Dryers and Static Electricity

I'm not sure what the change in humidity is (in numbers) from rainforest to Canadian prairies, but it's pretty drastic. You can tell the difference in not-so-subtle ways like:

1) In Cameroon our clothes could take 3 days or more to dry, depending on how much room you had in the house to spread out your damp clothes while there was a tropical rainstorm thundering outside. Here in Canada, even jeans and sweaters dry relatively quickly. And when you add in the component of a clothes dryer, which was definitely not feasable with solar power, it is no contest! (note: in Canada you might have to worry about clothes becoming too small from shrinking in the dryer; in Cameroon, we worry about clothes getting too big from the elastic disintegrating!)

2) Celebrating birthdays can be done wherever you are in the world, but certain things don't "translate" into a different climate. One big example is the age-old tradition (for some) of rubbing a balloon on some unsuspecting child's head (hair is definitely needed for this!) and then sticking the static-electricity-charged balloon on a nearby wall. Try that in our tropical setting in Cameroon, and you will a) not get any noticeable static electricity, no matter how hard you rub the balloon, as there is too much humidity, and b) pop the balloon as you attempt to stick it to the wall because the bricks or painted walls are very rough. There goes another tradition!