No, Really, This is What It's LikeLiving in the Desert

We have three sets of sliding glass doors across the back of our house.  The lighting effect is quite nice--basically the whole downstairs looks like a bank of light.  But our house is on the outer (front) of the compound.  Across the fence is a huge dirt field.   Huge.  And guess what happens when the wind blows?

Well, actually out of those six sliding doors...five of them are sealed shut with caulk.  Something about having all six sealed freaks me out a little...what if there's a fire?  Although I'm not sure what would burn (other than fabric or furniture) when the house is made of concrete?

Anyway, John had one door to the kitchen unsealed last summer.  We love our outside garden, so this I don't regret, but I do want to record--for my posterior's sake--what this means when the wind blows.  This is what happens in just a matter of a few hours:

No really, I mean it.  The floors had been mopped clean less than 24 hours before, and the dust storm had started about 4 hours before.  This, admittedly, is the one 1/2 of one set of windows that's not sealed.  But the other side of the door (which is sealed) still gets almost this bad.  And no, I hadn't had the door open, even a crack.

The sand is powdery fine, like baby powder, not like the sand from the beach.  It makes Hannah cough at night (aggravates her bronchitis).  I think a lot about this driving down the road watching the thousands of immigrant laborers work in it for 12 hours at a time.