sepia skies

I’ve watched my fair share of grey skies sweep across the ocean at sea, I’ve seen the harmattan descend on Sierra Leone to hide the cotton trees and hills from my view, and the other night I sat on the hill overlooking my new little hometown and witnessed my first real dust storm moving in from the desert to paint the sky sepia tone.

In the evening I often wander up the small “mountain” that overlooks El Geneina in an attempt to find a breeze and escape the four walls of our compound which sometimes seem to hold my spirit captive. There is something about having the wind blow in my face and wisp the sweat from my arms and legs that is liberating and renewing- even when the wind comes in the company of a cloud of dust.

On occasion the Darfurian sky is blue, but lately it seems that the heavens above Sudan only come in the same shade as the dirty white milk powder we use here as an inadequate substitute for dairy products. The creamy sky nearly matches the colorless sandy expanse that stretches out from the edges of the city beyond the mango trees as far as the eye can see until melts into the equally colorless horizon. I watch.

An orange brown cloud forms in the distance, and the storm comes quickly. They call it a haboob, and the immediate weather change it brings is similar to someone suddenly switching on an industrial strength fan in your sauna. The cloud gathers and darkens and picks up momentum until it grow into a steadily advancing wall of darkness of dust and debris. My company on the hill comments that the sky looks a little bit like Armegeddon, and I agree.

The local children are perplexed that we would actually want to stand on the top of the hill and watch the storm roll in. “The wind is coming”… “The rain is coming”… “Go home… go home.. go home…” They try to warn us in Arabic, convinced that we do not comprehend that we will soon be enveloped in dust, and possibly soaked in the rain to follow. It comes… I am cooled…. I close my eyes to enjoy the breeze and try to forget that I am being showered in dirt.

The storms come like clockwork almost daily now, bringing momentarily relief from the heat, and leaving sand in my eyes, in my bed, and every crack and crevice of my world in their wake. I fought the dirt for awhile, but think I’ve finally resolved myself to living my life under a layer dust in Darfur.

I am learning that dust in the eyes doesn’t always cloud the vision: Sepia skies are beautiful- almost orange.

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
Henry Miller