Rain in the desert

The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.Isaiah 58:10-12

This verse came to mind this morning as I walked out of a building at work and felt as though something was weird--the sky was a bit more hazy than normal (pollution, unfortunately, is not a rare occurrence in Cairo) and I felt what I thought were drops of water. I was a little hesitant to make the call "it is raining" since it isn't rare to walk out of buildings and having water drop from some source associated with the building (and you hope it is always an air conditioner and not sewage!). However, I looked on the pavement and sidewalk and realized it was rain drops! I have visited Egypt around 6-7 times since January 2007 and have never experienced rain in Egypt. It is something I have only heard of happening 3-4 days per year. Having just left a rainy spell in Atlanta made me kind of glad to be moving to the sun and sand of the desert but today was a welcome change from the normal Egyptian scene.

The locals enjoy the rain and it is quite the big deal. It is such a rare occurrence--imagine only using your windshield wipers 3-4 days per year! The rain was actually a little cool; much cooler than the sun which peaked out after the rain ended. It caught me off-guard as I was off-site examining a warehouse we are going to use to store some equipment; the Egyptian with me was purely in delight with the rain that was coming just hard enough to get us wet--really nice to see!

Along with the delight comes the same type mentality as Southerners have when it snows. I am told the locals are not used to driving in it and it causes many traffic delays. The traffic on my way home from work took almost twice as long as normal. Usually it takes around 20-30 minutes to get back to my residence after work in my carpool; however, today it took 50 minutes to get back. I was glad to have one of the guys from work driving as it was quite the hairy driving experience--a couple of near misses and people who randomly walked in front of our vehicle.

Work is going well so far; DoD has a "check-in" process each new assignee has to go through in order to meet department heads and have a better understanding of who does what. I have been going through the check-in process the first two days and am almost finished with my command post's check-in list. I still have to go to the embassy and meet the people there. I had mtgs scheduled for tomorrow but late this afternoon I was told there is some disagreement on my paperwork between the embassy and my command so I was told to "lay low" for a few days until things were sorted out. It works out better this way so I can complete my check-list at my work site and then focus a little bit on real work tomorrow afternoon.