I am going to start a new series called Real Time Report, this is not really going to be real time but my goal is to do a post within 24 hours of an event. When you think about it, Saudi Arabia is actual 7 hours ahead of EST, so if I can do a RTR post within 7 hours it would be a real time report for you? Does that sound right? Hopefully we will have very few events to report, we went to have an uneventful experience while living here. But I will report on interesting things that happen.

Yesterday, Wednesday afternoon, it became very windy, within an hour the skies got darker and visibility became very poor. The local weather report briefly mentioned only high winds 20+ MPH with dust in the air. I was out with our driver and took several pictures of my first dust/sand storm.

On my mid-morning walk around the compound today I ran into Shadi the manager of the compound and he said that it was not a real sand storm. A real sand storm is when sand particles fly around in the air. He said that this is the start of the sand storm season beginning in late March through the end of May. When the storms get bad, he suggested not going out or if you have to wear a dust mask over your mouth and nose. He said in a real sand storm the day time skies become very dark and you can only see several feet in front of you. I am beginning to understand why the Arab men wear a keffiyeh, tea towel, on their head. Great protection from the sun and you can cover your face during a sand storm.

a series of before and during pictures of the dust storm

during

a hotel several hundred yards away

traveling along the road

this road leads to the entrance of our compound

same road during the storm

center walkway between the villas in our compound

walkway during the storm

my grill, the wind storm ended up leaving a layer of powder like dust on everything

our poor flowers coated with dust