A day like any other

July 8 2018

In this post:

How do you live a day in a desert country? A poetic and rather short description of a common day in my life in Qatar, where average summer temperatures can reach between 96 and 116ºF.

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Dead bees after the sandstorm (macro photography)

I was in the dining room with the glass door open and the yellow bottle full of water in my hand. I sprayed the bushes in the garden while thinking about things that now, ten minutes later, I no longer remember. I barely washed the tiles on the terrace floor; the heat was like a giant oven, where there was no convection, because not a breath of air moved and there were no temperature gradients that could challenge the static state of that thick atmosphere. I watched a stunned bee fly in a short circle between the plants. Poor bee, I thought; perhaps it will die in this heat with no better place to hide than the exhausted leaf of our bougainvillea. Well, at least if you hurry you will have a few drops of water to drink before they evaporate and go to some other part of the world.

 

If the wind blows to the North they might reach Turkey or Bahrain. If the wind blows to the South, they will reach the United Arab Emirates, over which they will fly to crash into the temporarily green mountains of Oman or Yemen. If the wind blows to the Northwest, they will pass over Egypt, they will cross the Mediterranean, they will reach Spain. If, if, if, if they continue who knows where they would go. My time flies, my sweat insinuates itself, my cheeks to red; five more minutes and then to shelter.

 

Finally, I closed the glass door and it's time to write again. There is a story that is calling me to bring it to life and has promised to get me out of the computer screen, off my office, and far away from this huge stove that is my home for now.

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Green dates in a sandstorm

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Green dates

The hours pass as the memories pass and the indifferent days roll on an invisible axis, they leave me behind. When night falls and the steam with the smell of the sea like a perfect outdoor sauna settles on the square roofs of the houses, the sidewalks, the date palms, I close all the curtains, I close my eyes, I open my dreams, I seek to leave everything and accept everything exactly as it is.