When it rains, it pours

If anyone is old enough to remember there is a song " . . . it never rains in California, but boy let me warn ya, it pours, man it pours. . . " or something to that effect. The same is true here in Egypt; at least in Cairo.

We have had rain around Cairo over the past several days, almost a week now if I remember correctly. There are no drains on the roads here in Cairo, so the water puddles and then turns into a sort of flash flood.

We were driving in Nasr City (a suburb or section of Cairo) yesterday on our way to visit Aunt Olfat, and I got a glimpse of how puddles are cleaned up. The government hires people to take big buckets -- imagine the huge 5 gallon buckets you buy from Lowe's or Home Depot; they scoop up the water with the buckets and throw it in the grass. The puddles are few and far between here, but wherever there are puddles, they are usually large enough to stall the small sub-sub compact cars many Egyptians drive.

The rain storms here remind me of the tropics - not that I've ever been to the tropics but living around DC is as close as I want to get. The sky clears quickly, the sun shines with big white puffy clouds in the sky and a brisk feeling of spring is in the air -- OK, so brisk in Egypt is 70 degrees Farenheit.

It reminds me of May in DC and Maryland and the clean smell of flowers blooming. Ahh, the smell of flowers . . .


Ma'salaam,

Marian