They Say It Helps to Drink Hot Chai

Its summer and its hot. Really hot. Not since I was a kid living in Buffalo did I feel my life dictated so greatly by the heat as right now. If its 12 and I haven't left the house yet, I'm not going to be leaving the house until evening. If, for some infernal reason, I am required to leave the house between 12 and 7, upon getting home I immediately strip off the clothes I was wearing. I have absolutely no clue why, but aside from playing sports, shorts are incredibly inappropriate for men to wear here. I've heard it said its just as bad to wear no pants as to wear shorts (when you are not playing sports). I have yet to confirm this but its getting hot enough I might try.

Its not just me. Khachmaz could be confused for a ghost town around 2, its so empty and quiet. No one wants to move. If you're a business lucky enough to have air conditioning you stay in your closed door cube. If you're in a house which doesn't have air conditioning (such as: all of them) you will do everything in your power to avoid walking in the heat. I've been without gas for 4 days simply because I didn't want to go out in the heat. Why should I pay to have heat when that's what I'm trying to avoid.

Its not so much the actual temperature (which is high-though not as bad here as other towns in Azerbaijan) or the humidity (which is constant) as much as the direct, unblocked sun. With the lower caucuses to our immediate West all clouds are blocked for days at a time. We'll have sunny, pure blue sky days for a week. Its actually quite beautiful if one could stand to be outside during this time. But this geological obstacle is also one of our greatest benefactors. Because at the end of a week of uninterrupted skin-cancer causing sunlight the mountains can no longer hold back the clouds that have been accumulating and they pour over the peaks readying themselves for a rain to fall in a couple of days. And after this early morning rainfall we'll have a couple of 70 degree days which make Khachmaz seem like the most wonderful place on earth in the Northern Hemisphere.

ps: Oh and that think about the hot chai cooling you off...doesn't work