What Is An Expat?

Now that might not sound to special to the rest of you, but around hereabouts it’s kinda unusual.

There I was (no shit, this really happened) in the office doing whatever it is that I do, I noticed a sudden increase in the amount of grit in the air.  I look up and back at the windows, and clouds of dusts are billowing out.  Now, a typical duststorm will easily penetrate this building, but usually it’s a gradual kind of thing.    When I say dust clouds are billowing out, it’s like it’s being pumped into the building, now seepage.  Then it gets dark out.

You may remember these pictures from a previous storm:

Well, it was heck of a lot oranger and darker than that time.  The building 40m in picture 2 where you see a dim outline and a slightly more obvious tree at right center?  Well, we couldn’t even see the other building that’s only about 8-10m from us!  At one point, the truck parked outside, 4m from the door was only dimly visible.  There was a heck of a wind blowing.  Usually these storms stroll sedately through and take their sweet time coating everything around.  This was shaking the doors.  Then it lightened up a little and the ground began to get slightly darker in spots.  Whoa!  That’s rain!

It was bad enough that all the comms went out, too. Sure, AFN dies if you stop praying for it in the first place, but AFN radio died about a half hour before the storm dropped on us. It may have been coincidental, it’s out probably a third of the time or so. AFN cable dropped when the storm hit, and then all the phones and network took a dive. Interestingly enough, Radio Sawa stayed on the whole time.

Now, in the real world, it’d be rain.  Here, it’s actually dusty mud falling from the sky.  As the wind continued to blow, the storm kept moving.  The dust went meandering off to the east, and the wet mud fell more and more.  30 minutes later, the only way to tell it actually happened is the high amount of dust all over the inside of the building that we need to clean up some, and the vehicles are all streaked with dustspots where the mud hit, splashed, and dried near instantaneously.  Total time of this strange weather experience?  15-20 minutes, tops…

Oh, by the way, we’re back from Uzbekistan again. I’m working on the pics right now, but this seemed like a good day to make a post. Also, remember to switch your email subscription, because I’m turning the old one off Real Soon Now.

It’s kind of dusty out today; the worst I’ve ever seen.

Even inside the office, the lucky are weary breathing masks. They’re a bit small for my face, but this storm is worse than the last big one last week, which was pretty rough, even inside.

It is visibly dusty inside; however it doesn’t show in pictures very well. Outside, it IS just that orange. I haven’t edited these pics at all. Headlights turn a bright blue shade, and are visible maybe as far as 50m in the mist. The vehicle itself won’t show up until about half that distance.

This building that you can not quite see is about 40m away. I could not actually see it when taking this picture, but I do know where it is. If you look closely, you can see the outline of the aluminum building, the darker shapes of the hescoes around it, and a tallish tree to the right.

This place blows.

We get some decent sandstorms here.  Not quite like that “Wall O’ Dust” you’ve probably seen pictures of, but impressive in their own right.

The sun looks pretty odd, too.

…for 2 weeks or so that is, until we uproot again for a time depending on the next job. As you may recall, we did Paris, Rome, and Sorrento in Italy. I haven’t processed any of the pictures yet, but I expect to be done within 2 weeks or so. Ha!

The quick summary:

Paris – We really liked it here. Broad, shaded avenues with lots of stuff to see and a great transportation network, though we did miss out on a day trip to Reims due to a train union strike, though the metro always ran and our overnight train to Rome a day later wasn’t affected.

Rome – Really nice too, but they have a littering and trash collection problem. You see a larger variety of types and buildings from different eras, clustered together more and wrapped up in each other. Most everything is closer together so the less effective public transport net (still certainly good enough for our needs) wasn’t any problem.

Sorrento – Nice, small, and relaxed with amazing views from the cliffs over the sea. We had a couple of days with alternating sun and windy rain with dark clouds, so this wasn’t all it could have been. We visited Pompeii as a side trip from here but it was just so so. We missed out on the island of Capri just off the coast due to weather issues.

Now…to unpack, get everything sorted again, and re-pack for the US!

We’ve been having a nice dusting lately.  You can call it a dust or sand storm, because it’s brought on by high winds coming out of the Empty Quarter over by Saudi Arabia, but it’s not been a high wind situation for the most part.  The dust is primarily just hanging around, not sandblasting you.  The temperatures had also shot up 6-7 degrees Celsius, too.  Here’s a few pictures shot out the window and over the balcony.