The longest days of the year are at hand and the temperatures are rising here on the Arabian Peninsula.109 degrees is the hottest day I have experienced so far, but I am told it will get much hotter. Funny, but I want to know what 120 degrees is like. I’m crazy, I know, but it is my curiosity that wants to be satisfied in this matter. I also have a kind of longing for new experiences. I can tolerate the heat when it is dry, but not when it gets humid, and Abu Dhabi being right on the gulf, it can get very humid. On days like that, I come home from work and take a nap in the comfort of air-conditioning, and I wonder how the Arabs did it not-so-many-years-ago, living and traveling in the sun day in and day out.
What I didn’t realize is how much dust in the air can keep the temperature down. Imagine living in a murky fish bowl and that is a bit what it is like when the dust is hanging in the air. It has the feel of an over-cast sky but it is just dust in the air. But lose the dust and the temperature sky-rockets. I am reminded of the great cloud over the Israelites in the wilderness that camped over them. I understand its importance a little better now.
What is nice is, in the cool of the evening when sunset comes and the call to prayer resounds through the air, I feel a kind of peace. I know then, that sometimes it is the harsh severities that we experience that make us feel alive. The heat and the humidity can deaden me, sap my energy to work and think, but it passes and I perk up later.
I went back to Sharjah this weekend and went through the Blue Souq. Most of the shops were closed as is the custom between the hours of 1:00 and 4:30. I passed a place on the second floor near a stairway, and saw shoes placed on the steps and around about. I wondered if the shop workers were at prayer, but as I came closer, I realized that they were sleeping on the carpet. I was tempted to take a picture of this scene, but it seemed rude, so I took a picture with my mind instead. I take a lot of pictures with my mind: Old men in turbans and head cloths, women moving like shadows in their long, black abayas, Pakistani workers squatting, men walking down the street holding hands, dust and dirt, Emirati men dressed in their pure white dish dashes, sitting in coffee shops plugged into their cell phones, sipping coffee. I have mind photos of sunsets, the jade moons, crowds of men sitting on the city grass at night socializing and on and on.
Mind photos might be better than real photos. Mind photos show me the things the camera can’t explain. Indeed a picture of such a thing steals the reality of what is in the mind. Best of all, mind photos may, just may, last for eternity.
What I didn’t realize is how much dust in the air can keep the temperature down. Imagine living in a murky fish bowl and that is a bit what it is like when the dust is hanging in the air. It has the feel of an over-cast sky but it is just dust in the air. But lose the dust and the temperature sky-rockets. I am reminded of the great cloud over the Israelites in the wilderness that camped over them. I understand its importance a little better now.
What is nice is, in the cool of the evening when sunset comes and the call to prayer resounds through the air, I feel a kind of peace. I know then, that sometimes it is the harsh severities that we experience that make us feel alive. The heat and the humidity can deaden me, sap my energy to work and think, but it passes and I perk up later.
I went back to Sharjah this weekend and went through the Blue Souq. Most of the shops were closed as is the custom between the hours of 1:00 and 4:30. I passed a place on the second floor near a stairway, and saw shoes placed on the steps and around about. I wondered if the shop workers were at prayer, but as I came closer, I realized that they were sleeping on the carpet. I was tempted to take a picture of this scene, but it seemed rude, so I took a picture with my mind instead. I take a lot of pictures with my mind: Old men in turbans and head cloths, women moving like shadows in their long, black abayas, Pakistani workers squatting, men walking down the street holding hands, dust and dirt, Emirati men dressed in their pure white dish dashes, sitting in coffee shops plugged into their cell phones, sipping coffee. I have mind photos of sunsets, the jade moons, crowds of men sitting on the city grass at night socializing and on and on.
Mind photos might be better than real photos. Mind photos show me the things the camera can’t explain. Indeed a picture of such a thing steals the reality of what is in the mind. Best of all, mind photos may, just may, last for eternity.
