Heat, mere hunch

RAIN fell in our place late afternoon yesterday, the first time in a few weeks. “Cuaresma,” or at least what I thought the word meant when I was a child, came rather early this year.

It’s not often that a dry spell would come as early as February, although the Catholic world celebrated Ash Wednesday on Valentine’s Day, February 14. By the way, I used to associate the word “cuaresma” to exceedingly hot days.

“Cuaresma” is, of course, the Spanish for Lent and comes from the Latin Quadragesima, which refers to the length of the Lenten season, which is 40 days. But when I was a kid I would often hear my grandmother Nanay Bunding complain about hot days as, like “cuaresma.” Then again, Holy Week has always been hot in the Philippines because this run smack into summ er.

Summer in the Philippines usually comes in late March to May. But the rainfall got fewer as early as in February, although the weather bureau Pagasa said it might officially declare the onset of summer during the Holy Week yet. This is not surprising because Pagasa needs enough data to make the declaration. And didn’t it rain yesterday?

The other Sunday, I was almost felled by dehydration. I did an errand under the heat of the morning sun before preparing to go to mass with my family.

I could sense something was amiss when I felt nauseous. I thought I would collapse in the middle of the mass had not, by instinct, I asked my son to buy me a bottle of cold mineral wat er.

I didn’t want to vomit so I drank the water sip by sip. I could feel the heat in my body lower and the nauseous feeling subside. But I still didn’t feel well even when we were inside a cold mall.

My advice: beware of the heat and drink as many glasses of water as you can.