The Heat of Kuwait

When people think of Kuwait, they often think of oil, money, and hot weather. It seems only right, then, for my first blog post from Kuwait to focus on the heat.

Being a record-keeper, like my dad, I kept track of the daily high temperature, the daily low temperature, and the daily high humidity for the month of August—my first month in Kuwait. The high in August ranged between 104 and 120 F (41 and 49 C). The average high temperature was 114 (45). The low in August ranged between 80 and 95 F (27 and 35 C). The average low temperature was 86 (30). The high humidity ranged between 15% and 89%, the average being 50%.

Bob didn’t arrive until September, but he still gets in on the heat. One of his first tours of the neighborhood took place in the evening—after 8:00 p.m. Bob’s thoughts: “Oh my, it’s hot.” Another tour took place around 8:00 in the morning. Bob’s thoughts: “Oh my, it’s hot.” If we would walk between midnight and 5:00 a.m., we might feel a break in the heat, but for now we’re trying to come up with metaphors to describe what this heat feels like:

--It’s like opening the oven door—when the hot air hits your face.
--It’s like sitting in a sauna.
--It’s like standing too close to the campfire.
--It’s like a blast furnace.

Even our water pipes are hot. We brush our teeth in hot water. Though our water heater is turned off, it was hard to get anything but a scalding hot shower till Bob brilliantly figured out that if we turned the water on “hot,” the water that was sitting in that tank would be “cooler” than the water coming out of the “cold” tank that sits on the roof in the sun. Now we have hot, rather than burning hot, showers.

Apparently, it’s not as humid here as in some places. But in August of this year, I experienced 65% humidity, 75% humidity, even 85% humidity. What was that condensation streaming down on the outside of my apartment windows, if not a sign of humidity? Why did my bangs flip up? Why did my glasses fog up when I walked outside? It’s just the opposite of what I’m used to—my glasses steaming up while going from the cold winter air outside to the inside of a heated building. Whether my fingers swell up, making my wedding ring too tight, is a sign of humidity or just heat, I’ll find out in the next few weeks, now that the humidity has actually decreased.

Those who live here say the weather gets beautiful around November and that it can even get close to freezing. We might be sorry that we left our winter clothes at home. We’ll have to wait and see.