For most of May and June, the weather has been fairly nice. That's a relative evaluation of course. It's been extremely dry with dust storms every couple of days. Sometimes so much dust fell out of the sky when the wind died down at night that dust drifts collected in the corners of the windshield of my car. So the dust was a problem, but the temperatures were bearable: highs around 104F and lows around 81F. That's a pleasant temperature to start the day with. You might almost consider this spring weather here in the Eastern Province. Almost.
But two days ago, summer arrived with ferocity. Temperatures soared up to around 114F and for the past two nights the lows were only 94F. It doesn't drop below 100F until after 9pm, causing great difficulties for me and the dogs since, as a rule, I won't walk Harry until the temperature is below 100F. Forget playing ball or visiting the jebels. It's about all we can do to make it around our "short" route, about 20 minutes. Upul reports lunch time mutinies: neither dog wants to do more than pee then go back inside.
And the wind is still with us, blowing stronger than ever. You know the blast of heat you get when you open your oven to check on something baking inside? It feels like that here except it's like that everywhere, not just in front of your oven. It feels like we are living inside of a furnace. Insert as many hell metaphors here as you see fit.
About the only good thing you could say about the change in weather is that it is still extremely dry.
Expats live in Dhahran in housing provided by Aramco. There are pages and pages of rules restricting what kind of house you are allowed to live in or bid on based on your grade code, describing what you can and can't do to it, and so forth. For this privilege, we pay token rent. I pay around USD 120 per month for my hovel. We don't pay for water (such as it is) or electricity or local phone service.
We also get access to a 24-hour service center staffed with hundreds of small brown men from India, Pakistan, and the Philippines who will deal with any maintenance issue no matter how small or how critical. Can't reach that burned out bulb in the stairwell? Call the service center. Washing machine stopped working mid-cycle? Call the service center.
And most importantly, if your A/C goes out, you call the service center...and they have someone at your house in minutes. Aramco takes A/C very seriously. You probably don't even get that kind of response to house fires in the US. This in fact happened to me last weekend. Turns out the motor in my cooling unit burned out. I have no idea how the logistics works but these guys travel with spare parts for the dozen different A/C models around camp, tanks of coolant and compressed air, new filters, etc. They are like some sort of A/C SWAT team ready at a moment's notice to fix all A/C crises. They were at my hovel, had the motor replaced, and cool air again blowing all in about 30 minutes.
But two days ago, summer arrived with ferocity. Temperatures soared up to around 114F and for the past two nights the lows were only 94F. It doesn't drop below 100F until after 9pm, causing great difficulties for me and the dogs since, as a rule, I won't walk Harry until the temperature is below 100F. Forget playing ball or visiting the jebels. It's about all we can do to make it around our "short" route, about 20 minutes. Upul reports lunch time mutinies: neither dog wants to do more than pee then go back inside.
And the wind is still with us, blowing stronger than ever. You know the blast of heat you get when you open your oven to check on something baking inside? It feels like that here except it's like that everywhere, not just in front of your oven. It feels like we are living inside of a furnace. Insert as many hell metaphors here as you see fit.
About the only good thing you could say about the change in weather is that it is still extremely dry.
Expats live in Dhahran in housing provided by Aramco. There are pages and pages of rules restricting what kind of house you are allowed to live in or bid on based on your grade code, describing what you can and can't do to it, and so forth. For this privilege, we pay token rent. I pay around USD 120 per month for my hovel. We don't pay for water (such as it is) or electricity or local phone service.
We also get access to a 24-hour service center staffed with hundreds of small brown men from India, Pakistan, and the Philippines who will deal with any maintenance issue no matter how small or how critical. Can't reach that burned out bulb in the stairwell? Call the service center. Washing machine stopped working mid-cycle? Call the service center.
And most importantly, if your A/C goes out, you call the service center...and they have someone at your house in minutes. Aramco takes A/C very seriously. You probably don't even get that kind of response to house fires in the US. This in fact happened to me last weekend. Turns out the motor in my cooling unit burned out. I have no idea how the logistics works but these guys travel with spare parts for the dozen different A/C models around camp, tanks of coolant and compressed air, new filters, etc. They are like some sort of A/C SWAT team ready at a moment's notice to fix all A/C crises. They were at my hovel, had the motor replaced, and cool air again blowing all in about 30 minutes.
No comments:
Post a Comment