Yesterday I noticed a post on my Facebook page from a FB friend that said ‘enjoying the pool and the sauna’.  I wasn’t quite sure which disturbed me more: the fact she is 6 months pregnant and sitting in a sauna or, the fact that in the sauna that is the Dubai sandpit in June, she felt the need to pay to visit an indoor sauna!

Yes, it’s true summer temps have been slow in reaching the unbearable average for this time of year (you’ll hear NO Dubaians complaining about this!), but for the past 2 weeks, 40+ has been our norm.  However, the important question is ‘how high is the humidity?’  Humidity, the amount of vapour in the air, is not something one automatically associates with the desert.  But, it’s what makes the difference between ‘scorching’ degrees celsius and ‘every pore in my body is working overtime, I think I might collapse from exhaustion’ degrees celsius, otherwise known as ‘real feel’ temperature. Last week the humidity levels approached 90%……I don’t think I need to say anything more…..

On the last day of school last week I had the (mis)fortune of doing the drop off and pick up.  When you walk 7 metres from your front door to your car, and your legs and arms are glistening, you know it’s gonna be a hot one!  So, imagine what it is like parking on a sand dune, ‘camel-training’ 3 kids across a busy road, all whilst lugging their party day goodies, water beakers and an extra bag for each of them to transport home a year’s worth of school work…….

By the time I made it to the gate, my scalp was damp, and my celtic locks began to frizz in such a way it looked like I had had a run in with a live current!  When I felt a trickle of treacherous sweat break ranks with my damp head, making a break for freedom towards my chin…….I knew I had lost the battle.  By the time I made it to the first classroom, I felt like I wanted to run (figuratively of course.  To run in such oppressive heat would be the epitome of sheer stupidity!) screaming to my car and shove my sticky face in front of the coldest of AC vents…..but I still had 2 more classrooms to go to……sigh.

Today, on the way home from an afternoon at HQ Adventure, the evening drive time Virgin Radio DJ said something along the lines of  ‘if you thought Dubai was hot…….you gotta know there is somewhere out there which is hotter.  Can you guess where?’

I am sure most ‘drive home-stuck-in-traffic’ listeners mumbled, as I did, ‘hell‘.

Alas, it turns out most of those listeners and I would have been incorrect!  It would seem that Kuwait is even hotter…….as evidenced by the photo of the melting traffic lights……..43 degrees of searing heat…..very little humidity, just on fire heat.

Whilst the deformed traffic light is a true reflection of how I feel each and every time I step outside in Dubai from May – December…I can’t help but think, ‘if Kuwait’s roads are anything like Dubai’s, I wonder about the traffic chaos this must have caused……’