Here's another of the different kind of posts - not a travelogue or photo gallery, but delivery of some thoughts that have been rattling around in my head lately. Be forewarned, these are gonna pop up her occasionally!
Living in Saudi Arabia certainly has built in challanges. Large among those is being, oh, 7500 or so miles from home. That is a major factor, and we're doing our best to deal with it.
Another big player is the heat. Yes, it does get toasty here in the summer! So far this summer we've seen 121 degrees F, in a week with 115+ every day, and it does get wearying. But it's doable, because for the first part of the summer it is dry - 10% humidity or less because the NW wind brings the air in after being baked by hundreds of miles of desert.
What's worse is the weather now. Today's high at noon was 109, but the humidity was almost 40%, so the heat index was 121. 121 degrees with no humidity is easily tolerable. With high humidity it feels like you are walking through your dishwasher! It doesn't take your breath, but it does make it hard to breathe - like you just can't get enough into your lungs.
If you walk outside with glasses on they are instantly frosted like a glass of iced tea outside on your porch in the summer. Fire alarms go off from the high water content in the air. People go well out of their way to walk through adjacent buildings instead of around them, because every minute of being out in that soup means your clothes have more sweat in them that cannot evaporate until you go inside. It can be pretty miserable, if you let it. I don't.
I grew up in a house with no air conditioning, traveling in cars with a similar lack of A/C. It wasn't tough, and it wasn't unbearable. It just was, and we dealt with it as best we could, lacking experience of anything different. We sat outside on the porch or under a shady tree. We opened windows and hoped for any breathe of air to blow through the house. Lacking a breeze we used electric fans, which were a great source of entertainment - did you know you can make lots of cool noises with your voice by getting in close to the fan blade?
We sweated a lot, but we drank lots of tap water (or from the hose, or creek, or any source we happened across). We still played baseball and football and flew kites and rode our bikes and hiked and camped and climbed trees and had a great time! And we grew up pretty well not knowing at all what we were missing by not having air conditioning!
I know my family and friends think I'm crazy, but I still take a walk after lunch here every day (just under a mile today)! Tonight I walked to the gym and back, about 1.5 miles, with heat index about 115. I got back to my room soaked to the skin, but I drank water and cooled off and feel really good.
After my lunch walk I came in at the same time as one of my good Arab friends. He's a little older than me, and told me of growing up in his grandmother's house with no electricity. He had pretty much the same experience as me, except no fan, no lights, and in Saudi Arabia! He said he did his homework and reading at night, outside on a table with a lamp. Just like us, all the windows would be open and everyone praying for a breeze. But that was just life - you dealt with it
So I will continue to exercise in the heat, just like I would do at home if I had to work outside all day in the hot, humid Arkansas summer, and I've done loads of that! Just get out there, get used to it, tell myself, "Yeah, it's not so bad - I can do this," and get after it without another thought. I've been doing this my whole life - no need to change now.
Stay cool everyone!
Living in Saudi Arabia certainly has built in challanges. Large among those is being, oh, 7500 or so miles from home. That is a major factor, and we're doing our best to deal with it.
Another big player is the heat. Yes, it does get toasty here in the summer! So far this summer we've seen 121 degrees F, in a week with 115+ every day, and it does get wearying. But it's doable, because for the first part of the summer it is dry - 10% humidity or less because the NW wind brings the air in after being baked by hundreds of miles of desert.
What's worse is the weather now. Today's high at noon was 109, but the humidity was almost 40%, so the heat index was 121. 121 degrees with no humidity is easily tolerable. With high humidity it feels like you are walking through your dishwasher! It doesn't take your breath, but it does make it hard to breathe - like you just can't get enough into your lungs.
If you walk outside with glasses on they are instantly frosted like a glass of iced tea outside on your porch in the summer. Fire alarms go off from the high water content in the air. People go well out of their way to walk through adjacent buildings instead of around them, because every minute of being out in that soup means your clothes have more sweat in them that cannot evaporate until you go inside. It can be pretty miserable, if you let it. I don't.
I grew up in a house with no air conditioning, traveling in cars with a similar lack of A/C. It wasn't tough, and it wasn't unbearable. It just was, and we dealt with it as best we could, lacking experience of anything different. We sat outside on the porch or under a shady tree. We opened windows and hoped for any breathe of air to blow through the house. Lacking a breeze we used electric fans, which were a great source of entertainment - did you know you can make lots of cool noises with your voice by getting in close to the fan blade?
We sweated a lot, but we drank lots of tap water (or from the hose, or creek, or any source we happened across). We still played baseball and football and flew kites and rode our bikes and hiked and camped and climbed trees and had a great time! And we grew up pretty well not knowing at all what we were missing by not having air conditioning!
I know my family and friends think I'm crazy, but I still take a walk after lunch here every day (just under a mile today)! Tonight I walked to the gym and back, about 1.5 miles, with heat index about 115. I got back to my room soaked to the skin, but I drank water and cooled off and feel really good.
After my lunch walk I came in at the same time as one of my good Arab friends. He's a little older than me, and told me of growing up in his grandmother's house with no electricity. He had pretty much the same experience as me, except no fan, no lights, and in Saudi Arabia! He said he did his homework and reading at night, outside on a table with a lamp. Just like us, all the windows would be open and everyone praying for a breeze. But that was just life - you dealt with it
So I will continue to exercise in the heat, just like I would do at home if I had to work outside all day in the hot, humid Arkansas summer, and I've done loads of that! Just get out there, get used to it, tell myself, "Yeah, it's not so bad - I can do this," and get after it without another thought. I've been doing this my whole life - no need to change now.
Stay cool everyone!
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