Chapter Two, Vol. 1: European Crash-tour, Out of Africa

My first full day as an (R)PCV was January 22, 2011. On February 22, I was boarding the ferry to the Cape in Ireland. I look at the calendar, flip through the pages of my little, fat Moleskin planner, and I can see that it was only one month, only four weeks. It was just one 12th of just one year, afterall. In speaking the dates aloud, January 22 does not sound so terribly long ago. "Month" can't do it justice.

Because in my memory some sort of illusion has formed, and I will argue, foot down, fists clenched, that between the 22nd of January and the 22nd of February existed far, far more than just one, single month.

What I mean to say is, it was far, far greater than a month.

Time, you see, cannot accurately be measured on a linear scale, although we spend our lives attempting to do so. If anything, it should be weighed. One extraordinary day, one significant experience, a week of discovery, an hour with someone you love dearly cannot fairly be spoken of with the same vocabulary as one ordinary day, one disappointing experience, a week of routine, an hour in front of the television. They should not be referred to in the same way, and they do not deserve the same size square on my calendar page.

So, what transpired between that morning train out of Rabat and the ferry onto my Emerald Isle, from here on out, will be considered not a month, but the sum of the weight of roughly 30 extraordinary days, of infinite quantities of significant experiences, of four long weeks of discovery, of endless hours with four people I love dearly (and a few guest stars), and so, of one truly grand adventure.

(The next statement is written with the acknowledgment that the following post might as a whole be considered pretentious.) And I don't use this word lightly; I've come to know adventure well.

Actually, this is among the most difficult posts I've written here. Considering the pain and pleasure of my time in Niger, to say so is a self-admittance, a recognition of the level of consequence in this heavy, if short, period of travelling. But I have feared that once I literarily crossed the bridge into the more "developed" world (these quotes pay tribute to the connotation that "development" begs "towards what?") that my travels would no longer be interesting but instead braggart. I guess part of my aforementioned procrastination in writing about this adventure has been due to the worry that you'll be (if I'm honest) threatened, envious or offended by my galivanting.

Galivant [v]: (intr) to go about in search of pleasure; gad about

So many seem to be.

But upon recent discussion with a dear friend (thank heavens for Skype), my worries have been set to rest; perhaps you'd like to hear. Because I've been so blessed to have seen what I have seen, to know who and what I have known, I now have the devoir to share. Else, what good is so much learning?

That said, much of what I have learned in Europe has been about myself, an extraordinary meeting of Djamila and Julia and the little corners of my wonder and imagination that only travel can reveal, and I will try not to bore you too much with these musings. I also learned a lot about my shortcomings (and my crazy), and you have no need to read those either. Of course, such uglier self-discoveries are often the silver lining of misfortune, and our little gang hit a few bumps along the way, particularly before we fell into step together.

Let's begin with the first, um, blunder: our train to Marrakech.

After a foolishly late final night on the roof with Peace Corps folk, we woke the morning of the 22nd in the dark. After (miraculously) meeting in the lobby, dragging all of our belongings to the station and climbing aboard our train with tickets we'd enthusastically purchased in advance, we all promptly passed out cold. And we were off! to Marrakech, our first stop on what was to be a route through Morocco to Spain.

The next thing I remember, I was being jostled awake in the others' shuffle to exit the train, still in the dark. I'd managed approximately the amount of sleep it takes to grow groggier, grumpier and hungrier, but no less fatigued, and my mates didn't appear to be faring much better. We watched through sleep-filled eyes as our connecting train pulled out of the Casablanca station, leaving our dishevelled band to shivver and wait.

Hungover, frustrated, freezing, starving and exhausted, we were still PC volunteers fresh from Niger, well used to waiting for transportation, and thus unfailingly patient. We piled up our luggage, settled onto cold, metal seats and passed the time until the next train fully delighted by cheese sandwiches and tiny paper cups of train station espresso.
As we were telling stories under the Moroccan sunrise, we were approached by a burly guy in a black peacoat.

"Is this where all the Americans hang out?" he asked in an accent that sounded, go figure, just like ours. Steve, a self-labeled refugee from Tunisia -- where he'd been studying Arabic -- would be the first of a string of characters we'd meet on this journey. "After I was tear gased the second time, I figured it was time to leave." He would not, however, prove to be our favorite.

Like many of the people you meet who are living abroad or travelling alone, Steve came off a bit...company hungry? Such is the nature of the lifestye, I guess. He continued to pop in and out of our time in Marrakech, and his Arabic came in handy. He was enthusastic about pending time with us, and he was probably a good guy in the end. (But he remained dedicated to pronouncing Niger as n-eye-jer, despite our correction, in unison, each time he said it.)

Anyway, our first attempt at public transport wasn't smooth. Oh well. We chalked it up to a lesson learned (we didn't miss a single train transfer after this, including one in the early a.m. hours to Tangier) and, when the next train arrived, we heaved our things aboard and climbed in behind.

Only to discover there were no available seats.

So we stacked our bags in the end compartment by the door and squatted, crouched, stood or, in one case, passed out leaning against the luggage, for the next five hours. And you know what? It still wasn't a bush taxi.

It was obvious upon arriving that Marrakech is a nasty tourist trap, Africa meets Disneyland as someone described, and it managed to be the only city on this trip that I significantly disliked. But we enjoyed ourselves anyway.

Inspired by our run-in with Steve, we spent the afternoon inventing a story to tell the new friends we anticipated meeting in hostels, a story about who we were and how we came to be travelling together in Africa and Europe. We plotted the tale over shotglasses of espresso, intermittedly playing "guess their nationality" of the parade of passing tourists. Most suggested backstories from around the table were outlandish, easily disproved or too bizarre to maintain, but eventually we sketched out our script and returned to the hostel ready to greet whoever should come our way. Our first chace presented itself not long after in the form of a Brit, seemingly in his '20s, here on holiday. "Where a' you 'oll comin' from?" he asked.

"Niger," I blurted automatically and cringed ("Dammit Julia!" from the next room). On the bright side, since I blew our cover, we were able to chat freely with this guy. Not far in our conversation it became clear that we didn't need to make up a story for ourselves; ours is crazy enough.

Pens, we told our new friends, are a hot commodity in Niger, eh hem, Neeeger. And someone told a story about kids fist fighting for BIC pens. We laughed, but they looked horrified. Oh, we realized, not normal.

This realiztion would continue to occur throughout our trip, and I thank god that I chose to spend my first month out of Niger with people who could understand. We moved steadily from Africa into progressively bigger, more developed cities throughout the month, easing us semi-gracefully back into the world we'd left. Soon, traffic lights and jarred peanut butter no longer shocked us, but by that time, we were facing baby strollers literally wrapped in plastic and multitudes of girls who seemed to have opted out of wearing pants. From there we faced grocery stores, metros and restaurants where our fellow patrons could hear our English.

I keep thinking about one of my last normal days in the Niamey hostel, perhaps over Christmas. I was just going to run across the road to grab eggs, for breakfast or for baking I don't recall, and so I'd grabbed my change purse and was headed out the concession door. I paused, though, and turned back, unsure if I could go out without my hair covered. I'm just crossing the road, I thought to myself, and I'm in Niamey, so I turned around again. But I hestiated a second time, but my hair's not wrapped. I ran back to the porch, grabbed my scarf and eventually ran my errand, which took approximately 10 minutes.

And now girls aren't wearing pants in public? This month with my fellow volunteers was fantastic not only because of their extraordinary patience, which is invaluable on a trip across Europe over land, but because they allowed me the chance to voice these concerns without self doubt. Had I returned immediately to the States, how on Earth would I have explained how overwhelming it is to see full-sized livestock, to think about the state of your hair, to have regular access to the internet or to drink in out in open public?

And with whom would I have otherwise discussed what happens when your desert feet are suddenly shoved into two pairs of socks and closed toed shoes for extended periods of time? Or how it feels to return to anonymity? Or why in god's name people leave so much good food behind at Medeival fairs?

But most importantly, during that first (somewhat terrifying) month out of country, I did not ever, even once, have to explain, apologize for or justify my feelings for Niger. And that is a precious luxury.

After two nights, we escaped Marrakech on a late morning train to Fes, hopeful that it would prove to be somewhat less scummy. (And it did; should you travel to Morocco, skip Marrakech and head straight for Fes.) The train lasted the whole day, and while this would have seemed a lovely time to write or listen to music or read, none of us did. Instead, we spent the more than eight hours entertained by staring out the large, rain-streaked window at the Moroccan countryside.

It sounds quaint, doesn't it? Taking the train. And that day it was. The weather and view shifted and morphed as we rode along, and midway through the afternoon a woman came past with a little cart and sold us coffees and cheese sandwiches (which we covered in hot sauce). However, the train is not as cute as it seems, and train travel on a budget is more often grating and exhausting than it is darling. We took a lot of trains over the month, and this was the only ride I would describe as pleasant. There is a certain pleasure in mastering the system, though, and in adjusting to a mode of transportation so brilliant and yet so far from American life.

We arrived in Fes after dark without a hostel booked, so we set off from the train station with our packs in tow. Finding a hostel proved simple, thank Allah, because people were eager to help (we were still in Africa). We ended up in a cozy little hostel at the top of the medina back some twisted alley ways that we would not have found without a guide.
Climbing onto a train, even a lovely one, to a destination in which you do not have a place to stay is something of a leap of faith. It isn't difficult to find hostels, of course, particularly travelling in the freezing off season, so there really isn't anything to worry about. Still, it's often difficult to control your worrying, or at least it is for me. (For others, perhaps, it proves more simple; "No stress, no stress," a new friend often says.) As it turns out, worrying is just a waste of time. We really don't have any control either way; if we did, I'd still be in Niger. I suspect that this is a lesson I will have to relearn repeatedly throughout my life, but my experiences in Niger, evacuation in particular, and during this month have tossed me way out in front of the race to a worry-free end. You can call it having faith, as my parents would, or you can call it having patience, as my Nigerien family would, but it is the same: trusting the future to take care of itself.

As supportive proof of this theory, everything in Fes worked itself out perfectly. This hostel too had a little terrace -- the rooftops in Morocco serve the same function as Nigerien concessions, I hear -- and we spent the next couple of days wandering through the grand Fes medina, drinking laughable amounts of coffee and buying the last of our souvenirs before we faced the almighty Euro (once mighty?). In the late afternoon, we had a second friendly guide point us toward a non-touristy hammam, where we literally had the last of Niger scrubbed off of us. The rediscovery of my elbows was a mind-blower. And we passed a fine evening with a couple of our fellow Niger volunteers, who had come before shipping off to new posts in Rwanda. And of course, as we would soon grow accustommed, sometime near midnight we slung on our bags and set off to the train station.

Here's the thing about overnight transportation: there's a fine line between long enough and life-hating misery. Our five hour train, as it turned out, dumped us in Tangier before the sunrise with just enough sleep to turn us to zombies. The day didn't improve much from there, either, so we'll skip ahead to the important part; what do you do on your last night in Africa?

Drink tea, of course.

It wasn't Nigerien tea nor was it particularly good Moroccan tea, plus it was raining. But we sat together, the five of us, and we drank our tea that night, and it redeemed the day. Tea, Niger taught me, often has this power.

We showered that night too, which helps, and repacked all our bags (I had to fit all my tangerines in somewhere!). Early the next morning we hopped into our taxi -- the driver from the day before had agreed to pick us up at the crack of dawn -- and rode once again in the dark to the dock. We were the last people to climb aboard the ferry, the very, very last, but we made it somehow.

And so we left Africa.

As my friends passed out around me on the single most comfortable transportation chairs my butt has ever enjoyed, I sat by the window, headphones in, and watched the sun rise, promising myself I'd make it back someday.