What do I mean by communion in a haboob? Well, I mean that I took communion in a haboob. I've been attending an English speaking, international church on Sunday evenings. The church meets in a 3-sided building with chairs overflowing out the back. I always sit in the back because it gets a better breeze, an important aspect to consider when you live in a state of perpetual sweatiness. This evening, as the pastor was finishing up his sermon and transitioning into the time to take communion, someone sitting next to me said, "look behind you." I turned around to see an enormous, brown, seemingly impenetrable cloud advancing on our location. "Haboob," my friend whispered quietly as she pulled out a scarf to cover her face. I had heard of the famous khartoum haboobs before arriving and had seen a few baby examples, but this giant was my first "real" experience, my first Daddy haboob. I assumed, considering the lack of 4 walls and a ceiling, that we would cancel the rest of the service and everyone would run frantically to their vehicles to escape the oncoming onslaught of sand, but to my surprise, no one moved. As the cloud engulfed us, stinging our eyes, dirtying our songbooks, whipping our hair (those of us that have it), and making our skin instantly tan (a first for me), we carried on with the communion service, partaking of the gritty bread and dust-flavored juice, in the most Sudanese of environments, the middle of a haboob.
Here are a few examples of what a haboob looks like as it advances on the city and a view from the middle of the cloud.
