Life In The Village: Surviving the Heat

It happens every year. It's March and the inside thermometer says 38C (100F) and it's only 10am. I wonder: Can we do this again? Can I do this again with 5 children whom I school in this weather, feed in this weather and put to bed in this weather. So as the indoor thermometer reaches PLUS 40 (105), I need a battle plan.

WHAT I REFUSE....

I refuse to let my children survive the heat using electronics. There is nothing pretty about addictions.

I refuse for our minds and bodies to be miserably inactive in the heat.

I refuse to get dehydrated even though filtering our stored rainwater and cooling it to a drinkable temperature feels like a full time job.

I refuse to let heat be an excuse for flaring emotions. (That includes me.)

I refuse to cancel school until the classroom temperature reaches 38C (100F). I'd have to cancel school for 3 months if it depended on a comfortable classroom. But once it's hotter than that, there is really no point.

I refuse to dwell on the fact that rivers have dried up, we are in a land locked country and the lakes are too far away. I love swimming. Sigh.

I refuse to envy friends heading to ocean resorts to get a break from their unbearable temperatures (ie the cold). If we had a choice we would do the same.

I refuse to dwell on images of stores lined with freezers filled with delicious cold treats, swimming pools and A/Cs blasting out cold air.

YET....it is incredibly time consuming living this out with 5 kids. I need a battle plan.

So several years ago, my husband constructed a basic back porch compost toilet (which saves a huge amount of water). In dry season, I put a minimal amount of soap in the washing machine and skip the rinse cycle and I average one load of laundry per week. If I need to do sheets, I do those first, save the water and use it for the second load. The laundry water is saved for a second use.

Because of this, we are able to use some of our precious rainwater to fill an old water tank with 3 feet of water for the kids to swim in. Because of the limited space, they need to take turns but it makes a huge difference. Sometimes we just take turns jumping in several times a day which cools us down immensely.

But now it's 5:30pm. The kids have taken their turns jumping into our pool of water, they've eaten frozen mango juice, they've munched on popcorn, they've read books. It's still 38C....we can do this.

The request comes: “Can we watch something?” I feel my resolve dissolving.....I'm melting. They're melting. So I weakly suggest: “Jump in the pool one more time or put your head under the sink.”

And that's it. Cooled down and they are off playing, writing, crocheting, building, exploring. The sun will start setting in another hour and we will no longer feel the heat. The kids will run, dance, skip and play outdoors until it's dark. (We'd continue this late into the night if the scorpions weren't coming out to do the same:)

Canadian (prairie) winters are known to be long and bitterly cold. Yet the predictable and dependable seasons our Creator have given us, fill us with with hope. Hope that spring will come and with it warmth or in our case, rain to cool the air.

It's emotional and it's physical but we can beat the heat. This is our life and every morning we have a new opportunity to not only survive the heat but thrive in the heat.