Another Sudanese Sand Monster aka ‘Haboob’

by Drima on May 13, 2007

I talked about the first one and my experiences encountering it in Sudan as a child here. Now Black Kush has posted another one with a cool series of pictures:



Many Sudanese like to joke about the possibility of the Americans invading Sudan and why they’ll fail. Two things are usually mentioned. Malaria carrying mosquitoes more powerful than F-16s and haboob. :)

{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Roman Kalik 05.13.07 at 4:17 pm

Ooooh! I like that!

2 Drima 05.13.07 at 4:22 pm

Believe me, you’ll like it a lot better if you experienced it. Oh, it’s lovely!

3 Roman Kalik 05.13.07 at 5:39 pm

That thing looks *alive*…

Oh, and speaking of malaria mosquitoes, would this be the infamous Anopales? It used to be quite common in the swampland hereabouts.

So we planted lots and lots of eaucaliptus trees and dried up the swamps. ;-)

4 kizzie 05.13.07 at 8:08 pm

I hate turning on the AC after a sandstorm or haboob….you know what I mean!

5 halalhippie 05.13.07 at 9:18 pm

Yeah, it looks alive, and p***ed off, too.
Bet your grandma told you lots of bedtime stories about the haboob and disobedient kids.

6 Sam 05.14.07 at 11:20 am

I was once sitting at a Sitat Shai (lady that serves tea on the street) on St. 1 in Al Amarat when the people around us started hurrying around and my friend all of a sudden yelled “Get in the car man! Get in the damn car!” And I was “chill man…why you in a hurry?” He shouted out a word: “Kataaaaaa7ah!”

I never heard of the word so I asked him what the hell that was. He was already half inside the car and told me to look behind me…and Lo and behold! There it was…a great wall of dust and sand measuring up to 100s of meters high traveling at Lord knows how many miles per hour. Now that’s something to experience!

7 Amjad 05.15.07 at 6:10 am

I miss kata7at alsudan, lol

8 Drima 05.15.07 at 1:33 pm

“Bet your grandma told you lots of bedtime stories about the haboob and disobedient kids”

Actually most grandmas start praying for forgiveness when haboob approaches. They get very superstitious and start proclaiming that Judgement Day is near.

Amjad, nice to see you here. It’s always nice discovering more Sudanese bloggers. And ya haboob aka katta7a is one of the best things about Sudan. Oh I so miss those lovely sand storms.

9 Jack 05.16.07 at 8:16 pm

Wow, that is pretty intense.

10 Sudan Girl 05.09.09 at 10:46 pm

Oh man I live that haboob “kata7a” ,,, I remembered we used to wait for it ,,, I miss those beautiful days back in Sudan ,,,, inshallah (by God well) I will go this summer and see the haboob again .

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