I grew up in a copper mining town in Arizona, and this reminds me very much of the smokestacks that dominated my small hometown. There were days when the taste of sulphur permeated the air so badly that I hated to swallow. The air quality of Jeddah is usually always bad, due to a combination of these smokestacks, construction dust, and the lack of rain that would normally be cleansing. Compounding the normal pollution problems are the seasonal sandstorms which send scores of people with breathing difficulties to the hospital. The atmosphere in our area of town almost always looks like a brown haze instead of blue skies.
