It's Raining Mud

Three days after being washed...

This photo was taken last Tuesday. It is a picture of our clean car that we had paid 6 euros to have cleaned the previous Saturday. The young people from the village held a car washing day to raise funds for their school holiday excursion, and we were only too happy to support them and get our car cleaned inside and out. Our cars get pretty dirty because they are kept outside, as the two garages here are too full to fit them in (seems to be a common problem!) But we expected it to stay clean for longer than three days!

When it rained on Tuesday we couldn't believe how dirty our car was. When we drove around we noticed all the cars were the same, and the windows and windowsills of the house were dirty too. Where had the dirt come from? Why didn't the rain wash it away??

A closer view of the dirty car

I was told it was dirt form the Sahara desert in Africa! At first I didn't believe it, but now I understand that sometimes there can be a big dust storm in Africa, and the airborne dust drifts across the continent until it settles somewhere thousands of kilometres away. When it mixes with rain, it becomes mud. And apparently if it happens in winter time then the snow that falls can be pink, yellow, brown, or grey, depending on the colour of the dust.