The first week I spent in my city it felt like summer, but
just a week later the weather changed and it started to feel chillier and
chillier and since the beginning of November it’s been downright cold all the
time.
No, wait, I take that back. I lived in Vermont for 5 years.
I know what the cold is. 0˚F for weeks on end, snow storms where you loose your
car in a parking lot and never a snow day because Vermonters are well prepared
for dealing with ridiculous amounts of snow and are completely fearless in the
face snow and ice. Here we just had our first frost this week, and this city
still hasn’t seen snow yet this year (one of the only places in Georgia).
But, the one key difference between here and there is a
little something called heating. In America, even a cold house is still
probably tolerably warm if you put on a sweater and warm slippers. Here, well,
it’s normal for the temperature inside the house to be the same as outside the
house. I was a little worried back in October when I realized that our house
only had one tiny electric space heater. Then once November came around, my
family dragged in a wood stove that hooks up to a pipe in the wall. Of course,
wood stoves can only be lit when someone is home/awake to feed the fire. And
while I know many Americans use wood stoves to heat their houses (and I’m not
sure how the system works), wood stoves here are only capable of heating the
room in which they are located. And even then, while they certainly take the
chill out of a room, you’ll never really feel warm unless you are sitting
within a one meter radius of the stove.
Another problem with keeping houses warm is the fact that
houses here are basically cinder blocks or cement covered with dry wall (if
you’re lucky). A little thing called insulation is conspicuously lacking,
causing any heat that is generated to be immediately sucked from the house.
I guess I’m lucky that that little electric space heater has
been now moved into my bedroom since the wood stove was set up, since my room
is the furthest from any source of heat, but because of either the cost of
electricity or the danger of leaving it running for hours on end (or more
likely, both) I can’t leave it on while I sleep, and obviously leaving it on
when I’m not home is out of the question. Which means that my room is
perpetually cold. If I don’t wear a sweatshirt to bed I will wake up in the
night from the cold. Sometimes on cold nights, I get into bed and wait for the
blankets to warm up… but they never do. And let’s not talk about getting out of
bed in the morning. I’ve now started a ritual that when my first alarm rings, I
get up, hit snooze and turn on the heater. Then hopefully after 30 minutes of
hitting the snooze button my room will be sufficiently warm that I can get out
of bed without completely freezing to death. Then I take my clothes, which all
feel like blocks of ice, and warm them in front of the heater for a few minutes
before putting them on.
Oh, and let’s not forget about school. It’s clear that
whenever the school was built, however many years ago, undoubtedly during
soviet times, there was some sort of central heating in the school. Cast iron
radiators can be seen here and there around the school, quite like my own home
in America. But, the days of central heating are long gone. As in most homes,
the school relies on wood stoves to heat the classrooms. But, of course, with
probably over 20 classrooms in the school, there are not enough wood stoves to
go around. Some classrooms are lucky to get a wood stove, most still go
without. We teachers are lucky because in our lunch room and in our teacher’s
room there are wood stoves, and so after every class we go and warm our numb
hands during the 10 minute breaks between classes. I have no idea how the
children are able to study in these conditions. When I am sitting and not
moving my whole body turns to ice and all I can think about is the cold. I am
always happy when I can get up and teach the class because it means I can move
around and get the blood flowing.
But, all this I can handle. Sure it means that I spend a lot
of time huddled around heaters and drinking tea in the morning just to hold a
hot mug in my hand for a few minutes since the wood stove has been out for the
past 8 hours and the house is the same temperature as outside. All this I knew
coming to Georgia. All this I have experienced before when I lived in Chile
during university. This is nothing. The part about this that irks me the most
is what is produced by all the wood stoves.
I used to love the smell of a wood stove when I lived in
America. That lovely smell of burning wood on a winter night. It was always
something pleasant for me. But here, when every house in the city is burning
their wood stoves to warm their houses, the air becomes thick with smoke.
Perhaps if they were only burning firewood it could be tolerable, but Georgians
use their wood stoves as another form of rubbish disposal. Every form of waste
in my house with the exception of glass bottles and food scraps are thrown into
the fire. Plastic bags, potato chip bags, candy wrappers, today I even saw a
plastic egg carton thrown in. For the first few weeks, the smell of burning
trash in the air was absolutely sickening to me. Just walking home through the
smoke filled streets was enough to make me slightly nauseous. But, as I write
this I realize that I haven’t felt that feeling in the past week or so. I guess
I’m getting used to the smell of burning plastic… which is probably not a good
thing because breathing in those toxic fumes can not be good for one’s health.
All I can say is, for those of you who are planning to come
to Georgia, be prepared for the cold of winter. Long underwear, thick sweaters,
fuzzy socks and slippers will all be put to good use in your daily life. Not to
mention a good winter jacket, scarves, hats, gloves, and (the one thing I
forgot) good boots.
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