Stranded!?

These days, one would think the apocalypse is hitting Assoul. Yes, the crazy spring winds and dust storms have finally slowed down a bit. There’s still a layer of dust covering most things inside of my house, but now I have nothing but my own laziness to blame for that. But, were it not for such extreme changes in temperature and humidity on any given day, I’d swear I was experiencing a North Carolina summer here! For the last two weeks, in the morning, I am dying from the hot, dry sun. But then, if I don’t go ahead and use my solar shower, hang my laundry out to dry, and make any phone calls I need to make at the local téléboutique (which is conveniently useless as soon as there is a cloud in the sky), I am SOL. Heavy clouds roll in over the mountains, becoming trapped in the valley, and crazy thunderstorms and winter-like temperatures ensue. One night last week, this went on from midnight to 6am, which got to be a little creepy after a while in my big, empty, echo-y house. I know this sounds like an incredibly boring thing to mention here on the blog, but it doesn’t take much to make news in drought-ridden Assoul. And, sadly, a "little" precipitation in Assoul usually does mean that all hell has broken loose elsewhere. The last few weeks have seen significant flooding, property loss, and even some deaths just over the mountains, in Saharan towns.

Besides, even though the roads in and out of Assoul are gradually being paved over, things still become treacherous after a little rain. This is what happened when some friends and I tried to escape from the bled last weekend.





We spent an hour waiting this one out in the wee hours of the morning, before a couple of frustrated transit drivers finally decided to brave it…

… and as soon as I let friends in civilization know that we were finally on our way, we came upon this one.


If it weren’t for an incredibly foolish (and lucky) overloaded station wagon that finally decided to brave this one a couple of hours later, we might still be waiting there!

By the way, that blue transit on the left belongs to Hakim, brother to my host mother, and super nice guy. All the transits out in our area have been having a harder time these days. As soon as the roads from Rich to Assoul and Imilchil were paved, the grand taxis tried to take over. Grand taxis are Mercedes sedans that travel between cities in Morocco carrying six passengers at a time (but I’ve seen more for short trips - even with the driver sitting in someone’s lap!). You can sit at a taxi stand for hours waiting for that sixth person - these guys aren’t about to leave with fewer than that unless other passengers have paid for the empty seat (and the taxi pimps seem particularly eager to try to convince a certain American woman you know and love to do this…). That said, I often prefer taxis to buses, but never over my friendly neighborhood transit drivers! And the end result is that, while the transit schedules were not always convenient, they were at least predictable, but now it is now always certain if/when/how one might be able to get in and out of town. Let’s hope that all gets settled soon!



By the way, isn’t this the cutest thing ever?

For once, it was everyone else in my friend’s house who were dressing up like brides. Even the babies!