Keeping warm

Today the maximum temperature in Kabul will be O°C and it has started to snow - so Kabul at least will experience a white Christmas. (Though it is quite easy to forget it is Christmas at all here, as the reminders are few...) Instead, the pre-occupation for most at the moment is how to keep warm. Houses do not have central heating and the insulation is poor. Though sometimes you do see plastic sheeting taped to the outside of windows which provides a little extra insulation. And in some houses only the bedrooms and living rooms are heated, leaving the hallways and even the bathrooms and kitchens cold.

The main source of heat is from a traditional bukhari (heater in Dari), which uses different types of fuel - diesel, wood or sawdust. When they work well the room is lovely and warm, however they cannot be lit by a thermostat or timer! The wood or sawdust bukharis have little regulation, especially the sawdust one - once lit it burns until all the sawdust is gone.

This is the sawdust bukhari which I had for a while, but I am going to switch over to a diesel one for when it gets really cold. The sawdust burns slowly over 5-6 hours, which means that in the morning your room is COLD and getting up is an unpleasant prospect (or perhaps I should say more unpleasant than normal...). A diesel bukhari with a full tank can be left burning on a low setting overnight and the room is still warm in the morning and there is no need for relighting upon getting up, you just increase the setting. It is much harder to regulate the burning of the sawdust - I found that a hour or so after it was lit it became extremely hot with the metal glowing red - not the safest thing to have in the middle of a room without a fireguard; which I discovered when plastic controls of an oil radiator which was nearby melted... ooops! However, the problem with diesel is that it smells, and the holding tank of the bukhari is not the best placed, so when filling, diesel often slops around...mmm, lovely.

And so from a snowy Kabul on Christmas Eve, I wish you a warm and peaceful Christmas.