A Hot Little Number

It’s freaking hot. A typical summer’s day in Carmona, near Seville, a little north of south Spain. There is no wind, the heat sits on your shoulders, beats down on your head and wraps itself around your body, completely enveloping you. There is no escaping it. The very air that you breathe is hot. It’s hot down your throat when you breathe it in. You can feel it almost burn your throat on its way down to your lungs. Your scalp prickles almost constantly as it sweats and the hair at your temples and nape of your neck is wet with it. You sweat everywhere, your shins sweat, and the backs of your knees, not to mention the little hollow in the small of your back. Swimming brings only short term relief because after you’ve been out of the water for ten minutes you’re wrapped in the heat blanket again.

The idea of doing anything becomes a monumental task, a bit like a mission impossible but without any of the scientology fanfare. Even reading and watching TV are unpleasant activities because the chairs are hot and your brain has to think (less so in the case of TV) and brain activity is way too much effort on a hot day. So you think that maybe taking a nap is a solution. Its lies all lies. Napping is not the solution at all. Even sleeping with the absolute minimum of clothing on, you still get sweaty and sticky and when you wake up your head feels like it’s been stuffed with rocks that have just fallen from a mountain. You can still hear them echoing and bits and pieces are still falling around causing you to wince with pain. Usually you’re irritable as anything and end up shouting at the dog, which only serves to make you feel really bad. What makes everything worse is knowing that its only May and its already 33 degrees Celsius and you know that July – August will be hotter, so much hotter.

The crazy thing is, and it really is quite crazy, hardly anyone in Carmona has an air conditioner. It’s insane. We all have heaters because our winters are as biting as our summers are blistering, so we do protect ourselves against the cold, our self-preservation instinct extends that far at least. But we don’t have air conditioners when it would be the most logical thing in the world to own them. Its not as if there isn’t a wide variety to choose from or anything what with their being the wall mounted kind, the portable kind, the cassette kind, the evaporative kind etc. Its not even as if we would have to install them ourselves either. Most companies install them for you and even show you how to use them if you feel you are somewhat uncertain in that arena.

Most people in Carmona have ceiling fans and probably some other kind of fan to work in conjunction with their ceiling fans so its not like we don’t make any effort at all to try and cool ourselves down. But is as if the idea of air conditioning is illogical to us, as if it bypassed Carmona somehow.

Well not entirely, we all have air con in our cars. So we drive around a lot in summer just so that we can have the air con on. All our shops have air conditioning so we spend a lot of time shopping in summer. Movies are a favourite pastime too because there is no place colder than the cinema, you even have to take a jersey when you go there its so cold (at least in some towns of the smaller variety).

Why would we not have air conditioning when it is so obviously the logical thing to do? This is a very good question. One that I, as a resident of blazing hot small town will try to answer, if you will allow me this brief moment of subjective opinion, while trying not to offend too many people. Carmona is extremely beautiful but also very unforgiving. The people there have learnt to survive through centuries of hard times (I’m a pansy and I like my creature comforts, I wouldn’t do well in hard times). These people are proud of their ability to survive. There are a lot of farmers and other out doors type people whom, coincidentally enough spend most of their lives out doors and who love to pit themselves against the elements. I think that Carmona either attracts like-minded people or you grow to be like that after a certain amount of time. They sort of think, bugger that for a game of soldiers, I will not be dictated to by the weather. They seem to thrive particularly in the heat. They’re good people. Stubborn as anything, but their hearts are in the right place.

Like I said I’m a pansy and wouldn’t survive two seconds of a tough time. I would have air con in 2 seconds flat and a heater in every room. But I don’t live in a sweltering small town any more. Apparently summers where I am now are just as bad. I have my doubts though. How could they be? However, should my scalp prickle just once, I shall be off to the nearest department store to pick up my air conditioner, wall mounted preferably.