Since I came to live in Egypt, I have often been asked how I cope with the heat, to which question I reply that I have suffered much more from being too cold than too hot! Notably older buildings, but some newer buildings as well, were designed to be as cool as possible in hot weather without air conditioning. Accordingly, they can be extremely chilly during Egypt's brief but sometimes penetratingly cold winters. My first winter in Egypt was spent in Aswan, where I subsequently enjoyed its legendary mild and short winters. But the winter of 1991/92 was said to be the coldest in the region for some 50 years, with snow even in Egypt in its coldest and highest Sinai area. Although there were some days with a chillingly cold wind from the desert, even in that winter more often than not it was agreeably sunny and relatively warm outside during the day. Inside, was another story by day and especially at night and I could not remember when I had last felt so cold and was so inadequately dressed, not having being advised or prepared! I worked on a desert campus where temperatures were frequently well above 40°C in the summer. The main block of classrooms did not have air conditioning other than on the ground floor for its library. The building's axis ran east to west and the windows opened onto shade and allowed a through current of air. This was surprisingly effective in all but the hottest days of summer. ‘Desert coolers', which evaporated water, were then first making their way into Aswan, much cheaper to buy and to run than conventional air conditioners, and ideal for the hot and dry summer climate, which mainly prevailed. It was mainly ��" and still is ��" in Luxor and Cairo that so many hotels, restaurants, shops etc. set their air conditioning to such a low temperature as to necessitate ��" for me at least ��" to always carry at least one extra layer of clothing in summer. Or, when it's an option, I vote with my feet and take my service elsewhere. I can never understand who the same people who complain about 16°C as being too cold in winter will set their air conditioner thermostat to that very same temperature in summer when the temperature outside can be 20 to 30 degrees higher! Last year, an air conditioning company was proudly advertising its new model and the fact that the lowest temperature was 15?C, as if it were some kind of accomplishment to be so profligate with the energy it would require to maintain that temperature in Egypt's climes. Ironically, in some European countries, when the workplace temperature falls below 16?C, the workers have a legal right to be sent home! I have also never worked in an office in Egypt ��" nor travelled by air-conditioned train or bus ��" when there was a consensual opinion about the optimum temperature! This only goes to show how variable are our individual comfort zones and you can't please all of the people all of the time, let alone some of them some of the time. "Mad Dogs and English men go out in the midday sun" wrote wit and satirist Noël Coward in the 1930s. The English playwright, composer, director and actor later inimitably sung his words in the 1950s when he gave cabaret performances. English men and women and others from northern climes still frequently go out in the midday sun by choice. Do we have an atavistic need for heat having spent so much of our lives in weather that we found too cold for comfort? Greater extremes of temperature can be found in the desert than in any other terrain and Egypt is basically a country of deserts surrounding the ribbon of the Nile Valley and the fan of the Delta, relieved otherwise only by its oases and coasts. My favourite weather is that of desert mountains in summer such as Sinai in Egypt and Petra in weather. The pure, dry and invigorating air seems almost to sparkle. And what more perfect end to a perfect day spent outside could there be than lying under the soothing swish of a ceiling fan, my preferred cooling system, far removed from the hot and noisy ��" and sometimes polluting ��" exhausts of air conditioners? Faraldi has lived in Upper Egypt and then Cairo, since 1991, working in higher education and as a researcher, writer and editor.
