"How's the weather?"

For us, the answer to that question is almost always "hot", just the degree of hotness varies. For the Filipino, it actually feels cold at times. Back in January, Filipinos and kids at Faith who have grown up here, were wearing sweat shirts while the Gilmers still wore sleevless shirts and shorts. It is now officially hot season though! April and May are the hottest months of the year here in the Philippines. This afternoon about 4, I checked the weather channel online, it said the temp in Manila was 95, but it "feels like 102". I will agree with that. While the temps rarely get above 96, the humidity, the proximity to the equator, and lack of central air make it feel just plain hot. So, how do people here deal with the heat? Well, as we drive through the squatter areas near our home, we see naked little kids running around and bathing in plastic tubs to cool off. Any sourse of water becomes a pool or sprinkler. Around the house, men and boys are without shirts, women wear loose house dresses or shorts and sleeveless shirts. (Although, when out in public, a Filipina always wants to look her best--this means pants or jeans for women regardless of temps.) Even though there is not a rain cloud in sight people carry umbrellas to provide relief from the sun.

For us, we tend to have our fans running all day. We also tend to take 2 showers, one in the morning and another just before bed. These days we rarely even try to get hot water to come out of the tap. The cold has a nice warm feel, especially in the evening. The other afternoon when Allan washed his hands at clinic the water was actually hot! The water at the clinic comes from a storage tank. Most Filipinos (including some missionaries and weathier Filipinos) get their water from a water truck that pumps it into storage tanks usually placed on the roof. We are fortunate to have a a deep well pump here in the neighborhood that usually brings water into our house. The clinic is too high in the neighborhood to get much water from the pump, which is why we rely on the tanks there. Since we have moved here, we have often had sporatic periods of low or no water. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to this, nor any warning. Sometimes the lower we go in our house (it's 3 stories) the more water we can get, so we can take our shower on the first floor. We also have water storage tanks on the roof in case we get desperate and choose not to wait for the water to come back on or don't want a bucket bath. We can flip a lever and the water from the tanks will flow out of the water taps in the house. We haven't used it yet, but I am sure sometime after a typhoon we will have to.

So, we are now at about the halfway point of "summer" or hot season and so far it hasn't been too bad. Those years in middle Georgia and Augusta have prepared us well! The good news is while you are sweating this summer we will actually be a little cooler than most places in the South. Of course winter never comes so I'm not sure it is an actual win.