Dust Storm of the Century

Last night we had the worst dust storm I've ever seen...and the worst one that the 80 yr old man down the street had seen too. I had a friend over so we were inside eating dinner but my friends have told me that it was like a black smoke wall coming at us, not like the normal brown dirt walls. Several of my friends have actually said that they seriously thought that Revelation was upon us, it was that bad. We're talking I have a friend who was walking when it hit and actually got lost and some random men saw her walking around blindly and came and took her in their store where she waited it out until she could see to go home. Rent the movie 'the Mummy' and then picture worse than that. It was absolutely crazy!

How did I know when it hit? Paper starting flying...inside my apartment! All the windows and doors were closed and, all the sudden, things were blowing over and loose papers started flying all over. In about 30 seconds my apartment was so filled with dust that we couldn't even keep our eyes open and I couldn't see across my living room into the bedroom. Normally, if I was just sitting at home, I would be able to smell the storm coming in but not see it. This one was so different though.

Guess the carpet really did it's job!
My friend and I walked out on the balcony and she said 'it is so strange that all the power is out except for at your house'. Well, it wasn't out, we just couldn't see the lights on in the hoosh DOWNSTAIRS! My friend left pretty soon after that. Her dad called and told her that she had to come home right away, I guess similar to when my dad would call if I was out and a big tornado storm was coming. (see my email update for more on this part of the story!)

The cutting board that I had JUST washed before the storm and left out to dry.

At that point what are you supposed to do, sit around and pretend like life is normal? I don't have a TV and I couldn't get out my computer with so much dust so I just sat on the couch and tried not to cry. It was that bad and it was everywhere. I had already had a particularly tough day. Instead of crying I figured I'd keep myself busy by doing the dishes again. (the ones we had just done after dinner were caked with dirt) As I was standing over the sink with the window CLOSED I was being pelted in the face with dirt, so hard that it was stinging my face. So I gave up on the dishes and just sat on the couch and got pelted with dirt. It was pretty much just miserable. The kind of time where you don't want to go home to the States but you just really want to be anywhere where you're able to open your eyes without them being filled with dirt. Don't know if any of you have necessarily experienced that before or not.

The picture of a normal dust storm that my roommate had left out on her desk.

The storm lasted a good 3 hours, just pure desert everywhere you could see. Then it started lightning and thundering. I have a beautiful thought on rain but I'll have to postpone that one for another day when it actually rains b/c last night it didn't!!! The rain here is my absolute favorite thing about the Sandbox...it might be odd that my favorite thing about living in the desert is the 8 times a year that it rains, but it is and I was SO looking forward to the rain and then it just didn't come. You could smell it and the weather changed like it was just right there, but it never came. I feel kind of cheated, that we went through that terrible storm and then there was no rain afterwards. Oh well, what can you do?

This morning everyone was cleaning, sweeping huge piles of dirt from their houses. In retrospect (as I'm not being hit in the face with papers flying around!) it was really a beautiful thing. God was just reminding us of His power and how, in this crazy and unpredictable place, He can make the world stop if He wants to. Last night He made this little piece of the world stop, even if it was only for 3 hours, He made it stop. Pretty Amazing.