Dust Storm

Discovery of the day: living in the desert means being surrounded by sand. However, if you are thinking that sand here looks like what you’ve walked on the Florida beaches, think again. Depending where you go, which area of the desert surrounding Riyadh you go to, the “sand” goes from hard little rocks and pebbles to the fine stuff the consistency of talc you can’t drive through without having a 4x4 vehicle.


Being surrounded by all that sand does come with pros and cons. Pro: you don’t need to cut the grass twice a week because it doesn’t grow in non-irrigated sand! Pro: The colors of sand change, depending on the light of the day and the sunrays, which makes the desert a tantalizing and beautiful place! Cons: it gets all over, enters all the little crevices. You know how, when you go to the beach and you log sand in your shoes…. Well, living in the desert is that on a daily basis. Given, although Riyadh is in the middle of the desert, the cities, malls, schools, compounds…are all surrounded by concrete. Concrete streets, concrete parking lots, paved sidewalks… But when a lot is not developed, when a hole is dug to plan a tree or build a house, sand is always there, just beneath the surface.

One weird thing linked to living in the middle of the Arabian Desert happens when the wind blows. It starts picking up the sand and blows it all over the place. A couple of weeks ago, we were woken up in the middle of the night, by wind and by our bathroom vent flapping like crazy. We could hear the wind, and after pulling the curtains, it was eerie outside: the streetlights were surrounded by an orange cover. The sand being picked up was landing all over the place, the cars, the streets, the doors, even through the closed windows and doors. In the morning, the dining room table seemed covered with a film of sand. When we opened the back gate of the truck, sand had crept up under the door and all over the back bumper.

It happened again last Friday afternoon, our “Sunday”, when our whole word turned orange. I’m not exaggerating; just everything was surrounded by that orange dust. From Alex’s bedroom window, the view was surreal. What is usually an open view of the desert was just a blur. I did take a picture but it doesn’t do it justice. We tried to go outside and feel it but the sand was everywhere and I really am not too keen on tasting that gritty sand through all the openings of my face!

Worst Sandstorm in Riyadh caught on tape