Reach Out and Beep Someone

So, my village finally has mobile phone service! It is as though, after nearly 2 years, I am almost living in the real world! People are nuts over it too. Everywhere you go, folks are experimenting with ringtones, consulting the local American "experts" on how their phones work (if only they knew...), and "Berber beeping" like crazy -- a practice that, to the best of most of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers' understanding, is simply meant to remind you that your friend So-and-So exists when So-and-So calls you, lets the phone ring once, and then hangs up. But sometimes it can also mean that So-and-So actually wants to talk but would rather you pay for the call. It is hard to tell which is which. So, now that my phone works all the time, I have, ironically, taken to leaving it on silent mode far more frequently!

Outside of that, most of my technology has been down the tubes for the last month. Apart from not having electricity for two weeks in July (see below), my computer crashed once and for all (but a new one is on the way thanks to a friend who just visited the States...!).

In any event, I have escaped all that (and I should have done so about a month earlier, it would seem) with a lovely, albeit brief sojourn in the beach town of Essaouira. Details and/or pix to follow (probably pix - the summer lethargy and laziness are sure to set back in the second I get home...!)