OOOOOOOOHHHHHH LA LA! Summer in Doha, there are no words to describe this dreaded season in the Middle East. The scorching heat of the sun will drain all your energy even if you’ve just gotten out of bed but it’s actually not the sunshine itself which is considered evil here, it’s the dry heat which envelopes you like a blazing jacket. There’s no escape from it, even if you’re under a shade – it doesn’t really help. It’s like being in an oven and your sole salvation from this sweltering heat is the comforts of an air-conditioned building. Seriously, when you find yourself walking from your car towards any air-conditioned building, you see that building as some sort of an oasis, a retreat which you know will ease the suffering you’re experiencing with the heat as you walk the whole 3-meter distance from your car. You’ll walk towards that building as fast as you can, like your whole life depends on it – which if you think about it, it actually somehow does.
A dip in that heavenly pool of St Regis Doha would be very nice….
What if your A/C breaks down during summer?
There’s no other way to put it lightly, so I’ll have to say it bluntly – you’re absolutely in deep sh*t if your A/c breaks down during summer here! It happened to us actually, before we went on our holiday our A/C wasn’t working properly. I have put it on a 19-degree temperature but I’m still sweating. I told myself that it can’t be that bad outside that the A/C can’t handle the heat so I called our building’s maintenance department to fix it. Fortunately, it took them only a day to do it – there’s a hole on our kitchen ceiling now though which they have yet to cover up but I don’t mind, as long as we have a working A/C.
Taking a shower will make it worst!
That is the case in our house where the water reservoir is at the rooftop directly under the heat of the sun. What do you think will happen to water if it’s exposed to 40-ish degrees all day long? That water reservoir is probably like a kettle now with the water inside boiling because when you take a shower and you’re not careful, your scalp will be scalded for sure. So how do we deal? I take showers in the gym which is a great motivation for me to wake up early in the morning so I can go to the gym and take a shower after with just the right temperature of water. I’ve never missed a day to go to the gym since I came back. Hah! The poor Greek Mister on the other hand has no other choice but to brave the hot water. He’s an engineer by the way, working at the site – so imagine the misery that he has to go through every single summer days. Working all night outside with the summer heat and comes home and take a shower with water close to its boiling point. It’s a lose-lose situation for him, poor soul.
We live the days at night.
The Greek Mister being an engineer has to work at nights during summer. It is actually against the law in Doha to have workers outside between the hours of 11am upto 5pm so the whole construction business halts during those times. It’s still very hot though even at night, it doesn’t really cool down but at least you’re not going to deal with the scorching sunshine in the evenings. However, it messes up your schedule entirely. He leaves for work at around 12:30 midnight as his shift starts at 1 in the morning. He’ll come back at around 11am to eat lunch (or is it dinner?), we’ll hang out for a bit watching some TV series and then he goes to bed at around 4 in the afternoon. This schedule change has also affected my own schedule. I used to have the whole day to do things around the house or run errands or do some personal things for myself but I have to do everything now at night when he’s sleeping. I seriously am counting the days until they get back to their normal schedule which is by mid-September when the heat is supposed to be a bit bearable.
Normally, it will really cool down by mid-November so we still have 3 months left of this scorching summer in Doha. Can someone please fast forward the days?
