One of the things I like best about my substitute work at the school library is the opportunity to chat with the Egyptian ladies who work there. The weather has been odd this year – we’ve had a much milder winter than usual and the temperature has been all over the place in the last few weeks. It was cloudy the day I worked last week and looked like it might rain, and I remarked on it to one of the ladies who was working at a desk nearby. Surely it was too early for the khamseen season (sand storms)?
She shook her head and said it wasn’t the khamseen, it was the month of amsheer.
In three years living here, I’ve never heard of amsheer. She explained to me that it doesn’t necessarily correspond to a calendar month – it’s a lunar month from the Coptic calendar. Amsheer is the month after tooba, which is the coldest month of the year. The month of amsheer however has the weather of all four seasons – some hot, some cold, some cloudy, a bit of rain. After this month, it will finally be spring (followed closely by the sandstorms of the khamseen).
I was fascinated to hear this explanation – and it did indeed seem to encompass all the weather we’ve had in the last few weeks. I was sun bathing two weekends ago while yesterday it was cold, cloudy, and spitting rain.
Even more amusing was explaining this to other westerners – none of whom had ever heard of the term either. In fact, one acquaintance turned to an Egyptian man and asked what amsheer was. He responded “the month after tooba.”
Obviously, I have a lot to learn about Egypt – but first I have to figure out which questions to ask 
That’s pretty neat–a mystery month! Of course, calling it the “month after tooba” doesn’t help if you don’t know what tooba is.
by Elissa February 25th, 2009 at 8:04 am