{"id":7941,"date":"2011-06-23T13:06:34","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T09:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=7941"},"modified":"2011-07-16T11:04:35","modified_gmt":"2011-07-16T07:04:35","slug":"the-ahem-joy-of-summer-in-dubai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/the-ahem-joy-of-summer-in-dubai\/","title":{"rendered":"The, ahem, ‘Joy’ of Summer in Dubai"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Upon awakening this morning, I could not see out my windows. Lion asked\u00a0 me\u00a0if it had been raining – the condensation was thick and punctuated\u00a0 with\u00a0large rivulets that revealed the jungle our garden has become. But if I\u00a0look out the windows on the second storey, I can see nothing but beige.\u00a0The light is dull, the sun shrouded in mother earth’s pollution – dust\u00a0 and humidity.<\/p>\n

The streets are silent, but for a man in orange\u00a0 sweeping the curb and a\u00a0gardener in grubby shalwar qameez dragging\u00a0 a rusty lawn mower behind his\u00a0bike. The joggers and dog walkers are\u00a0 nowhere to be seen. Even bus\u00a0children wait in the air conditioned zone\u00a0 on their front doorsteps until\u00a0the last moment when the school bus\u00a0 toots. Outside has become the wild\u00a0frontier – only the strong, mad or\u00a0 unfortunate will brave it.<\/p>\n

My day revolves around thirty second\u00a0 walks between my car and cooled\u00a0venues. I leave early and ensure I\u00a0 arrive in time to secure a good carpark\u00a0at my destination. Others flout\u00a0 the rules and double park wherever they\u00a0please, knowing the parking\u00a0 ticket is worth it to avoid the long walk in\u00a0the heat. Not that there\u00a0 are many parking inspectors on the job anyway.<\/p>\n

On the radio, the news reader reminds us to check our tyres for tread and\u00a0inflation. Bitumen can get to 70\u00baC on days like this, hot enough to cause a\u00a0second degree burn in 1 second, and of course cause tyre blowouts. I am\u00a0also careful not to leave my purse in the car when I lock it – not because\u00a0of theft, which is a rare occurance here, but because my credit cards could\u00a0melt.<\/p>\n

Today I brave\u00a0 Karama. The folks back home want a collection of good cheap\u00a0knock-offs.\u00a0 Even the polo shirts hanging outside on racks are hot to the\u00a0touch.\u00a0 Inside they have the AC set to max. A haze of humidity gathers at\u00a0the\u00a0 door where the temperatures clash, and no matter which way you are\u00a0walking, you end up damp on the other side. My handbag man gives me a\u00a0cuddle upon sealing the deal, and he recoils in soggy horror after\u00a0accidentally touching my sweaty shirt-back.<\/p>\n

At\u00a0 pick-up, all the parents run from car to school foyer, where we wait\u00a0illegally till the last moment. We have been instructed not to clutter\u00a0 the\u00a0public areas, but the thought of waiting outside is sickening. Small\u00a0 talk\u00a0with other mothers has all but ceased. Our sedentary indoor\u00a0 lifestyle\u00a0provides little in the way of news and anecdotes. Besides, the\u00a0 heat makes\u00a0us tired.<\/p>\n

Everyone is tired. We get no sunshine and\u00a0 are all vitamin D deficient. We\u00a0are lethargic, moody, and our viruses\u00a0 keep circulating in the perpetual\u00a0air-conditioning, so we are all sick.\u00a0There\u00a0 are those who work outside, and they are sicker, with heatstroke,\u00a0never-ending headaches, urinary tract infections, high blood pressure,\u00a0 and\u00a0other effects of extreme heat and dehydration. Heat-related deaths are not\u00a0unheard of. Outdoor labour is\u00a0 banned between the hours of 12:30\u00a0 and 3:30,\u00a0but this is often ignored. I see them in their blue overalls,\u00a0 wet from the\u00a0shoulders to the waist, faces stained with dust and salt.\u00a0 They wrap\u00a0scarves on their heads in meager protection – I wonder if it\u00a0 actually\u00a0makes them hotter. At the traffic lights, from my air\u00a0 conditioned car, I\u00a0see them peering through my windows, and I wonder how\u00a0 they can keep the\u00a0malice from their tired stares. After all, I may not be\u00a0 their boss, but my\u00a0life in Dubai supports this employment and everything that comes with it.<\/p>\n

Sometimes they even smile, and it makes me want to cry.<\/p>\n

At\u00a0 home, I put on a new DVD for the kids, and we break the Lego\u00a0construction from yesterday so we can start again. We play foozball,\u00a0 UNO,\u00a0build cubby houses with chairs and blankets. I bake, and blog, and\u00a0 then\u00a0blog about baking, and eventually, in our boredom we slump on the\u00a0 couch\u00a0and eat cupcakes.<\/p>\n

On the weekend we go to malls. We shop,\u00a0 walk, ski, skate, abseil, play\u00a0pinball, take rollercoaster rides, and\u00a0 terrify tots in playcentres, all in\u00a0malls. We eat in the malls. We buy\u00a0 things we don’t need. We stop for\u00a0coffee we don’t want. It’s all\u00a0 expensive, and every moment we look forward\u00a0to the day we can get back\u00a0 in our pool. For it remains in the central yard\u00a0of our compound, a\u00a0 tempting yet deceitful cool blue colour, but hotter\u00a0than a bath.<\/p>\n

This week we have visitors – friends of my parents. We were supposed to go\u00a0out Tuesday, but Margot was struck down by the suffocating air and spent\u00a0the first 36 hours doubling and tripling her asthma medication so she could\u00a0breathe. We finally make it out on late on Thursday evening, relatively\u00a0cool at 36 degrees, and are actually able to have a drink outside at\u00a0Madinat Jumeirah when a freak sea breeze wafts in.<\/p>\n

I wonder why people visit Dubai at this time. And I wonder why the UAE\u00a0tourism board promotes visits. Everyone who comes at this time of year\u00a0hates it. All they see is the malls and the haze. They boil, and then\u00a0seethe at the money they have wasted on such a ridiculous stopover. There\u00a0are some that don’t seem bothered – the crazies of course, loons I can see\u00a0sitting outside on the “Big Bus Tour’, or the die-hard shoppers, just here\u00a0for the festival. And then the naive, who let the tour companies take them\u00a0out for a simmering desert experience. Even a stroll around the gold souq\u00a0is enough to topple the unseasoned. They miss out on so much – the beaches\u00a0and crystal clear water (which is now about 40\u00baC), the souks and Bastakiya,strolling around the waterway under the Burj Khalifa, the JBR Walk, the\u00a0Marina, dhow trips, desert camping and the mountains and wadis, and justambling around the back streets of Deira around the Naif souq. They go home\u00a0and tell their friends what a hole Dubai is, poisoning its reputation.<\/p>\n

If only they came in March….But it is a stopover, isn’t it. They’re all\u00a0on their way to Europe for the summer, joining up with cruise ships,\u00a0escaping the monsoons to the east.<\/p>\n

The lucky leave this season behind, migrating north to milder climates, or\u00a0south to a winter we never see here. Those who remain may tell you that\u00a0summer is not so bad. The seasoned laugh at us newcomers. We are weak and\u00a0intolerant. And it’s true, Dubai’s Summer does put one more in touch with\u00a0the soul of this amazing place. We do live in a desert after all. And for\u00a0some reason, while swinging in my hammock outside in the evening, sweating\u00a0out the toxins of my man-made, interior-spent day, in Dubai’s free daily\u00a0sauna, I do feel that the Muezzins always sound better at this time of\u00a0year. I really DO live in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Leave me a comment and make my\u00a0day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE HEDONISTA: It’s hot enough to melt a credit card left on a car seat, even though the A\/C is set to max. Everyone is lethargic, moody and possibly sick. Hooray for Summer in Dubai. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264,"featured_media":7942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,5,187],"tags":[197,470,191,18316,162],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/264"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}