"Hey Gringa, you are from North America, you are used to the cold. Why are you in a coat?"
This is a beautifully summarized version of the conversation I have had with what feels like every single person in the Indaiatuba factory this past week.
It is cold in Brazil now, we are in fact in winter in the southern hemisphere and while they do not get snow, they do get cold-ish. To give you an idea, here is what the next five days looks like in my neck of the woods.
Nothing scary right? In fact I can even remember thinking to myself many times how AMAZING 77 feels after coming out of a really long winter. I may have been known to wear shorts during such temperatures even. I have no reason at all to say anything about it being cold in Brazil. (Please note, lows in the 50s that is arguably coat weather, even if we are just talking the North Face fleece).
Now, here is the hour by hour forecast for Sunday (tomorrow) morning - not bad! Getting to the 70s by mid day, just in time for a quick trip to the "feira" (weekend art/craft/food fair) for some homemade pasta and sweets!
However.... lets look at what happens at night....
Yes - the temperature dips to about 50 all night. Again, not to bad right? Nothing at all like the -20 degrees of Chicago or the snow filled nights in Colorado when it is a safety hazard to be outside.
So... why do I say it is cold in Brazil? Obviously it is not.
Brazil does not have heat. No joke. Much like some homes (my own growing up) do not have air conditioning in the US, Brazilian homes do not have a furnace or heating system. So, when it is 50 degrees outside, it is 50 degrees inside also. So you wear a nice jacket at home at 50 degrees to get from the house to the car, from the car to the mall/restaurant/back to the house, but in between times you are greeted with a temperature controlled ambient temperature around what... 72... maybe 69 if you are cutting back for costs. In all honestly the time you actually spend outside in that miserable, unbearable, frozen fingertips cold of below freezing is very very minimal. When you have to go outside to bear this freezer of a world, you run (safely), make it as quick as possible, bundle up, and hurry!
Not here in Brazil. If it is 50 outside, it is 50 inside, which means you are wearing your coat inside. Ok, that isn't too bad right? I wear my sweatpants and hoodies all the time at home, nothing unusual about bundling up a bit when it is chilly outside. What is different is being at 50 ALWAYS. I cannot go stand over the heating vent in the floor for 3 minutes to thaw out my toes (I can turn my hair drier on though...) I crawl into bed in long pants, socks (who wears socks to bed really?!?), a sweatshirt, and last night, I wore my hood up! Because at 50 degrees when you are trying to sleep it is like camping!!!
Your body slows down, you aren't moving, you are not generating the same heat you once were. No, you are actually participating in a loosing battle with thermodynamics at this point. Nature wants you to be the same temperature as the surroundings (I believe that would be the second law... everything tends to chaos?) which means your body has to generate heat/energy to compensate for this continual "sharing" (more like nature taking) of energy. When your outside temperature is colder, your body has to generate thermal energy faster (I am sure I could figure out the math on this and do a few quick energy balances, but my fingers are pretty chilly and I just don't care enough) because the rate of heat transfer is higher, so more energy, faster.
So the point is, you don't sleep so well when your body takes to shivering in an attempt to create more energy and thus heat. When you roll over and your foot touches that cold spot in the sheets you try to become a fetus again and occupy as little space as possible.
It also means that yes, Brazil is cold, and NO the Gringa from the North is NOT used to dealing with environments that are not controlled.... not for days on end. Sure the first week was sort of fun (like camping) but now, after a few more weeks... I am ready for a freakin' furnace and I am not ashamed to say it - BRAZIL IS COLD!
*Thank you weather.com for the forecast and graphs*
