Sandstorm

Thursday is our Friday in Saudi Arabia.  The work week starts on Sunday and ends Thursday.  It takes a little getting used to, but by Wednesday night, I was more than ready for the weekend.  I had settled in to watch one of the many movies I had brought with me and was snacking on some tea biscuits when I started to hear strange noises in the hallway.

My room (for now) is on the second floor, which is actually the first floor since the real first floor is considered the ground floor.  I am staying in the smallest room in the apartment complex, which is really just a room and a bathroom.  I have no windows, other than a window in the bathroom that opens up to a 3x4 chimney type structure in the middle of the building, which basically allows them to have window air conditioning units, even on the inside walls.  You can't see anything out of it except for the other three walls, and the back ends of about two dozen air conditioning units, and if you stuck your head way out, maybe a small patch of blue sky.  When I first came from the train station, I was told I would only be in the room for two days, while they cleaned and prepared a bigger room with a kitchen for me.  I'm still here after a week, and now they tell me I must wait for Rachel (the one they are sending to Jouf) to leave and then I can have her room.  Only she can't leave until they send her her passport from Riyadh, so it's really anyone's guess as to when I will finally be able to fully unpack this suitcase.

So I started to hear these noises, they sounded like a freight train whistle, and since I couldn't see anything out of my window, I threw on my abaya, and went into the hallway.  I could immediately feel gusts of hot air coming down from the stairwell.  There was no one in the hallway, but I heard voices above me, so I started up the stairs to the second floor.  I found two teachers in the hallway, and Chris, our HR person, who told me to stuff all the gaps in my windows with rags and cover the slats in my air conditioner. " It's a sandstorm," she said, "Everything will be covered in sand."  I tried to think of what I had that I could use to stuff in the giant circular hole in the bathroom window that had clearly been meant for a ventilation fan that had never been installed.  There were more train whistles and a loud banging, and then moaning like the kind you hear in haunted houses.

Sand on the stairs & in the air

I know curiosity killed the cat, but I remembered that someone told me earlier there was a rooftop that was kind of like a balcony, and you could go up there.  I decided now was a perfect time to check out that rooftop.  So I made my way up the stairs, and the higher I went, the more sand there was pilled up in the corners of the hallway.  when I reached the roof, I found there was no door, just an open archway onto this balcony area.  Two ladders, one metal, and one wood, had fallen down in front of the door.  I carefully stepped over them out into the windy night.  It wasn't as strong as I expected given all the noise, but the sand it carried stung my skin and my eyes.  I wished for the first time that I had a full burka, the kind that covered everything, even your eyes and you could just see out through the thinness of the material.  I looked out over the edge, and even though it was already dark, I could see swirls of sand moving on the ground.  I couldn't see very far in front of me, only a few streetlamps lit up in the distance.  It was a lot like fog.  I didn't stay on the roof long.

Back in my room, I closed the bathroom door, hoping to contain the dust inside the tiled room.  I didn't have anything big enough to stuff in the hole without it falling out, so I just hoped for the best.  Then I crawled back in bed and listened to the storm.  It went on for a long time, so long, I fell asleep.  When I woke up in the morning, my room, all the way on the first floor, with no outside windows looked like it hadn't been dusted in years.  I thin layer of dust covered everything.  When I took a shower, the dust came off the walls, and ran down like mud into the drain. But I was one of the lucky ones. On the bus we compared notes. A few of the floors lost power completely.  Others talked about the half inch of sand that now carpeted their rooms.

Trees down in the courtyard at Dammam University

Driving into the University, we saw even more damage.  Most parking lots had tents made of thick metal rods and heavy canvas to shade the cars from the sun.  Several of these had been ripped and bent, and one was gone completely.  When we arrived on campus, we found the lobby covered in dust, and a two of the trees had been blown over in the courtyard.  I was surprised at the damage, it hadn't seemed that strong on the roof, but then again, all the worst noises were after I went back to my room.  I asked how often these sandstorms happened, and they told me three or four times a year, but this one had been particularly bad.  I hope they can replant the trees that fell over. There are so few around, it's such a shame to loose even one.