When we first announced to our family and friends that we were moving to the Dominican Republic, everyone was so envious of us leaving snow behind. No more shoveling snow! You can give those snow shovels away! Give all your coats to goodwill! No more winter boots and mitts!

I was leaving this white wonderland behind. Never another case of frost bite.

Now, I would give my husband’s left arm for snow right this minute. In the Dominican Republic, we have four seasons I like to refer to as Hot, Hotter, Hotter than Hell, and Somewhat Hot with Rain. We are currently in the Hotter than Hell season.

Starting in late August, it was 33°C or 42°C with the humidity. For all of you faithful American readers, that’s 91°F or 108°F with the humidity. Oh, lovely humidity… both wonderful and awful in equal measure. One one hand, it keeps our skin from cracking and drying and – bonus! – no boogers. My skin has a super healthy glow to it, a lovely sheen, really. On the other hand, our hair frizzes and it can feel like our skin is melting off of us.  Yes, those are rivers of water running down the backs of my legs and pooling in my flip flops. I now have sweat oozing out of places that I didn’t know could sweat. A trip to the grocery store means walking around until all the sweat has dried – it takes a long time for underwear to dry so I just keep walking…

I have not been near my swimming pool because the water is truly hot, and the pool deck is like fire to walk on. Today, I had a vision that I could walk to our local colmado for a few small items. It’s about a 2 km walk each way and normally a nice walk. On my way back, our favorite motoconcho driver saw me staggering up the hill almost sticking to the melting asphalt and kindly stopped and told me to get on his bike for a ride home.

Living on our rock, we often have struggles with the electricity. Normally, I don’t panic if the power goes out during the day, but I get particularly crazy at night while this rock gal is trying to get her beauty sleep in her concrete tent. The last few nights have been somewhat of a challenge for us and this rock dweller is just plain cranky. Our power company has decided it is time to repair the main generator and replace the high voltage lines – in the dark. One can only wonder why company planners would decide that this is a good time to play with the electricity, but I leave those decisions to the powers that be.

I have a love/hate relationship with our generator which we bought three years ago. After six years, we decided that it was time to have a backup source of electricity. I love having the option of reliable electricity, but generators are very noisy – especially in the dead quiet of night. I don’t think we are loved by our neighbours, as last night our “genny” ran until 12:30am. We simply needed to have a fan blowing. When we turned the generator off at 12:30 am, the only sound that could be heard in the dead quiet of the night was the humming of mosquitoes coming for the buffet of our sweating flesh.

As I sit and write today, a hot, tropical wind blows through my open window and I feel like I’m sitting inside a convection oven. Now that we’re nearing mid-October, my hope is this “hotter than hell” season will end. Now this may make me unpopular to admit, but my next request to coming visitors is going to be a snowstorm.

No, I don’t need any red meat, speciality snacks from up north, and the like. Just bring me snow. I just want to lie in it for a minute, please.