Monday, June 16, 2008

Sand, sand, sand!



The title sums up the conditions in Riyadh right now. The sky is a gloomy shade of off-orange and sand is all around having been transferred by the wind from here:
to here:


Yes, that's the car windscreen with a good couple of inches of sand on it just since yesterday afternoon. Everything else is covered with sand too: the doorsteps, the table and chairs outside, the kids' bikes parked outside the house, even my bathroom now needs a top to bottom clean as the bathroom window was not securely closed and blew open.

This weather has also brought with it sore eyes which have me running for the eye bath liquids and planning a camomile teabag treatment before bedtime.

If you go outside the sand and generally dustiness sticks in the throat resulting in coughing and for those already asthmatic, the suffering would be worse.

I now understand why the foreign labourers who work outside have shmaghs wrapped around their face much in the fashion of the Touareg of the Sahara - it keeps the sand out of the nostrils and airways. Good thinking!

Such is the weather of the desert and these bouts of dusty and sandy weather occur at any time during the year giving the feeling of gloom just as the persistent grey clouds do in the UK.

2 comments:

Naeem: said...

AA-

Gee, thanks so much for the detailed description! :-P

I run inside to get away from the sand storm only to get the morbid details of what I'm missing outside.

Hey, how about a post about snow capped mountains or flowing rivers?! Pics would be much appreciated as well :-)

Umm Ibrahim said...

Alaikum salaam br Naeem,

LOL bro! Maybe next month when I am in Algeria I may get taken to see the mountains and nice scenery the country has to offer... for now it's just sand though, sorry!

It's funny you mention snow-capped mountains actually - it's weather like this that makes you understand the Arab appreciation of all things cold, i.e. the supplication for the beginning of prayer that says: "...and wash away my sins with ice and water and frost." [Bukhari/Muslim]