Back in the saddle, sort of

Well, I've been back to America for about a week now and am trying to figure out which end is up. It's definitely weird, and I am almost to the point where I am more comfortable in Morocco, but this is how it goes.

Oddly, I left Morocco on 11/21 -- a year and a day after the last time I left. This time, I had much better closure and feel good overall about the whole mess.

I am officially employed with Rustic Pathways and unofficially am drowning. I came in late to the program and most (ie: all but me) people in my position have been with the company for awhile, so they know what they're doing. Or at least have a clue. I have little, and I am trying to decipher the emails and get my work done with as little harassment to others as I can manage.

Most people are on vacation now, since you get six weeks a year but it has to be taken from something like October to December. That hasn't stopped people from piling on the deadlines, and I am muddling as best I can.

My title is country director, which in the future will have more meaning but right now it means One Who Stumbles. There is so much to do!

Today, I am struggling through budgets, which are in Excel files. I have four of them, and they're closely related but still require individual input on 165 different lines. Hoo boy.

Two are for real and existing programs but two are for phantom programs. They CAN be real, if someone orders them. They're two programs for Australian teachers, and I am having a devil of a time trying to figure out what exactly that means.

Saturday, I am driving north to South Carolina and will stay at Karen's and help her with some catering. Fortunately, I can work remotely and it doesn't matter if I'm in Havana or North Augusta.

Kocur doesn't know this yet, but she is going. I've bailed out on my baby girl enough so she gets to make this road trip. I hope she is a good doggie while we're staying at Karen's.

Camels don't buck, they spit

Well, I am in the desert now, the place with sand and no water. Excecpt there really is water, just not a lot of it. (Not that I ever saw it, but there were a few things growing here and there.)



One of the cool things about this job is I now get to travel to the places that most other PCVs visited during service. I loved Midelt and therefore didn't bother to leave unless I had to; now I have to.



And it has been cool, honestly. And this desert trek is something I should have done, and even though we'll be back in summer, having done it now, I think it's something the students will have to experience. The desert is a beautiful sea of sand, disturbed only by footprints, camel tracks and the annoying 4-wheelers. It's just amazingly beautiful, and the thing to do is arrive in the evening and then trek out to a Berber tent, to watch the sunset, have dinner, sleep, then get up and watch the sunrise, drink tea and come back for a shower.



And that's what I did. I wasn't ready for it, really, because I'd spent the day in transit, but once at Nassar Palace (chosen at random, but definitely the place I'd bring the students to), I had about two hours to get ready to leave.



It was a bit awkward, though. Essentially, I am traveling alone but thought there'd be others with me. No. There were supposed to be others, but they had car trouble and didn't show, so it was me, my guide and, once at the site, two other men. It made me feel a bit out of place, like they had to enterain me or something. (And honestly, after staying with friends and family for the last four nights, all I wanted was a bed of my own.)







The camels themselves are ugly beasts. The ride for me was rough. I didn't like the mounting and dismounting. What happens is you get on while the camel is seated, then it stands up, two feet at a time. The butt comes up first, lurching you forward and as soon as you regain your balance, the front comes up suddenly.

There are no stirrups, either, and no reins or bit. You're led by a friendly nomad (my guide was Mohammed) and you just hope that nothing happens and he loses control. I can't imagine being lurched off a camel, but I kept telling myself the sand was softer than the ranch's dirt.

The ride isn't so smooth. You kind of get used to it, hanging on to the metal "T" that's the saddle horn, but then you hit softer or harder sand and the ride changes.

Getting off, which we did to play in the dunes, is just as bizarre as getting on, just backwards. The front goes down first and you feel (or at least I felt) like tumbling over the long neck and ugly head, but then the back comes down and suddenly you've level again.
The tent was surprisingly comfortable. I think in randomly picking my hotel I got a great one. The beds were off the ground (which is really cold) and there was a little toilet and running water. (Running from a big jug set up, but hey, I had soap, so I didn't care.)

The tagine dinner was faulous and the sky -- you just can't imagine. It's so vast it's inexplicable. You recall God's words to Abraham about having more decendants than the stars and suddenly you feel so inconsesquential!

I saw one falling star and something that must have been Laurie's space junk or ET's cousin. It was just a tiny spot, but it was definitely moving across the sky. I lost sight of it after about three minutes.

I'm back at the hotel now, plugging through paperwork. I got the bundle of stuff that applies to January-March planning, and man, it's a lot.

My visit in Midelt was a lot fun. I met with my old tutor, who made some great suggestions about the job, but more importantly to me, I met my host mom and EC. I miss both of them.

Naima, the horrid sister, is just the same. Nothing to say to me, not a nice word for anyone. When the four of us sat down to eat, she, Mimoun and Rabha just went at it. Crabby bitch, she is. I don't miss her -- or Mimoun, really, though he's nice enough -- but I do miss my host mom. She's so open and friendly. I never, ever would have finished service had I not had her to support me. I also met with some of the children from the dar chebab. I didn't intend to, but ran into a few of them and was obligated to visit, even though the dar cheban was technically closed. (But open, as usual -- the king was visiting.) It was nice to get some closure. I think now they realize how much I meant to them and they meant to me.