jazzy umbrellas, cool mosque floors, ice beans : Goats and Soda

The world is hot this year. Ridiculously hot. Fry an egg on the sidewalk hot. How are people dealing with the heat?

We asked the photojournalists of The Everyday Projects to make pictures of heat relief strategies in their countries. Their cameras took aim at the cool floors of a mosque’s entryway in Kashmir to swimming, kids splashing in a makeshift pool in a working-class Cairo neighborhood, an icy and affordable treat in Singapore and more. Here are photos of the often centuries-old ways the world is beating the heat.

Pool party in a working-class neighborhood

Um Aya and Hussein if Cairo bought this pool as a treat for their children. When neighborhood kids wanted to join in the fun, the couple saw a business opportunity they hoped would benefit their family and their community. Eight years later, the pool is a splashing success.

Roger Anis for NPR

It started as a family project Um Aya and her late husband, Hussein, hoped would bring their children joy and a reprieve from Cairo heat: a plastic swimming pool.

They set it up on the street outside their home in Manshiyat Naser, El-Deweika, one of the city’s working class neighborhoods, where the percentage of people experiencing poverty is high. The pool’s striking blue plastic is a sharp contrast to the worn brick homes it sits among.

The pool is the only one most children in the neighborhood can afford to use. But even the small fee, 5 Egyptian pounds ($0.14) is too much for some so the exceptions are made.

Roger Anis for NPR

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