Rain

Last night it rained. So what, I hear you say ... well when you live in the desert rain is a big deal. Now it has rained before in the 3 years we have lived in Cairo, if you can call a light sprinkle here and there, rain. But nothing like the apocalyptic proportions of yesterday, with its thunder, lightning, torrential rain and even hail in some suburbs.

As you can imagine in a country that averages only 2 cms of rain per year normally, its citizens are not accustomed to driving in the wet, so there were many accidents and broken down vehicles yesterday. A friend wrote this on his Facebook page, to describe his trip home. "Took me 5 hours to get home from the airport. Cairo streets, including highways, dangerously flooded. Driver prayed out loud as we passed colonies of dead cars in 3-4 ft. deep water on the Autostrade. Prayers worked until we had to push our car out of a small lake."

And this is also a country that, for the most part, has no working drains, so there was major flooding all over Cairo. The photo below is from our housing area, and much of the collected rainwater was still there this morning.

Flooded street in El Rehab