A Smelly Wind

The wind wants to take my house apart.

In Spanish, they call it brisa, which is still strange to me, since a breeze in English inherently implies gentle. Anything stronger than gentle is called 'wind'. But brisa's the word and a slight brisa that caresses your cheek is the same as one that rips the roof off your house.

We're having particularly strong winds this year and while it helps offset the heat of the dry season, it also presents daily problems in various forms.

Perhaps the biggest downside is that I keep pissing on myself. I usually pee into the jungle behind my house and of course try to position myself so that: A) I'm not peeing into the wind; B) No one can see my junk. However, the wind is so wild these days that even in the short span of a twenty second pee, it inevitably changes directions several times, which causes me, hands still steadying my stream, to shuffle in circles such that I fulfill criteria A and B. So I usually end up peeing on myself a little. Just a little.

Cooking has been another consistent problem. Since it's not only windy, but cloudlessly sunny, the sun heats my zinc-roofed house during the day and if I don't open all the windows and doors, it's like being inside of an oven that's inside of a sauna. Except there's only one naked hairy guy allowed in this sauna. However, if I keep the doors and windows open, the wind often blows out the flame on my stove, which makes it difficult to cook anything. My choice is thus to constantly re-light the stove, or sweat profusely while I cook. Maybe I could just cook everything on top of the actual roof*.

The Monty Shower

My shower consistently receives the biggest beating. For over a year, I showered in a bathing suit, since my shower only had three walls of tarp. In January, Laura kindly gave me a fresh tarp so that I could enjoy the unmatchable experience of showering nude. Unfortunately, the tarp doesn't quite wrap around even three sides, so I've jury-rigged two older, badly torn tarps to cover the other sides. Without the wind, the shower would be fine, but as it is so sloppily strung together, the wind kicks the crap of it all day and night and there are some now gaping holes. If the wind blows just so, the holes expose me and I have to freeze, Full Monty-style, and hide my junk behind the hollowed bowl that I use to shower.

Luckily, at least my roof was clearly attached by an actual power drill, which is rare around here. Many people simply lay zinc sheets on to the wooden house frame and then pile rocks and logs on top of it to hold it down. With wind like this, many households thus watch their roofs flung from the frames.

The wind is particularly hectic this year and unfortunately I can't explain to you why, because I understand almost nothing about weather. And I'm torn, because when the wind stops, it's going to get really, really humid and disgusting, but as long as it continues, I'm going to pee on myself a little bit each day. Can't a man get a better heat to urine ratio?

*In middle school, I tried to cook two eggs on a paved road and ended up with two broken eggs lying on a paved road. Is idea actually possible?