Saturday, March 07, 2009

The world is yellow today

The world is yellow today. Spring has arrived in Cairo. Where I come from in the States the arrival of spring brings warmer weather, light rains, flowers, buds on the trees. Here in Egypt it brings something entirely different: sandstorms. In Egypt we have three seasons: exceedingly hot, cold, and sandy.

Today the 'khamaseen' arrived. The 'khamaseen' are the hot sand laden winds that come across the western desert and cover everything in my house with centimeters of dust. They are the bane of every housewife in this country. I'm quite sure that they wait for laundry day when all the freshly washed whites are hanging damp on the line to come and turn them all gray. Or they wait for cleaning day, the one day a week when everything in the house is not completely covered in a layer of yellow dust because some poor person just spent hours meticulously wiping down every item in the home to clear it of dust and give the 'khamaseen' a fresh surface to settle on. Grrr. I am not a fan of yellow days.

9 comments:

Vicki said...

I remember the dust storms we used to get in Idaho. It was crazy. I imagine yours much worse. Does it happen while you walk to school? The scarfs around the faces of the natives, Im sure come in very handy! So do you do your spring cleaning indoors with a hose?

amoetspes said...

Haha. I should! Yeah we use scarves. Sometimes on yellow days the kids have to stay inside for their breaks. John always ends up with raging sinus headaches on yellow days.

Jacque said...

I can imagine that would be miserable. I will keep John in prayer for the headaches.

Debbie said...

I knew it was coming by what you were saying. Poor John! The headache are probably from having his sinuses sandblasted!

amoetspes said...

Dust is small and our windows don't even come close to sealing, and half of the time the winds blast our balcony doors open. I think you have to spend time in the Big Sandbox to fully understand the determination of our dust. It's truly amazing.

Jordan@Me and My 8 said...

No, I believe you. :(

Jacque said...

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Aaron aka BK said...

No, I tagged you! Go to my blog for the real instructions.

Aaron aka BK said...

yep, we got buds.