Streaky Sunrise
Circumstances had me up and about just before the sun was rising this morning, but I was filled with despair – how can I shoot the sunrise through these streaky windows? The men will be coming soon to wash the outside – more than 200 square feet of glass in our living room – the windows make up almost an entire wall.
The humidity of the last week made them damp and sticky, and then the sand storm blew in. The results are a disaster for my windows, now caked with burned on dust and grit, all streaked as the windows shed the day’s humidity.
This is what the windows look like:
This is what the sunrise looked like at 0h-dark-thirty this morning, through my streaky windows:
Here is what is going to happen. The men will come and wash my windows – but not until the day before the next humid day followed upon by another sandstorm. I will have about six hours to enjoy my beautiful diamond-sparkling-clear windows before they streak again. 😦
There is not a cloud in the sky. Weather Underground: Kuwait forecasts that today will reach 111°F / 44° C this afternoon. For my non-Moslem friends, try eating breakfast while it is still dark, early in the day, and then trying to get through a day like today without eating, drinking, smoking or coffee. God willing, there will be no humidity, which just saps the energy right out of everyone. God willing, because it is Saturday, most people will be able to stay at home and off the roads while they are fasting.
I had a man almost drift right into me yesterday in downtown Kuwait; I think he fell asleep as he was driving. Of course when I tapped my horn lightly to let him know he was drifting, he woke up and was all embarrassed and drove off with a roar, maybe to show me he hadn’t been sleeping, I don’t know, LOL. Mostly I try to stay off the roads myself.
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I have a long day ahead of me, with the event planning, going to church with a friend (pay pay condolences), and my cousin’s birthday… I am also going out with my sis in a bit, but shes still sleeping and I am waiting for her to wake up!
same goes for tomorrow….. Busy busy week!
I love windows, big windows! It brings in life and energy… specially when clean 😉
Oh Ansam, dear one, stay safe out there!
I know that I was always very priviledged when living in the country. My Ramadans were usually nice times full of interesting discussions about religious matters and in general plenty of opportunities for widening my horizon.
However, the easy-going times of Ramadan are now definitely over. Since last year (when I had left the Middle East for good already) the Holy Month is moving into the summer months and will be observed for about 12 years during the scorching heat. A full circle of the Gregorian-Hijra calendar is 33 years, an entire generation. Since in Muslim countries the population is very young, few people have experienced the harsh conditions of fasting during the long, extremely hot and, what makes it even worse, humid days.
I have noticed, too, that the weather conditions were very uncomfortable in Kuwait the last days. When living in Kuwait I had expressed my concerns many times and usually was told by the older Kuwaiti colleagues that people were used to it. I doubt. Most people are anyway working indoors. My compassion and sympathy is especially with Bangladeshi construction workers who have to bear the brutal heat and humidity in full which is in fact unbearable when it comes to 40+ degrees and close to 100% humidity.
I remember only one time that this condition hit me. In my first September in Kuwait, it was very similar: water running outside the windows.
Good morning, Fahad –
I feel the same way. People are different during Ramadan, I can often get them talking about their childhoods, earlier times in Kuwait, which interest me greatly. Sometimes they will pull out old photographs. It seems to be to be a kinder, gentler time of the year, except for on the roads.
You are right, the combination of heat and humidity is brutal, and I cannot imagine what it must be like for the street and building laborors, trying to do their best and having to work during the most brutal heat of the day. It must be awful. And you are right, too, it is going to get worse and worse for the next few years.
It makes me wonder how they observed Ramadan in Saudi Arabia in the earliest years of Islam, if all unnecessary work ceased or if it continued and how they managed their fasting with no air conditioning in the desert kingdom?
Good Morning Kuwait!
I was also wondering how it was in Makkah, for example, when the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet. According to tradition, he’s got the first revelation in a cave of Hira on August 10, 610 CE when he was fasting in the month of Ramadan (I think that it was at the end of Ramadan, the last few days are still observed by the faithful as Laylat al-Qadr). On that very day this year Makkah reported 42 degrees maximum temperature and rather humid conditions.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/OEMK/2008/8/10/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA
So, people were in fact kind of used to it. Until the Hijra of the Muslims in 622, Ramadan had moved 132 days ahead, i.e., end of April, which still seems not to be very comfortable in Makkah (37 degrees, very humid this year).
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/OEMK/2008/4/31/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA
Madinah may in fact be a bit different. It is also at a higher altitude (>600 meters).
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/OEMA/2008/4/31/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA
In the old days in Kuwait without air condition people would not have worked too much but used the long hours for contemplation and prayers. Badgirs, or wind towers, dominated the village, not skyscrapers as today (see Sharq Market for an example; they are found all over and on both sides of the Persian Gulf). The need for physical activity was at a very low level, I suppose.
Today’s greed and hyperactivity makes life so difficult during Ramadan in summer. There might be a chance right now for a change in the society. Since I would expect even casulaties this summer and in the coming years, authorities have to do something about it. Not only there but also in the Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, even Saudi Arabia.
Before I left Kuwait, working hours during Ramadan had been shifted already to the very early morning hours. Construction workers woke me up, not the muezzin. But then Ramadan was still in October, which can be nice in Kuwait, especially at the end of the month.