Holy Hades!

Holy Hades (as in Hay-deez)! I had a Fiery Furnace Experience last night.

Immediately upon arriving at the Children of the Nations Casa (mission house) in the Dominican Republic, I fell asleep to the loud hum of the A/C unit in my room. The air was cool and it agitated my lingering chest cold a bit, but it was so welcome.

In the middle of the night it stopped. The hum stopped, the coughing stopped… the cold air stopped. Enter Fiery Furnace. Of course, to keep a fire ablaze would have been a supernatural feat, as the air in my room was holding strong to it’s 110% humidity …directly above me… around me… on me.

Finally, I peeled myself out of my pool of a bed to replenish my own hydration, which had now been fully sapped into the Casa air. I wandered through the hall, down the stairs and around to the water machine. Since I may have forgotten to pack pajamas, I was sporting a black dress and praying the married couple in the room next to me would not be on the same late-night trek for water.

As I wandered by the light of my iphone, I considered the newest iphone App- the H20 App- a mapping device which would lead one to the nearest source of drinking water.

The water machine at the Casa didn’t even see me coming. I grabbed a plastic cup, filled it and drank like I was at mile 24 of a marathon. I basically dumped it on my face and slurped in anything that came near my now-swollen tongue. Cup after cup I drank… and one for the road.

After my dousing myself at the water machine, I headed back up to my bed with all notions of healthy and safety far removed. I decided I would grasp at my last hope- that the outside Caribbean air would be even one degree cooler than my sauna, my personal Bikraims studio if you will. The air was, indeed, a full ½ degree cooler. In my daze, I jumped at the opportunity to sleep with the door open to the outside world. Somehow, the mere possibility of creating air movement in my room trumped the risk of anything (tarantula, bat, etc.) or anyone (thief?) entering my room during the night.

By the time the loud jolt of the generator started to sound in the morning, I was up and standing with my finger on the A/C unit on/off button, ready to usher the manufactured air back into my room and lungs. Alas, it happened. The gates of Hades opened and the cool breeze of the Sunbeam window unit entered and with it’s breath came the best hours of sleep I have ever had.