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Seen by a Diplomat’s Spouse
pushing the clouds far away, leaving it to the sun to take
over. However, sometimes powerful storms are brought
by the northern wind and heavy rains fall and are carried
by strong winds that uproot date trees and other slim
trees, easily breaking the branches of high-rising trees and
filling the city’s pools to overflowing points. Not rarely,
residential buildings are also exposed to damage. Once
a huge brick was lifted high in the air from the roof of
our house. On another occasion, a hailstone, the size of a
fist, broke the street lamp. The continental, semi-tropical
winds are usually accompanied by strong storms. The hot
desert winds lift clouds of dust and sand and penetrate
through closed windows and everything in the air would
be covered with sandy foams, while car-lights are hardly
seen even at a close distance. In an atmosphere like this,
the best one can do is stay indoors and not even look
through the windows. Thunder and lightning storms are
not unusual here. The thunder looks as if it was tearing
the sky asunder, drawing in the horizons lines like those
of the branches of trees; what a strange and rare sight!
I remember, when our grandchildren were visiting us,
during the winter holiday, that they asked us to wake them
up at night, in case of lightning, as they were eager not to
miss such a beautiful sight.
Unfortunately, rain in the central part of the Arabian
Peninsula is rare and niggardly. In the absence of rain,
there would be no rivers. However, there are unique
features in the topography of the Arabian Peninsula that
are called “wadis”, which are the dry courses of rivers
and streams, which can sometimes be very deep. There
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are also sharp stony shores. In ancient times, the climate
in the Arabian Peninsula was more clement and wet. Such
courses used to perform their functions as rivulets; but
sometimes they look like huge grooves and wrinkles on
the desert surfaces. They most often intercross throughout
the territory of the Arabian Peninsula, which makes one
puzzled and uneasy. During certain years, in particular,
and during times of heavy rain, some are filled with muddy
streams and sometimes with thick muddy currents; and
sometimes they can sweep everything that comes their
way.
Although these ”wadis” remain dry for a long period
of time, ground water used by the local population for
watering agricultural fields, orchards and date farms, is
sometimes discovered not very deep in the bottom of such
“wadis”. This is especially the case in the Gulf coastal
areas where great quantities of water accumulate from
west to east along the slopes of the water-conserving
layers of the plateau of the Arabian Peninsula. The rural
population here dig wells into the rock layers and obtain
therefrom pure potable water. Pure potable water jets are
discovered even in shallow places of the Gulf, from which
fishermen and seamen used to fill their skins, with pure
potable water.
For the population of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
water is traditionally considered a valuable asset, and is
rarely comparable to anything else in this respect. Even
now, there is almost in every villa in the city of Riyadh one,
two or even three private pools. The historical memory of
Saudis does not allow them to squander this valuable asset.