Summer in India
on Jen's Indian Adventure (India), 07/May/2010 06:23, 34 days ago
Every month the NGO I am working with issues a newsletter, not only for the staff but for all the people CYSD reaches out to every day. As I was asked to write something for the April edition I thought I'd share it with you. A colleague even went so far as to compliment my knowledge of the English language !Summer in IndiaWhen Sarita asked me to write something for‘Our Voices’ I struggled to come up with a topic. And then I was inspired to go back to my Irish roots and talk, as we Irish tend to do a lot of the time, about the weather.Let me start off by saying I’m coping with the heat far better than I had ever expected to. My friends and family all think they’d never cope with 40 degree temperatures, but I believe now that they would.In Ireland the climate can be summed up as being mild, moist and changeable with abundant rainfall and a lack of temperature extremes. We receive generally warm summers (up to a max of 27 degrees Celsius approx) and mild winters (usually no less than -5 degrees Celsius approx ) and is considerably warmer than other areas of the same latitude. Typically we joke in Ireland about experiencing all four seasons in one day.The winter this year in Ireland, like across a lot of Europe, was colder than it had been for over 60 years thanks to climate change. This year it dipped to -10 degrees. So while I spoke about the temperature climbing up through the 30s here my family was telling me about how cold they were. I can Skype home most evenings and until recently I was speaking with family members all wrapped up in warm, woollen jumpers. The temperature is now rising quite rapidly and it has already reached 16 degrees Celsius.I know I was lucky to be a part of the VSO group that arrived into Delhi in November. I appreciate that I arrived when it was much cooler and I have been able to build up to these high temperatures. It would definitely have been a different story if I was one of the VSO group that arrived in March!There is a saying‘only mad dogs and English men (or Irish!) go out in the mid-day sun’. Well, I’m being very sensible and don't go out in the mid-day sun most days. On days off I tend not to go out before 3pm in the afternoon unless I really have to or have planned a tourist trip somewhere. I was delighted tohear that the cool breeze I experienced on a walk home one evening is part of the Bhubaneswar summer. So now I walk home every evening and enjoy the breeze.Night time is the difficult time for me. Do I sleep with the windows open and then wake at a very early hour due to the noise on the street? Or do I sleep with the fan on and then wake early thanks to a power cut, the fan not working and the temperature rising in the room? Decisions. Decisions.I’ve heard a lot about the monsoon, but have never experienced a monsoon. And I have certainly never experienced an earthquake, so when there was one on 31st March I didn’t realise what was happening. I simply thought I had had one glass of water too many than evening.I’m enjoying my time here in Bhubaneswar and in India. I’m delighted I made the decision to come. India is such a fascinating country, with lovely, warm people and lots to see and do.