Summer Heat

The summer is eradicating my will to live! I’m thankful we have no sea here because everybody tells me that they’re dying from humidity in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Fortunately for us countryside people, even on a bad day Al Ain still has a pleasant gentle wind that blows all your problems away every once in a while. But today isn't just a bad day. It's hell! The thing with Al Ain is that it’s too desert-like: the high temperature is a killer but now it’s summer it is also especially windy and the sand just keeps coming in your eyes, you have to wear sunglasses all the time because it’s too bright to go out with your eyes exposed, unless you enjoy squinting. And even though it’s exceedingly hot you still have to really cover up from top to bottom to avoid the sun scorching your skin…my hands are shades darker than the rest of my body! But it’s not the heat that’s upsetting me so much, I’m a desert chick I’m used to it, it’s the powerlessness that comes with the heat. You’re parched all the time, grouchy, annoyed, and just exhausted. The heat renders you incapable of any useful activity. All I do is take cool showers and drink juice filled with ice all day long. My mom keeps laughing at me cuz I walk around in the skimpiest clothes and chew on ice cubes (oh shut up you perverts!) but only true ice-cube chewers know the beauty of it! I love keeping my hair down but now the heat just makes everything irritating, so right now hair falling down my face and shoulders is just REALLY annoying, and I have to continuously tie my hair up in a pony tail, but it’s long so throughout the day I have head aches because it gets really heavy up there! My skin is dry because I keep splashing water on my face, and my lips are chapped and I have to carry a moisturiser and lip balm wherever I go around the house. I have my little protection against the heat kit: ice cubes in a large glass, strawberry cream, cherry lip balm, and a coooooooool towel. Today all I did (I SWEAR) was sleep, watch tv, had some cookies and juice, and went back to sleep. I just woke up because…well DUHH, it’s too hot to sleep. I really hope that this is the worst part of the summer and it goes away soon, because more often than not in Al Ain, even when it’s hot, we have this dry, uplifting breeze that blows through just before night fall. Now it’s just too hot to even go out and enjoy that.
What would we do without air conditioners and tv?

Quote: Wilfred Thesiger, from Arabian Sands
No man can live this life and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the brand which marks the nomad; and he will have within him the yearning to return, weak or insistent according to his nature. For this cruel land can cast a spell which no temperate clime can match.