Jerusalem Blog: Sharav

Hamsin is a dry wind from the desert. By five in the afternoon, as the shadows lengthen, the day’s heat should radiate out through the cloudless sky and shade should be cool with the promise of evening. And so it is through most of Jerusalem’s spring, summer, and fall. But not when a hamsin blows. When hamsin blows Americans, especially from places where summer means humidity, laugh, "It’s a dry heat," but older Israelis say, "Hamsin, hamsin" and young ones, "sharav."
Hamsin blows hot day and night. They say it blows for fifty days. Fortunately these are not consecutive but spread throughout the year. Fifty straight days of hamsin would drive us all crazy.
On my way from the bookstore in the afternoon, I break my walk to tuck myself under a tree in a tiny, dusty park, waiting for the drip irrigation system to go on. The small holes in narrow hoses among the shrubs minimize evaporation; the air gets no cooler but even the faint sound of water is welcome. People walk by from early morning and into the night. When the day’s heat leaves, parents or older sisters will bring little kids to play here.
High-school students get off the bus, a group of girls, chattering, graceful in long slim skirts. Long hair in braids or sleekly caught at the nape wih a large barette swings past the back of their white, long sleeved blouses. They’re from a religious high school, maybe Evelina de Rothschild School for girls.
Back in the apartment I wash the floors.

Jerusalem Blog