And Perhaps the Worst of All...

As any of you who have followed this blog for a while know, every once in a while I like to throw my professional demeanor away and engage in some humor. This usually comes in the form of a rant against a traumatic event I've recently experienced. These are always drawn from real occurences, just a bit exaggerated. This one may be the first to be completely true and unaltered. I'll start at the beginning...

Another 16 hours through the desert and along the wild Atlantic coast. This time it was on a bus from Dakhla to Guelmim, and when I think back to those long rides from Niamey to Zinder (here I start the comparisons between North and West Africa), I have to marvel at the decent amount of sleep I managed on this luxury overnighter. I also have to give credit where it's due to Nigerien women, as not once in all my horrific, hair-pulling, death-defying, vomit-inducing bush taxi rides did I ever have a woman get sick on me.

I wish I could say the same about my very first bus ride in Morocco.

Oh sure, it started innocently enough. My seat mate for the next 16 hours was a little, old Moroccan lady, a bit fat, with crinkles about her eyes, and a wart on her big, hooked nose. She actually looked not a bit unlike Yubaba, the witch from Miyazaki's Spirited Away. "Okay, good," I thought as she spread out her blanket for the journey ahead, "at least I'm not sitting next to a small child, wailing his head off for hours upon hours, like the one sitting right behind me, who won't stop kicking my chair... For the love of God, would you QUIT KICKING THE BACK OF MY CHAIR?!"

He stopped kicking the back of my chair...eventually, and slowly, I drifted off to sleep with the rocking of the bus and the barren, rocky desert flying by outside my window. In the morning, I awoke peacefully to the first rays of a soft, desert sunrise, the crash of Atlantic breakers, and the gentle retching of my venerable neighbor. A lovely way to start any day, and, even better, it continued for two hours, until we stopped for morning prayer and coffee. Though I don't pray and I wasn't much up for coffee, I jumped at the chance to extricate myself from my portly, puking companion.

What happened next can only be described as nightmarish. If you're at all squeamish, please turn away as we go into my mind, a pretty scary alternate reality in its own right.

Alright, back on the bus. Let's hope she's got everything out of her system. "Oh, Alhamdulilai, I don't want any bread, thank you." Wait. You're eating bread? You just spent the last two hours vomiting into a plastic jar. Most people choose not to eat if they're liable to get motionsick. You don't need to eat, you're just refueling! What's tha...is that yogurt? Tell me that isn't yogurt. Oh, come on! Haven't you ever thrown up dairy before? No, don't give her a spoon! Well...great. Smile away granny, I have a feeling we're both going to regret this...

(30 minutes later)

Yep, there you go again. Oh, that's disgusting. Yep, goes down yogurt, comes up cottage cheese doesn't it? You done now? Learned your lesson? Ohp, nope, there's an orange. Who gave you an orange? No worries, there's an apple as well. Can't have an orange without an apple chaser, can you? Mmm...vomiting a bit whilst eating eh? Didn't know that was possible. What is wrong with you?! STOP INGESTING FOOD!!!

(30 minutes later)

Is that ANOTHER yogurt container?! Okay, it's empty. I see. Need something else to yak into? Filled up your jar? Wait...the lid of that jar says it holds 425 grams. Oh Sweet Lord in Heaven. There's nearly half a kilo of old lady chunks precariously perched only two feet away. All it would take is one big pothole and it's all over. I think I'm going to chunder. But wait, into what would I toss cookies ? She's used every available container on the bus. Filled the yogurt cup... You need another?! Wait...that one's not open yet. NO! WHY ARE YOU EATING AGAIN?! Only 400km left...

At the end of this roller-coaster, I could conceive of only two possibilities for this woman's behavior: Either A) She really had taken quite a dislike to me and had set it her goal to make me hurl, or B) She just really loved the feeling of a good heave. Either way, I think I think I'd take the slow-moving iron ore train over the vomit express.