Dust Storm

I traveled into Basse the other day with a fellow PCV, Bjorn, as we were planning on taking a trip to Senegal with a few other volunteers. We headed into the main part of Basse to meet up with Tyler at the car park when he decided he wanted to go to the house to shower after traveling all day. He walked off down the crowded street of donkey carts, people, taxis, geles, and motorbikes. Within 3 minutes, Bjorn and I saw people sprinting in every direction with cardboard boxes, yelling about something, and watched as shop owners locked up their bitiks. We turned around simultaneously.

"What IS that?" I asked, peering down the street. My eyesight is notoriously terrible, but from the looks of it, we had a wall of sand headed our way.

Within seconds, Bjorn had turned his back to the storm quickly on top of us and I was crowded up in front of him. The wind seemed to be coming from all directions and I could not see ANYTHING. It was as if we were encased in sand and I had no idea what was happening.

Next thing I know, a truck had pulled up to us and Bjorn was pushing me into it. I was completely covered in sand... I had it in my eyes, ears, mouth, all over my body, some was sinking into my bag... it was absolutely insane. I loved it.