Rain in the Desert

These past few weeks, we’ve been having the weirdest weather! I’m just saying this based on what the old timers are recounting: usually, at this time of the year, it’s already unbearably hot with cloudless blue skies! We’ve been having grey overcast days where it threatens to rain until the clouds open up and let all the water fall on our heads! Now, coming from the sub-tropical climate of Louisiana it shouldn’t be a problem…except that Riyadh was built in the middle of the desert where it usually does not rain much. Houses have flat roofs, streets have no gutters and sand on the side of the streets. So, what happens when it rains that is so special?

Well, for one thing, the Saudi children go crazy! I was with a group of 10 year old when it started pouring! The wind was quite violent and the rain was beating on the door, windows and roof. The girls were out of control, scared and jumping at each thunderclap! Older girls had left their classrooms and were outside, in the rain, screaming of joy and terror at the same time! During a previous light rain, a group of boys begged me to let them go play soccer in the rain. As you can see, they are not used to the rain, to say the least.

Another problem with this rain is that the city infrastructure is not built to evacuate rain or to function with all the water. Roads flood, the sandy roadsides end up on the roads mixed with water, quick rain erodes the sand at the bottom of fences and the fences fall down! Water accumulates on the roadways and the Saudi drivers, who usually are not the most cautious drivers on dry days, decide to drive through the waters and get stuck! Traffic comes to a standstill and the city literally shuts down.

Depending on where you are living, you may have heard of school closures due to snow or to hurricane, well, this week, school was cancelled for a rain day. They announced the closure by text message around 8:00 PM the night before. You already know we were totally crushed! Parties around the compound started at about 8:01 PM!! Before going to bed, we left a note for Emma and Alex who were already asleep when the text message came, letting them know that there was no school and not to wake us up. It’s nice to have reading children after all! As you may guess, it did not rain at all on our day off, not that we are complaining!

 We did take a drive around town and could not believe what we saw: it may have rained 2 inches but the destruction was unreal. The number of flooded cars abandoned on the side of the roads, the trees fallen all around, collapsed fences, and sand all over the road, a constant reminder that we are, after all,  in a desert!

FYI: These pictures were all taken more than 12 hours AFTER the rain!