I'm Melllllttttting!

Well, summer has arrived…officially by date of June 21, but it really arrived back in April. Now it has come on with a vengeance. Our highs for yesterday and today hovered around the 125 F mark. The heat was accompanied by hot winds from the southeast which brought with them a sandstorm. The air was just filled with sand. Who needs to pay for dermabrasion when you live in Jeddah?! As we were out running a couple of errands (only out of necessity) it felt as if we were walking into an oven. I have never felt this kind of heat before…except when opening an oven door. We were in Phoenix a couple of summers ago when they topped out at 117. This feels so much hotter. To think, last year when we were planning our move here, I told Dano we could survive the summer; not to worry about coming home to Ohio. As long as we have a swimming pool we could withstand any heat…except when the swimming pool feels like a really warm bath. So wrong was I!!

As we were walking around today I thought it very unfair and somewhat uncaring that men can wear whatever they want and if they’re the religious type, their robes are loose, white robes. Whereas, if you’re a woman, you have to cover from head to toe in heat-absorbing black abbayas. No wonder I’ve heard rumors that many women only wear their unmentionables under their abbayas!

It has made me even more grateful for air conditioning and very compassionate for those who don’t have it here. I’m not sure what good it does to drive with your windows down to let air in when it is this hot. The windows of our car, upon touching, are nearly burning; too uncomfortable for a child to touch. Again, to think I balked at Dano when he told me our car came equipped with seat coolers! They should start equipping them with misters!

The heat and sand caused technological failures all over Jeddah including the kids’ school which lost most of its power for the last two and a half hours of school. They assembled the children and rotated them between the sports hall and library which did still have a/c. Next time, hopefully, they’ll just allow them to call Dano and go home. I can’t imagine being at a school with many kids in 125 temps and hot gusts of wind and no air conditioning. They already have done away with outdoor recesses because of the heat. Perhaps it’s simply time to adjourn school!

As we were driving home, again feeling anguish for the individuals who work outside cleaning, working construction, or selling things, I told Dano I think they have physically adjusted to living under the sun for centuries and centuries. I also think that we Americans were not bred to withstand such heat. I think the local people have different circulatory systems that help them tolerate this heat a little better while us white folk are melting!