It's surprisingly hot in Ukraine, more so then I think any of us expected, and I am surprised at how similar the weather is to Texas - hot and humid anyone? It was 82 degrees here today and looking up the weather at home, it will be 84 degrees there. But there are a few key weather differences between Kyiv Ukraine and Buda Texas. The first is that the sun is very bright here, almost to the point of painful. I wear my sunglasses whenever I step outside and today, despite drinking as much water as I could, I ended up with a slight headache, nothing that some more water and a couple of Advil wouldn't fix. The second thing that is quite different, is air-conditioning, it is in our blood that everything everywhere has A/C but not here, it's a rarity, it's not in the cars, not in older, constructed homes and our office has the equivalent of a window unit (and we must track down the remote on Monday so we can turn it on). There are lovely breezes depending on the time of day and all the windows open, even the ones in the hotel, which is another difference from back home, our hotel windows don't usually open unless there is a balcony and you are opening the door. It's nice to open the window and get the breeze while the sun is going down, but make no mistake, my A/C is on in the room at all times.
I have to admit my cultural lack of knowledge, I have always assumed that India and Brazil would be as hot as Texas and that the teams from there would not have much difficulty adapting, but I am wrong. Today on our outing, which I will cover in more detail in a separate blog, Aline and Flavia, both from Brazil, took comfort in the shade of their umbrellas and Kailash and Satish, both from India, created a makeshift head covering to ward off some of the sun. We took some pictures of the guys because we all thought it very creative and quite funny. Satish is on the left and is considered quite tall for an Indian and Kailash, well he's our team photographer, and we know that he will either be 20 feet behind us taking a picture or herding us all together for one team picture after another. Even though Kailash is really good at taking pictures and getting us all to pose in some really silly poses (will post when I get them from Kailash), he's quite the poser himself.
While Kailash has assumed the role of team photographer, I have become the team blogger, I think they are all reading it now daily as well. Flavia, is the instantaneous Facebook poster and I may just have to get an account to see what she's posted. Despite getting a very slight sun-burn (call it getting some color) on my arms, face, and neck, I seemed to be the one who suffered the least on our excursion and seem to be faring the best overall with the heat and humidity - thank goodness I come from Texas and have had years of unbearable hot weather in preparation...I wonder how Ukrainians would handle September back home when the weather hits 100 degrees.
Given that it is so hot and humid here and the lack of A/C, we are showering twice a day sometimes and that creates quite a bit of laundry. In case you are wondering, I'm not sending out my laundry despite the good rates the logistics team was able to get. It would be about $10 per pound of clothes for me to have laundered and that can start to add up so most of us wash in the bathroom and hang the clothes on the heated towel bar. It doesn't take long for clothes to dry so each day when I get home I change and do laundry. I do believe I thought I wouldn't be doing laundry when I left home, hmmm..... Paul who travels alot for work said the key is to do some everyday so it doesn't pile up. So here's my sink and my clothesline.
Y'all know how much I hate to have my picture taken but I just had to include this one. So imagine that I've been out walking in the sun for four hours on our daily excursion (blogged separately), have come home taken a shower, changed clothes, and gone back out again to the market to get some supplies. On the way back, Cheryl (she's from Colorado) and I stopped for a drink and a snack. I'm sun-burned, tired, hair's not done (who cares) but I have a lovely Bellini and there's air-conditioning!
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