Five Shower Day
Five Shower Day
Lome, Togo West Africa
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Today is a five shower day in Lome, it has been a difficult and hot day as the electricity went off around 9:00 AM and finally returned about 4:00 PM. There was no fan in my Hotel room.
Lome, Togo West Africa
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Today is a five shower day in Lome, it has been a difficult and hot day as the electricity went off around 9:00 AM and finally returned about 4:00 PM. There was no fan in my Hotel room.
On a normal day, I probably take three refresher showers, today is was five and nothing worked as the room was stuffy, hot, no air moving and I could not get my body dried.
Modern World
In some ways, I blame this on the modern world, my present room and most rooms of West Africa seemed designed only for fans and air conditioning. I think of the transoms above doorways in the USA in older homes, those small rectangular windows. They are now often sealed and nailed shut, forced to not work, in many way silly. Heat rises and this allowed cross flow ventilation in the home. And then also a person would lower the top of a two part window and also open the bottom, allowing the cool air to enter and the hot to exit.
Here I am in a concrete box room with one window and no breeze capable of entering or leaving the room, there is huge security wall in this compound structure and I am in a first floor room. If there was a second floor, I would try to move up and catch the breezes from the ocean. We are far, maybe 10 blocks from the ocean, yet this would help.
The modern rooms are no longer designed for fresh air, with proper windows, transoms, cross flow ventilation, they are designed for electricity and fans. However, the electricity is not dependable, therefore, hard to say we are advancing, in a way the mind has slowly disengaged. No longer taking into consideration the reality, and living only by what is given us.
The room is hot, even with he fan it does not work good, I have figure a way to put the fan in the bottom of the window whereby I can suck or push the air in our out from the bottom and in the night cool the room properly, and the hot air is either pushed out or the cold air is sucked in.
Five Shower Day
Labels: Heating or Cooling, Togo, Toilets and Showers
2 Comments:
andy, you were in nepal recently and i remember you saying the electricity was out or something and you were cold. now your in togo, no juice, and its sweltering. sounds like the electrical reliability along your path has been less than great lately.
five showers, wow. must be a cooker, how much cooler is it near the shoreline?
eric
Electricity is needed when the world is givng me a room that needs electricity to function properly. I keep trying to learn more and more about choosing a room.
There is a Hotel called the Palm Beach that is in the center of Lome, across the street from the ocean and may be the best or worst hotel in the city. IF very high in the hotel, maybe a good breeze and quiet. IF low in the hotel the road in front on the ocean front is about the worst for noise in the city.
I am in a great location, about two blocks away from the beeps of motocycles, however close enough where I can flag one down easy to get moto taxi ride.
I think the bottom line is this, ever hotel has a couple of primo rooms and all the others are OK. I am looking for Prime locations for about 5,000 CFA or less than 10 Dollars US per night.
I think the personaliy of the owner or manager is my first consideration. Then noise levels, then choosing the room for heating or cooling.
The French guy from Ghana rented a room in the bottom of a three story concrete apartment. The room is constantly cool because of the concrete above him. I am in a one-story room, there is no concrete above me, just a hot roof with an attic.
I think I could say, go to this hotel, stay in room number X, if this person, show a picture is not working anymore, than you need to decide whether the new person is acceptable. I would suppose the room would stay ok, providing the have not raised the price.
I think maybe I could say to the one independent person, here are about three rooms, good luck, I hope they are available.
Too close to the beach here and the wind off the ocean is annoying, it is not a gentle breeze on this ocean area until it get a distance, however, I am sure this varies.
The answer is, a lot cooler close to the shore, however extremely noisy because on a big highway that is coming from Ghana with trucks.
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