The Khamseen

Last Wednesday I walked out of my house to find it extremely cold out. By extremely cold, I mean it must have been only 15 degree Celsius outside! Not only that, but it was windy, too! The sky was almost all white, with a touch of blue, but it wasn’t white from clouds. At first I thought it was just smog, but as I got closer to the church, it became apparent as to what was going on. The wind had picked up steadily as I rode to the church, and the sky had darkened in its color. By the time I reached the church, the color of the sky had turned a peachy-orange color. Dust was flying around the streets and the temperature was dropping even more. I was experiencing my very first khamseen.

What’s a ‘khamseen,’ you ask? Well, basically, it is a dust storm caused by the Southerly winds of the Sahara. Generally khamseens occur later in the Spring, and are accompanied by much hotter winds. The word ‘khamseen’ is actually the Arabic word for ‘fifty’. This is because there are fifty days between April and June that are known for being quite rampant with dust storms. So there you have it, that’s a khamseen. No, Cara, a khamseen is not a canteen. Nice try, though.

This khamseen was so powerful that it knocked out pastor John’s phone AND internet. Since we are in Egypt, their little communication problem was not remedied until today (nearly a week later). Perhaps now is a good time to tell you about a popular phrase that is quite commonly used by Egyptians. The phrase is, “En sha Allah,” pronounced “En-sha-la” and it means something to the effect of “God willing” or “as God wills”. Why is this phrase used so commonly, you ask? Well, in John’s case, they probably contacted someone about fixing their phone and internet promptly after it happened. The response they received most likely went along the lines of “We will send someone over there tomorrow, en sha la.” Meaning, if it’s convenient for them to do so, they’ll send someone over the next day. Or perhaps these people didn’t say, “en sha la” at all and merely told John that someone would be over to fix their phone and internet the following day. John would then hang up and then say to himself, “HA! En sha la!” It seems that nothing is ever certain in this country. Now, I am going to leave you by saying COME BACK SOON (to my blog, I mean) because tomorrow evening something big is going down. I will keep you posted. In the meantime, continue to tell me where you are from and how you know me (see previous post).