating. They must think we North Americans live in refrigerated boxes with no access to nature...and they would not be far off the mark.

In driving around the neighborhood yesterday, the gap between rich and poor was even more stark than in America. There are open air, thrown together houses with tin roofs, and there are painted stucco or concrete structures with porticoes and landscaping surrounded by high iron fences And those two worlds exist right next to each other. The roads are dirt for good reason--they handle the water better and don't require the kind of maintenance that paved roads do.

Here's the difference--the people in those thrown together houses, have enormous almond, and coconut, and fruit trees growing in their yards. They have a flock of chickens pecking in the dirt with their babies. And then there's the ocean right outside their door with fish galore.

Another impressive thing is that there are children, and adults, and old men and women, dogs, and chickens, and horses, and cows all living together in accommodation and harmony. And we Americans can feel that. We can see it with our own eyes and even envy their ease of shared life. No amount of humidity can mess that up.

                                            In the Spirit,
                                               Jane