The Sky is Falling!!!

This past Friday, Lindsey and I were over at the Knapps' house for a post-church lunch when suddenly Eric Knapp says, "Quick, if you look out the window you'll see something that only happens once per year." So I looked out the window and at first I thought that the sky was falling. The brown color that I usually associate with the sky and that normally hovers over all the buildings and hills was suddenly descending on the streets of Maadi. I thought, "Maybe a sandstorm?"

"It's raining," said Eric.

Rain! I jumped up from my place at the table and ran out to the balcony to see what rain was like in Cairo. Big surprise: it's dirty. When it rains, it makes all of the pollution fall out of the sky. It was like a fine, fine dust that swirled around, and it whipped into my eyes and mouth. Not to be outdone, the dust from the streets and building tops were also disturbed by the fallen droplets, and swirled upward to meet the falling smog. There was something playful yet foul about it.

I held my hands over the balcony to feel some of the drops and got pelted by the random pattern of rain then dirt, rain then dirt.

Like other experiences here, this whole rain thing left me saying, "Only in Egypt."