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Heat

It came to me in a flash of understanding tonight. People who live or have lived in Bekondo keep commenting on how you "just sit and sweat" here and I didn't get it.

Coming from dry Manitoba if you're talking sweating (from weather as opposed to exertion), I think soaring temperatures. So it was with surprise that I waited and waited for this brutal heat they always talked about -- or, what I had interpreted as brutal heat. Some days were very warm, but really, nothing met up with my expectations of high temperatures.

But tonight, as I sat on the couch listening to the sermon and sweating, I understood. No, the temperature -- while consistently over 25 -- is not so very soaringly high; that's not why you're sweating. It's the constant humidity that makes the warmth wrap around you like a shroud.

Mystery solved.

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