Hot

A few days back, I wrote about the unscheduled 30-minute daily power interruptions that stretched to one hour after two weeks. Now, we’re on to two hours of outages everyday. That’s something not to be happy about but I think it’s human nature to adapt quickly than the mind can argue. Maybe it’s a matter of survival. After all, in the bigger scheme of things, stressing over brownouts is not worth the years off what’s already a diminishing lifetime.

On the upside, the rotating brownouts are now scheduled. Our part of the town experience it between 1pm to 3pm. It’s the time of the day when having no power seems to magnify the fierce heat of the sun. Still, the schedule helps. It removes the daily concern that it might happen when I’m on the middle of working on something on the computer that I wouldn’t be able to save.

It’s also gratifying to see people do their best to endure and cope. In a span of one month, all of these don’t feel as bad as they initially were. My theory is, it’s natural resilience kicking in. And when it does, the human mind begins to open up and find something funny from even the most difficult situations.

This is why what I overheard earlier made me laugh. In the middle of another outage and sweltering heat, I heard three boys hawking homemade bread. Like good little salespeople they sold their goods with much gusto. Not even the crazy heat made them less enthusiastic in selling their bread.

Boy 1: Putok, init pa! (Putok, still hot!)

Boy 2: Putok, putok! Init pa! Init pa sa adlaw!!! (Putok, putok! Hot! Hotter than the sun!!!)

Boy 3: (echoing Boy #2) Init pa sa adlaw!!! (Hotter than the sun!!!)