My family and I, we live in Dubai. We have been here for almost five years and by the grace of God, we are enjoying the peace and harmony of our everyday lives. We live in this part of this world called “The Middle East”, the desert where anything can happen that could be horrible sandstorms or God forbid, war.
But those are major geographical issues. We had a different issue last night.
When you live in the desert where temperatures soar up to 120F, the worst thing that can happen to you is: when you’re home air conditioning system breaks down.
…in the middle of the night.
…at the peak of the hot, humid desert summer.
We woke up with huge sweat at past midnight and thought our room a/c broke down. The room temp gauge said it’s 29C. I transferred to the living room to try to sleep. It was ‘cooler’ there at 27C. The husband followed after a few minutes and we slept in the sofa. After less than 10 minutes, the living room temperature rose and we had no choice but to get up and turned the a/c knob over and over with great hope.
We gave up at 1:30am and decided to go to a 24 hour hypermarket in Deira (a 15 minute drive from where we live) to buy electric fans! We bought two and managed to spend the night in still hot and humid room with a very noisy fan (it was cheap). It felt like we were in Philippines/Japan/Thailand during summer…hot, humid, fans – only, we could at least open our windows there.
In Dubai, when you open the windows with no a/c on, you’re dead.
Finding Backroads 
Oh nos!
Is it fixed yet?
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Hey Grace!
Awwww it was horrible,I love Dubai no doubt but i just can’t bear hot weather,I can understand what you both have faced.I hope now your a/c has been repaired.
Good Luck and God Bless!!
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Having a/c problem is one concern that’s why we bought stand fans in case it happens. Hope it gets fixed today.
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Oh well, the maintenance guys said they will come at 10am, then 2 pm and until now, not yet!!
I hope they really come before night falls! š¦
We never thought of having fans on standby for emergency before.
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Very interesting blog post!I donĀ“t like such heat.It must be really difficult to live there when it is so hot!I hope your air conditioning has been repaired again!
My husband had a stopover of his travel in Dubai at late night last year and he told me about the heat!My daughter will have a stopover in Dubai in two months when she fly to South Africa.She will use her stopover till her connection flight for sight seeing in Dubai.
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The heat – it’s just in the summer and not whole year round. It gets hot from June-October. The rest of the months we have really lovely weather and we don’t need air conditioning.
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Oh. Dear. Lord O.O
90 degrees Fahrenheit here in IL is considered hot, so I just can’t IMAGINE what you guys must be feeling, in the middle of the night no less!
Hopefully you get that fixed so you don’t have to deal with the nasty hotness anymore!
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We had a blackout in New York City many years ago, no AC, everything in the fridge melted. At least the outside temperature was okay later in the night. People were sleeping on their balconies if they had them. I found taking frequent cold showers and soaking my feet in ice water to help.
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If ever you get the chance to live in the UAE, I would really suggest having fans on standby in case this happens or during power interruption. It doesn’t happen much but it’s better than soaking wet during your sleep. š¦
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Grace, you forgot to add the only other thing that could make this even worse…you’re pregnant! I hope the maintenance man made it before nightfall!
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Yes – can you imagine how hot I felt compared to anybody in the house!! I felt my body was on fire!
The maintenance guys came at 4pm and we had a good sleep last night to make up for the meager 3 hours we had the night before!
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Oh my goodness! I’m so glad the maintenance guys came for you! They must have at least realized that heat is a real issue and not said “tomorrow” or whatever the word for that is in Arabic! š
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In Virginia, Fairfax Station, such situation has never been faced due to cold climate.
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I saw Pristine in the Gulf News TV video in their website. It was about the premiere of the last move. More like a glimpse of her though haha! Thought I’d share it. :p
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Sorry, I meant last movie of Harry Potter.
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Nice article
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Glad it’s all fixed! When we lost power for 36 hours last week our apartment thankfully stayed cool due to insulation from the other apartments around us and the lobby AC.
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Oh, you poor thing… it had to be really horrible on you being pregnant. We have been about 92 degrees F here in Florida with the humidity but it gets down to around 75/80 at night and I would die without the A/C during the day. We don’t use it at night, but we do use our ceiling fans.
Glad it was fixed and you only had one miserable night.
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its am glad to to ready your post after such a long time.just moved to dubai and your ac experience will save me great agony.hp by now u have reliable maintinance crew.cheers
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I love Dubai no doubt but i just can?t bear hot weather,I can understand what you both have faced.We don?t use it at night, but we do use our ceiling fans.
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