Chaleur

Teddyphant:

A while ago I wrote a brief story about being between a flaming cyborg moto bull and a hard place. As terrifying as that was, it was nothing, NOTHING compared to the adrenaline inducing horror of being charged by a fully grown, fully enraged African Matriarch Elephant.

I’ve heard people say in the past that elephants are gentle giants, so graceful, playful, and tolerant around humans. I’ve heard assumptions that due to their size, they have to be a slow moving creature. I’ve heard a lot of things from people (whose only experience with the animals is in the zoo, safely protected behind a 30 ton rebar reinforced concrete barrier).

A few facts I have recently learned the hard way about African Elephants:

1)      When they aren’t threatened and/or do not have babies in the group to protect, the above statement is mostly true. Otherwise . . .
2)      They don’t always give warning before they charge, and then, that trumpeting noise isn’t so cute anymore.
3)      They are easily capable of achieving rapid acceleration to speeds well over 30mph.
4)      Like bulls, they are attracted to/enraged by the sight of bright red (color of the van I was sitting on top of).
5)      When they charge, their ears flap like Dumbo. But thank God almighty they can’t fly, because then humans would NOT be the dominant species on the planet (you think bird poop is annoying. . .).
6)      Climbing a tree is useless. They will just tear it down and trample you anyway (luckily we got away before this step became a necessary experiment).

To give a little back-story, I recently went on safari here in Benin for a couple of days. It was fastastic, awe inspiring, blah blah blah. It's all well and good to watch a lioness sleep, but only gets interesting once you poke it with a stick (No of course I didn't poke a freaking lion with a stick).

And to be fair (in regards to the elephants), I saw over 90 elephants and was only charged by one and a half of them cause there were babies in the group and we were pissing it off by simply being in eyesight.

The Mechanics of Sweat

The entire reason we sweat is to cool down our bodies due to an unwelcome rise in body-temperature. It is normally a very effective system where our body perspires sweat, then with the movement of air, our surface temperature (and eventually core temperature) is lowered to a manageable level. The key concept here is airflow.

Now I have never been a very sweaty person. It can be a hot day while I’m running in a sweatshirt, fleece lined pants, and a wool hat and my armpits might get a bit misty. It’s funny how living just above the equator can change all of that. During peak temp's of the day, sweat will literally pour off of my face in a steady unbroken stream.

Right now is the Chaleur in Northern Benin, which means ‘The Heat’, and let me tell you, the name does not disappoint. 110 degrees and calm without a cloud in the sky is what I call nice weather to wake up to. The only factor of that which will change over the course of the day is the temperature, and that only seems to want to go up.

Now as I’ve said before, you need airflow for your body’s natural A/C system to kick into effect. Otherwise you just turn into a self basting turkey (salt rub built in!). Add the heat and I’ve been well done for a month now.

Fun fact: Your eyebrows act like sponges for all the sweat that is produced above them. This is a nice feature until they’re saturated. Then, if you wear glasses, they turn into your own personal storm clouds, and I didn’t get the windshield wiper feature at Lenscrafters.

DJ Doogo (pronounced Doe-go)

I’ve gone global! Ok, well not quite so global, as communal (not commutable, that’s what influenza is). Communes here are basically counties back in the states.

I’ve now got a weekly-one hour timeslot along with two other volunteers on the (only) FM radio station here in the Banikoara Commune. It’s me, DJ Katagory 5, and DJ Chewbaké every Saturday from 2 to 3. Not that you’ll ever be able to tune in and listen.

New Segment!

I don't just sit around looking for raging elephants in insane heat and ramble on like a maniac here in Benin, but that's whats fun to write about.
SO, I'm putting a new text box on the side of my page here with "Ongoing", "Current", and Completed" projects.