Sandstorms

I thought you might like to hear about the Coo sandstorms that have blown up in the past two months.

The first and most severe occurred while I was visiting Australasia, so I can only tell you about it by showing the photos and relaying the experiences of my friends while I was away. Friends described it as sudden, surprising and completely overwhelming. It occurred mid-morning and many didn’t know until they escaped the hospital at lunchtime and discovered that a massive amount of sand had descended upon Riyadh causing everything to have an orange glow, and people to struggle to breathe.

Last week, I experienced a sandstorm of my own. I’d been out shopping with a friend and we’d been waiting an unusually long time for Abu Majeed to come and collect us. Eventually he showed up and in a anxious panicked voice ordered us to get into the car quickly. I couldn’t understand why he was in such a rush, especially when he was late, but then he pointed over to the edge of the carpark and I could see a wall of sand blowing towards us rapidly. We just got the doors closed before it blew over us, swinging the car side to side with its force.


We drove home at approximately 20kmh. There were only a few cars on the road (very unusual for a city that has traffic jams almost 20h per day) and we saw one that had flipped over and another that had crashed into a pole. Rubbish, sand and people’s belongings were flying across the road at dangerous speeds and the card swung all the way home. We narrowly avoided driving into a tree that had fallen across the road and was virtually invisible due to the poor visibility.



I got home, removed my veil with a sigh of relief and walked upstairs to discover my bedroom was caked in a layer of sand almost 1cm deep in places. Leaving the window open had not been a good idea. My open laptop was covered in sand (perhaps to soak up any remaining red wine from my last accident with it!) and I could skid on the floor in the silky substance. I stripped my bed, remade it and left the mess until the next day!