Haboob or not

So, it looks like the sand is mostly gone. For the last four days we've been living amidst a fog of sand lingering over Khartoum. It all kicked off Wednesday night with a major sandstorm, leaving our flat covered in dust. Then things got relatively calm until another huge storm hit us two nights ago. The winds were so strong that the Coca-Cola fridge on the deck got pushed by more than one meter. I spent over four hours cleaning up in the morning, you could see our footprints on the floor in the dust. Haboobs can be terrible, but they also come with some perks. The airport was closed several times for relatively long periods and even when it was open, there was much less traffic than usual. Also as the winds are now coming from the North and planes take off into the wind, it is much less noisy than when it's the other way around. The temperatures also dropped considerably, we barely hit 35 degrees during the day instead of 46 or 47.

We are currently planning our holidays and the flights we'll need to get where we want to go. So far it looks like hubs will have to take the two kids on his own to Canada and I'll have to bring them back on my own to Switzerland, due to various courses and trainings we both need to attend in different parts of the world. We WILL have some family holiday time all together, but probably less than two weeks. So far it looks like this. Me: KRT-AMS-GVA-AMS-YYC-AMS-GVA-AMS-KRT. Hubs: KRT-AMS-YYC-DFW-ICT-DFW-YYC-AMS-KRT. The kids will travel with one or the other, depending on which one of us is available at that point. The only saving grace in here are the airmiles that we'll be collecting...