BAGHDAD, Iraq — I knew something was strange as soon as I woke up. An eerie yellow haze at the window instead of the morning sun. I climbed up to the roof and looked out over Baghdad toward the blue Bunyah mosque. It had disappeared behind a thick curtain of microscopic dust.

Dust clouds the air over Baghdad.

I had never experienced a sandstorm. I instinctively tried to stop breathing until I could get indoors.

We were about to leave to shoot a report on an Iraqi paralympic competition. “They can’t go ahead with it!” I thought.

When we called, however, they said it was still on. So we piled into our car and set off for the running track.

On a good day, the streets of Baghdad are dusty, blanketed with dirt, crumbling concrete and assorted trash. This dust , swirling in the high winds, is lighter but more penetrating. It fills your lungs insidiously.

But, as we drove through Baghdad, I saw, at the most, two or three people with masks. Most were walking purposefully through the haze.

As we passed the Green Zone, where the United States Embassy and Iraqi government offices are located, I saw a man in running shorts and t-shirt jogging on the street.

At the running track the athletes were arriving, some missing legs, or arms. Many are victims of the war. In the distance, a loud explosion roared. The athletes and their friends muttered but quickly returned to more important things. Bombs, sandstorms - it’s a nuisance but nothing that will stop them from competing.

Paralympic athletes train on, despite the dust.

But the storm, the worst in years, did shut down Baghdad Airport. The helicopters that roar every few minutes through the skies of the capital were grounded.

Back in our bureau everything - computers, cameras, monitors, desks, pens, coffee cups, my eyeglasses -was covered within minutes with a fine yellow talcum. There was no getting away from it.

In 2003, just after the start of the invasion of Iraq , a giant sandstorm blanketed southern Iraq. Some Iraqis began calling it “Allah’s Shroud,” God’s protection from the “invaders.”

To me, it’s just as exotic. A sandstorm in Baghdad. Like Ali Baba’s 40 Thieves, I said the magic words “open sesame!” and waited for the skies to clear.