Heavy rainfall turns Dubai desert green

When it rains in Dubai, it’s like the city suddenly gets hit by a storm of excitement and confusion. The residents are so used to the hot and dry weather that they don’t know how to react when it starts pouring down. Some run for cover, while others dance in the rain like they’ve never seen water fall from the sky before.

The roads turn into rivers and the cars look like tiny boats sailing through the streets. The infrastructure can barely keep up, but that’s all part of the fun! You never know when you’ll get caught in a flash flood, so it’s always a good idea to carry a floatie and a snorkel with you.

It’s like a party that the whole city is invited to, but nobody knows the dress code or owns an umbrella.

The city transforms into a giant slip ‘n slide, with people sliding down the roads in their cars, while others use the flooded streets as a personal swimming pool. It’s like a giant water park, but instead of paying for admission, you just have to brave the heavy rain.

Since the weather is so scorching and parched much of the year, the rain is like a cold shower to the city’s residents, and we just can’t get enough of it! (Except if you’re on the roads – then it’s no fun at all and you can expect to be stuck for hours.)

My favourite thing about the city turning into a big, wet and wild adventure, as it did last week for three whole days, is that the arid desert outside our compound is now covered with a carpet of green.

Can you spot the gazelles? Here’s a close-up…
Photo courtesy of Elika McCormick

Remember, remember, the 5th of November

Last week it was Guy Fawkes Night. This is a UK event dedicated to bonfires and fireworks, to celebrate the failure of Britain’s most notorious traitor, Guy Fawkes – who, along with 12 other men, attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill the king in 1605.

Unfortunately for Guy Fawkes, he was found in a cellar below the House of Lords with 36 barrels of gunpowder (you don’t want to know what happened to the conspirators). For more than 400 years since, bonfires have burned on 5th November to mark the failed Gunpowder Plot; it’s traditional to put a ‘Guy’ effigy on the fire before setting off fireworks, and, for many years, children would wheel a homemade fella around in a wheelbarrow, asking for a ‘penny for the guy’. (I think this died out in the 80s, after health and safety regulations kicked in to stop kids using their pennies to get their hands on fireworks.)

A squirt of petrol does the trick. (Don't try this at home, kids!)

A squirt of petrol does the trick. (Don’t try this at home, kids!)

Just so that international readers are completely clear about how eccentric the British really are: A modern-day Bonfire Night can include the burning of an effigy of a living political figure. Prime Minister David Cameron got it, so did Angela Merkel (chancellor of Germany). This year it was the turn of Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.

Here in the desert, you obviously have to try that bit harder to keep these traditions alive – so while our friends and family back home were attending organised firework displays at the weekend, we got busy making our own fire for an impromptu Bonfire Night with marshmallows in the desert.

I say we, but it was DH (from the US, but an Anglophile, having attended boarding school in England) who did most of the work, gathering wood in the daylight in preparation.

That night, the full moon shone bright, and the perfect, desert weather brought a fair few people out to the dunes – either to camp, off-road in 4x4s or just soak up the moonlight at the end of the working week. In the distance, you could just see the twinkling Burj Khalifa standing tall, and every now and then the purr of a quad bike rang out across the still night.

We even had hot dogs, although I’d say it was the toasted marshmallows – with their warm, spongy, gooey centres full of sweet, sugary flavours and crunchy edges (there’s marshmallow, and then there’s toasted marshmallow. Two entirely different beasts) that were the biggest hit with the children.

Lucky kids, getting to celebrate traditions from three different continents.