Summer in the Arabian Gulf

In the Gulf states it is common to have water tanks on the flat roofs of the houses. During the summer these tanks are subjected to the intense rays of the sun and the water inside heats up to a great degree. To be able to get a comfortable shower we have to switch off the water heater and let that water cool down, which it eventually does because it’s inside the house in the a/c. We then use this cooler water from the hot tap and top it up with boiling water from the cold tap, which has come down from the roof. Confusing . Being an Islamic country, Oman has the usual water hoses in the toilets for washing after using the toilet. I have adopted this habit, but have to proceed with great caution at this time of year because, after an initial burst of cool water, the boiling water from the roof tank kicks in. Boy, does that make me jump !

So why aren't we all clamoring to move to the Gulf? It sounds so inviting.

Hoses in the toilets for washing? Several images pop up. Do you have a piccie?

It doesn't look like I can post photos on the blog, Selchie, so I've put it on the Photos N Things section. I've become addicted to these hoses as using them does help to make me more comfortable and confident. They are blighters though because they tend to develop leaks easily and, considering we have 6 bathrooms/toilets in the house, this can become a nightmare. We only generally use 2 of the toilets, 1 upstairs and 1 down, and the rest stay with the water turned off so we're not greeted by a flood when we open the bathroom door.

I think there are several reasons why people find it difficult to live in the Middle East and the summer weather is just one of them. Combine opening a really hot oven door and feeling the blast of hot air that takes your breath away with the thick moist air of a sauna in full steam and you've probably got a good example of how it feels to be outside on bad days. With the humidity it's hard to get dry after a shower or bath and, if I spend time curling my hair and set foot outside afterwards, my hair just drops within minutes.

I think we find it harder to cope with the harsh climate the older we get. The locals complain of rheumatism because of flitting between the chilly a/c and the hot and humid outdoor weather. Many of our own people, particularly the women and children, go back to their base country during the summer because they can't tolerate the conditions. When I saw the doctor a few weeks ago he asked if I was going away for the summer. I replied that we'd already had our 'holiday' and would, as usual, be staying in Oman. He laughed and offered me his commiserations. I found the Kuwaiti summer easier because there's only 2 months of humidity and it's not every day. It's much drier there, but that means hotter.

Because of the extreme heat outside, a lot of insects migrate into the houses where it’s cooler and they can escape certain death for a while longer. Tiny ants, big cockroaches and some weeny insects that annoyingly form hundreds of small brown puffs of something like dust in the angles of the walls and skirtings all vie for a place in our home, many of them finding their way up through the drains in the floors of the kitchen and bathrooms. As we progress further into summer, the one benefit is that the mosquitoes tend to die out and we have peace for a few months. There are still the odd couple dancing around in the evenings, looking for a quick meal, but they are only there because of the a/c. Outside, one of the daily sounds of summer is the song of locusts in the trees and bushes. It’s a high pitched sizzling noise which really gets quite loud in favourite places where they congregate in great numbers. Very infrequently the locusts go on the rampage and devour all the greenery they can find, but I haven’t been witness to this yet. Our cats don’t escape the heat unscathed. Chunky is very much an outdoor cat, but he can only venture out at night when the heat, although still stifling at around 40 deg.C, isn’t quite so intense without the sun beating down. When he comes back in, he lies panting (sometimes literally gasping) for breath on the cool marble floor. It’s a wonder his little heart can stand it. There have been times when we could see he was fighting for breath, his paws reaching out to us as if asking for our help. It’s a pity he hasn’t got the sense to come back in before it gets to that stage. Purdey, on the other hand, doesn’t go out so much and hangs around with us, so she’s OK. I really worry for all the wadi cats and dogs (strays) that can’t get out of the heat. I’m sure many of them die during this time .

Our homes and vehicles don’t escape the rigours of the heat either. Wooden doors tend to warp enough to make locking and unlocking them very difficult. No point trying to get in or out in a hurry. Going up to the third floor, which is level with the roof, is pretty awful because the heat up there is suffocating. The maid’s room (if I had a maid) is up there and contains my washing machine and all our packing boxes (some still unpacked), so frequent trips up there are necessary. Because we don’t keep the a/c on up there, everything is very hot and must be deteriorating steadily. Care needs to be taken when touching anything metal or plastic outside. External door handles, car door handles and seatbelt buckles are a favourite way to get a nasty burn if they’ve been exposed to the sun. The other day I saw our neighbour struggling to start his car. His mate tried to push it (backwards? ) but couldn’t bear to touch the bonnet until a cloth was offered as a buffer between his hands and the hot metal. Many items, like window frames and gates, are metal because wood would dry out quickly and distort.

I think that’s enough for this first offering. I’m off up to the roof to hang out my washing. Cottons will be dry in 5 mins. and towels about 15 mins. Summer in the Gulf does have some benefits .

Blog titles have a 2000 character maximum, the bogs themselves were 10,000 but I've changed that to unlimited now so you can paste all the comments back in to your blog if you want MB.

I don't know how you cope MB- I couldn't live like that. I'm not good with the heat and being fair skined and red headed the sun isn't so kind to me. I guess if you lived there for many years you would kind of get used to it but by the sound sof things even the natives find it uncomfortable. I'd be locking myself indoors with the a/c on full blast.

It sounds like the Deep South of the US, or possibly even worse. Ugh. Poor Chunky.

Visiting the Middle East and living here are quite different experiences . The culture, scenery and the (almost) consistently ‘good’ weather is a draw to many who visit and stay in hotels. These people get the benefits of seeing the country and its attractions, but they are protected from the realities of life here. In a hotel, you don’t constantly battle with the sand and dust that covers everything in the home, inside and out, on a daily basis, even food in cupboards . It’s particularly bad here at the moment because of the vast amount of construction work going on throughout the area. The wind can be pretty strong during the heat of the day and whips up the loose soil and sand, carrying it along until it is blasted in through our badly fitting windows and doors.

In the built-up areas we don’t have many proper sand and dust storms, although it’s bad enough having the wind blow stuff around as it gets in your eyes and mouth . We have seen 2 kinds of sandstorm in other places. One was very painful because sand was blasted against all exposed skin areas and felt like thousands of needles. This was in open desert where the sand and wind could blow unhindered. The other type we also get here on occasions and it takes the form of mist or fog where the sun is almost shut out and the mountains disappear. After a while, we find everything covered in fine orange or yellow sand-dust which has dropped out of the air. It’s a bit perturbing to think that we are breathing in this dust-laden air.

Summer is a time of very high humidity . I’m hanging out washing and continually mopping my face as salty perspiration runs into my eyes, stinging and blinding me. I can’t see what I’m doing and my clothing is soaked. I sweep the stairs (3 storeys) from the roof down and again find myself soaked to the skin (our a/c isn’t very efficient). No wonder most women have maids. If I lie out on a sunbed (usually in the shade at this time of year) I have to keep blinking to clear the moisture from my eyes so I can see to read my book. I swear my eyeballs sweat, but then perhaps it’s just me . I can stand outside for 5 mins., not moving a muscle, and I can see my skin glistening, then dripping with condensation and my clothing darkens with moisture soaking through from my body.

With the relentless heat our external doors are drying out and warping. Locking and unlocking them has always been a problem in this house due to shoddy workmanship, but now, with the warping, we often struggle to get in or out and the door knob on the front door is coming loose with having to pull hard on it. Soon we will be totally knobless and it will be a battle with the landlady to get it fixed as she has always maintained that we use the house therefore we should pay to maintain it. Odd that this is the first time in all our years in the Middle East where we’ve come across this attitude and funny how our standard-form lease clearly states on the back that it’s the landlord’s responsibility to maintain the place . If we break or damage anything due to our own fault we always replace or repair it, but not when there’s been an existing problem with an item – and this house is full of existing problems .