The worst day of the heat wave: “My bald head is burning”


Fans, sweaty shirts and shiny skin. The script for ‘Fire in the Body’, a complex and splendid film noir (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981), falls short of defining what is happening in Spain, scorched by second-earliest heat wave on record. The 2018 Veranos de la Villa poster never made so much sense: a pool flip-flop melted like chewing gum on the hot asphalt of Madrid.

up in the basque oasis are preparing to arrive this weekend at the 40 degrees. The people of Bilbao will now do what Andalusians and Extremadurans have been doing all their lives: close blinds and windows during the day to prevent the air, turned into fire, from entering the houses. They only open once night falls. «From now on we must avoid heating houses, in order to rest. Nothing happens for a sleepless night. For two, neither. But when they start to be three or four…», warn those responsible for Euskalmet.

No one is surprised anymore to see people with umbrellas on the street to protect yourself from the sun. Going hatless outdoors can lead you straight to emergencies, as happened to Candela on Saturday after taking a boat ride on the San Juan reservoir (Madrid). The next day she felt so bad that her husband accompanied her to the hospital. In addition to the injection to combat the intense pain, the medical prescription against sunstroke It was very simple: a lot, a lot, a lot Water.

Two and a half liters of water is drunk every day Juan, a delivery man who has chosen, like many colleagues, to work in shorts. His big flaw is that he still doesn’t wear a cap. “My bald head is burning & rdquor ;, he admits smiling. Aware that the medical and scientific community ask not to work or play sports on the street With extreme temperatures, Juan shrugs his shoulders and assures that there is no other, that you have to earn your bread.

“Working in the street with 40 degrees is hard. I drink two and a half liters of water a day”

John, delivery man

“At least -adds the delivery man- we no longer wear a mask & rdquor ;. The heat wave has been, precisely, the great excuse for the waiters to have said goodbye to oral nasal protection. Until now they continued to carry it despite the fact that it was not an obligation. Seeing, finally, the face of the person who makes your coffee every day is not the only effect that the heat wave has had on the hospitality industry. The immense terraces of the bars is it so completely deserted because there hasn’t been time to install the water diffusers. An awning and umbrella is not enough.

The very high temperatures open newscasts, newspapers and radio news. It is the great topic of conversation in the street. The stores sell fans with the expression ‘fucking heat’ and the shop windows attract customers with mini fans colorful to wear on the street. On the internet, magnetic refrigerators are offered “to prevent the mobile battery from suffering from the heat wave & rdquor;. Department stores are not enough with the sale of fans and if these days you try to fix your air conditioner, the most normal thing is that the technician or pick up the phone because he is saturated with work. At the top are also the ‘handyman at home’ of home insurance that they install ceiling fans in housesa greener option than air conditioning.

A heat wave in June is not that rare. In 2019 there was. Also in 2017 and 2015. What is not so normal is the duration, the intensity and the date (middle of the month and not at the end). Global warming means that the unbearable rise in thermometers no longer belongs exclusively to July and August. No one with half a brain denies the climate emergency. But when the heat wave moves to politics, denial shows its paw.

“I understand the opposition, that it has to generate scandals and provoke fear, but that it is hot in June is part of the most natural thing in the world”. The sentence is from Pedro Muñoz, spokesman for the PP in the Community of Madrid. When he said it on Tuesday, Muñoz was wearing a long shirt, jacket and tie and he was in the Assembly, with the air conditioning at 23 degrees.

The heat in Spain is of such caliber that tie it is no longer an essential complement for some executives. At the time of the coffee break, in the Salamanca district (Madrid) you see a handful of businessmen with jackets but without ties, quite daring in the classic world of work, where it is well seen that a woman dressed in a blouse but shorts are still banned for the male gender.

“I bring a bottle of ice water from home and I don’t leave the fan”

Gloria, artisan with a stall at the Madrid fair

water (literally)

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Gloria works on the street and does not have air conditioning. She is not a sweeper or a delivery person or a driver. She is an artisan. She has a stand of hand-painted t-shirts in the craft fair in Madrid, on Recoletos street, and his trick to survive the intense heat is to bring a ice cold water bottle and a small fan. At lunchtime, she closes the stall and goes with other colleagues under the shade of a tree. Many artisans take advantage of the break to water themselves -literally- with the sprinklers on the Paseo de Recoletos boulevard. At five they reopen. And they melt again with heat, but they don’t stop smiling at the (few) customers who come by.

At the fair, there are other artisans who don’t even have a fan. His face says it all. They are sprayed with water from a spray, an essential element also in schools, converted into ovens two weeks before the end of the course. And other artisans, the most cautious, opt for Electric mini-fridges or fans that vaporize water. “I can’t live without this & rdquor ;, explains an artisan pointing to her device. Next to him, Thiago – who turns mandalas into jewelry – is desperate when he says that there is no mandala big enough to combat the climate emergency.


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