day 25

.....made it! (that was close.)

Not all of the dust in the air is the result of strong winds. This island is a rock, with a little dust on top. When they dig any hole, they have to literally use jackhammers (industrial size, on a backhoe machine) to break up the rock. When they excavate the broken rock, they dump it through a screen (as above) to sift out the smaller rock and dirt which will be used to backfill the hole after whatever is placed into it. If you look at the picture, you can see that under the screen is a pile of dirt, and in front of the screen is rock waiting to be screened. Sometimes they have to continue to hammer at the rock to make enough backfill to completely fill the hole. What's left are piles of rock that I'm not sure where they eventually go to live, but apparently it takes a while, because I see these piles in a lot of places.