There are two things I generally never complain about; hot weather and rain. Preferring to live in a tropical climate because I loathe being cold and would be thrilled to never have to see another snowflake in my life, I still can’t help but notice that Mompiche has been much hotter than usual this year. The temperature has been soaring through the low thirties with average humidity swinging between 75-88%. It’s supposed to be “winter” since we are officially in the northern hemisphere, but we usually enjoy warmer weather from September to April and slightly cooler weather from May to August. Normal temperatures hover between 15°C-27°C (60°F-80°F) in any given year, with average annual precipitation around 1458-1524 mm (57-60 in).
The hottest boy on the planet in 2024, El Niño is making us all much warmer and moister than usual. (Read that sentence again in SNL’s Stefon’s voice if you dare.) Massive weather events in other places, even across oceans, have severely affected our weather patterns. El Niño usually alters the Pacific jet stream, stretching it eastward, making it more persistent, and bringing wetter conditions to the Americas. This means a marked increase in storm activity across the Northeast Pacific region, much higher landfall risk on the west coast of the USA and Mexico, increasing the Japan typhoon risk, and developing disruptive weather systems that travel to South America.
While Cyclone Kirrily was whipping up violent storms and wild winds in Queensland, Australia, the coast of Ecuador was lashed with rain for days. Before that, Cyclone Jasper made itself felt from the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean. A few low-pressure systems hovering around the South Pacific kept the air damp and heavy. After Kirrily came Lincoln, which formed in the Indian Ocean, and once again drenched Ecuador in floods and storms so severe that domestic travel warnings were issued right across the country.
If you have ever walked around the house draped in a warm blanket, you already have a basic idea of how this level of humidity might feel. Picture it in your mind for a second or two, you’re blanketed from head to toe. Now, make the blanket dripping wet with hot water. Then, imagine walking outside still draped in the wet blanket on a scorching hot summer’s day. Finally, imagine that every second of every day feels like this, when you are awake and trying to function like a normal human being, and also when you are trying to sleep. It’s so hot you might wonder if there is a point where you will spontaneously combust. Your body is perpetually covered from head to toe in a thin layer of sweat, even after showering. The air is heavy and you are breathing in so much water, it’s a miracle we haven’t all evolved back into fish. There’s a point where your skin is so damp for so long that it breaks out in an itchy rash.
Heat rash, or prickly heat, happens when the ducts that lead from sweat glands to the surface of the skin are blocked or inflamed. This then blocks the opening of the sweat ducts on the surface of the skin (sweat pores). Instead of evaporating, sweat is trapped beneath the skin, causing irritation and bumps on the skin. The skin is consistently damp, giving the sweat no opportunity to evaporate and it clings to the skin, blocking the ducts. The rash appears as welts, blisters, or red lumps and causes itchiness or a prickly feeling.
It’s a miracle I haven’t clawed off the endlessly itching skin from my neck and chest exposing the veins and raw muscle. Now I understand why babies scream loud enough to blow out our eardrums when they are suffering from heat rash. While it provides relief from the heat, jumping under a cold shower fifteen times a day makes no difference to the rash because the skin can’t dry. And my heat rash breakout is pretty mild compared to some of the people in Mompiche who are covered in blisters filled with yellow fluid. They resemble the unsuspecting victims of a viral pox outbreak on a horror movie set.
I have memories of my mother dabbing all five of us kids with thick wads of cotton soaked in bright pink calamine lotion to relieve the itch after we first moved from a cool temperate climate where heat rash was unheard of to a tropical climate where calamine dabbing became an annual family event. Nowadays there is transparent calamine lotion available, but alas, the pharmacy has sold out. That’s not a big surprise considering the number of people in the village who have much worse cases of heat rash than mine, and I didn’t think to buy any when I finally realized why I was so itchy and uncomfortable.
So here I am, fifteen years into the life-in-the-jungle experience and commenting on (but not complaining about) how hot it’s been around here lately. It’s so hot, we could fry eggs on the roads if we actually had roads… It’s so hot, the cats have requested I leave the bathroom door open all day so they can lie on the cool pebble floor in the breeze. I don’t blame them. I feel exactly the same way. I’m hot. I’m sweaty. I’m itchy AF. And yet, I still wouldn’t want to be anywhere else on this big blue ball…