Happy birthday to me? Sure, sure, if you want to celebrate being one step closer to death. At midnight I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday because I wasn’t officially 25 in American time. Then I realized that I had to wait even more hours because I guess I was born in central time being born in Nebraska and all. I’m definitely 25 now though. I tried to put it off for a few hours but I can only do so for so long. As I told a friend just a week ago (or I’m telling myself I told him, I at least told someone), now I’m closer to 30 than I am 20. Which is okay if 40 is the new 20. Which means 30 is the new 10? Which means I just turned 5. As I embark on kindergarten round two, I should look back and reflect on my first four years of life. Or my first twenty four. Except if I did all the reflecting in this single blog post then it would ruin my future memoirs. To put it simply, it’s pretty unreal to realize I’m in Morocco right now after spending almost seven months abroad compared to where I was just a year ago. I remember a year ago, my parents saying to me “Son, we don’t care what you do but you need to get out of the house for at least eight hours a day so you’re not hanging out at our house doing nothing all the time.” Which I did, I saw movies, I went to the gym, I went to parks, I went to the library, and I also bored the hell out of myself. Which as I’ve said to a few people during my trip, I grew content with it. I thought that I could deal with it and I might never be truly happy but I was far less unhappy than I had been in years prior. Which is a shit deal that depression hands you. You get to such a pit of despair that you’re happy to settle for content. That you know you could amount to more, that you know there are better things out there, and you’re just willing to be fine with getting out of bed in the morning at a reasonable hour. That’s how I was just a single year ago. Now here I am in Africa, volunteering at an orphanage, working with kids and making them smile, making myself smile, feeling like I’m making a difference, and understanding that I can be happy. I didn’t think this much would change in a year, I think that birthday’s come and go and people change and do new things but at certain points you’re in your routine and you don’t do much to mess with the status quo. That may happen to me but it sure hasn’t happened yet. I remember just a few weeks before I left for this trip having extreme anxiety and thinking “Is this worth it? Do I want to shake up my life? Do I want to leave my friends? I don’t think I should do this.” I’m sure as hell proud of myself for going through with it. Sure, it hasn’t been easy the entire time and there have been some rough spots but compared to where I was just a year ago? I feel like I can say that I’m a new me and not have it be total bull. Probably a year ago, you wouldn’t hear me say I was proud of myself, hell you wouldn’t hear me say that I even liked myself. What change a year can bring. Or even the past few months. There have been times where I’ve really regretted my life decisions, wishing I could change it all to end up in a better place but right now I’m finally beginning to be happy where I am. That I wish I could have done some things differently but then again here I am in Africa, celebrating my 25th birthday with two more countries to visit before I even go home. As I mentioned in my probably my most popular post to this day, “I Feel Good”, I do feel good. I feel great. I might be old and nearing death but at least I think I’ll be going out on top. A year ago me probably never figured I’d be here because he figured I’d still be living at home in my parents house wishing I was somewhere else but ultimately okay with it. 26 year old me? I can’t even fathom where I’ll be at this point next year. Which is awesome. Because now I feel like the word of possibilities is open again and I’m ready to explore it. Just like a girl who came here last week, Sophie, she’s 25 going on 26 and she packed her bag with no intention of returning home. The world is your oyster, blah blah blah, you hear all the cliche statements and you think how blase they are. And sure they aren’t the end all be all of sayings but they have a point. The greatest gift I could have at 25 is telling myself that I’m not going to settle for content. I will strive and bite and claw and crawl and climb and do whatever it takes to reach happiness. Not that I’m unhappy now, I just know I can keep climbing and it’ll keep getting better. I didn’t really plan for this post to get sappy and to romanticize the future but I just can’t help it sometimes. Because I’m excited for the future! I’m excited that I may have a handle on the future that I didn’t before and that the future looks bright. At the very least what a whirlwind six, seven months this has been and I know it’s nearing to a close but I’m just so damn happy that I’ve done it. I’m a better man for it and y’all are better off knowing me. Not that you weren’t better off before, I might not have always found myself the greatest but I still gave off a loveable air. Here’s to the next 75, 85, 95 years of life I have left and to whatever comes with them. I just know that it’ll be something special. Because the guy that would have accepted anything less is dead and gone now. Happy Birthday to me. Happy Birthday to whoever else was lucky enough to have a birthday on this day. And Happy Birthday to me again because why not? So it goes.

I did post a tribute to my father on the ‘ol Facebook but since I did my parents the courtesy of blocking them on Facebook, I figured I might as well write something here as well. I’ve thanked my parents before, my mum specifically so I thought it was best to give words to the man who’s responsible for my creation. Not sure exactly what to say because if I am to be a stereotypical male, I’m not supposed to say much. But screw gender roles because I think I can muster up a few words. I’ll just thank Bob for being the man he is today. And the man he was 25 years ago. Maybe let’s say like 28 years ago even. All those other years before me, well, I guess they were important but probably not as important to my actual creation so they don’t matter as much. Or I hope not, because man, I’ve done quite a few things that I regret so I hope those don’t impact on how my potential future children will end up. Didn’t mean to get off on that tangent though. I’m just thankful to have been raised by a man that will blame others immediately when he farts and walks around constantly in his underwear. A guy that could do those things and somehow be a successful father and working man. A man willing to wake me up with a certain song for a year straight in high school who’s also unafraid of jumping out of a plane. He may not have done the latter but I figured if I’m writing this, I can say whatever I want to spice it up however I see fit. I know this is probably keeping it short and sweet, I’m just thankful and grateful to have a pop that helped turn me into the delightfully weird boy I am today. Based off that notion, some people could be less than thankful for him because I’m not your everyday normal fella. I like who I am though, some people like who I am and that’s good enough for me. And I couldn’t have done it without him, I couldn’t have done a lot of things without him, and I’m just glad he’s around. Even if he’s old. Happy Father’s Day to you, enjoy it, use that treadmill, and let’s hope the Magic pick a good player in the upcoming draft this Thursday. A lot of random thoughts thrown together though but I can’t help I don’t know entirely what to say. I hope I know you love you and if you don’t well, at least you got some written confirmation of it. You’re a cool dude, a cooler dad, and the coolest Django Unchained. Needed a D word and that was the first thing I could think of. Enjoy your day, enjoy whatever it is that Dads do on this day and I’ll see ya soon. So it goes.

Obviously, this post applies more to me than the average member of the population, or at least the population which partakes in Ramadan because they’re primarily Muslim and they don’t seem like the one and done type. Even if I’m only doing about a third of the month of Ramadan, I’m trying to get from it some of the lessons that it teaches. Like the lessons of suffering and the empathy you gain from it, understanding how people who don’t have food or access to water feel. That you can gain patience and feel more grateful for the blessings you have because of Allah. Sure, I’m not getting as much of the religious aspects out of it as your average Muslim but I feel I can do my best to learn something from it. And even if I am only doing it for eight or nine or however many days, it doesn’t make the fact that I’m fasting any easier. Because I think it’s easy, or at least much more bearable, to go hungry provided you aren’t going thirsty. When you combine the two then it becomes quite a bit more difficult. Especially when it comes to volunteering along with fasting. Now that I’m back at the orphanage, I’m primarily outside the entirety of my time there and I’m doing labor for two thirds of the time there as well. By labor, I more just mean physical labor like pushing kids around in wheelchairs which isn’t all that laborious but after doing it for two hours you start to realize that it’s not a walk in the park either. Plus, when you combine that with a friend of mine, Nadir, who loves to play tag it gets a bit more challenging. We’re not volunteering forever but it also doesn’t change the fact that it’s ninety something degrees outside and I’m running after a kid that is surprisingly fast or I’m not surprisingly slow. The thing is that I volunteered for Ramadan out of my own volition, to both respect the culture of Morocco and Islam, and also to learn from it like I keep mentioning over and again. I’m not trying to complain and since I’m doing this on my own accord, I wanted to make sure that I would interact with the kids at the orphanage no different than how I did beforehand. So sure, I may feel tired and thirsty and want a break but I realize that no one is forcing me to do this, and I could theoretically break fast at any time without consequence, but with that said, I’m not going to make the kids suffer because of my choices. If I suffer more because of it then so be it, but they’re going to get the best of me and that’s just how it’s gonna be. The point is, I’ve begun a habitual nap taker now. No better way to pass the hours than to just sleep it off and not worry about your dry mouth when you’re too unconscious to notice it. Today went pretty easily though, and the first day wasn’t too bad either. It was just something about the second day, probably my lack of napping. Then I made the mistake of over eating or at least over indulging in liquids which led to terrible stomach pain. Another reason why I made it a point to do some after dinner digestion walking, or after some Arabic name for the meal you break the fast with that precedes dinner. Sitting or lying down with a full belly was absolutely horrible because I thought I was going to explode. And not the good kind of I’m so full I could explode. Or maybe those are all bad. It literally was the, I feel I need to eat so I’ll be okay the next day but this is utterly horrible and I might throw up at any moment or just cry from stomach pain. Today though? No problem! Tried to temper the speed of my drinking, walked around instead of resting like a fat pig, and so far I’m feeling ready to eat dinner round two. Or dinner round one, or just the second and last meal of the day or whatever the heck it’s called. It is a strange experience when you jump out of bed too quickly though (post nap) and get light headed from the exertion of energy. Ramadan everyone! All in all though, it’s not too bad and based off my five minutes of Wikipedia research before I wrote this blog post, it’s apparently good for the body. So bye bye cholesterol and hello new cells.  Oh man though, moving on from Ramadan, tomorrow is Father’s Day and Monday is my birthday. That’s cray cray. Even more cray cray is that I imagine I’ll be writing blog posts for both of those occasions so I’m practically the one giving all these gifts of content. You’re so lucky dear readers. Oh man, oh man! What’s even more cray cray is that I have literally one week left in Africa and less than a month left abroad. The end is finally near. Which I’ll also write countless words about in due time. I never thought I’d be going home and now it’s just at my fingertips. So it goes.

I may have spent the last three weeks at the children’s hospital but duty calls and I’m now at back living that orphanage life. Which I must say is quite a lot nicer the second time around. Nicer because their are toddlers back from school, as the orphanage isn’t specifically for special needs but it caters to abandoned and orphaned children of all varieties, and there are about 10x more volunteers than their were last time. Ten times does sound like a lot except really, it just means ten because their was only one volunteer there last time not associated with my program. The energy is up, smiles are happening, and Hank is just doing his solo jam session dance parties. We all know the saying, “You can’t spell jam party without rap.” Have I ever called it a jam party and did I really want to call it a jam session or jam sesh? Yes, of course I did. Lo and behold though, you can manage to spell those without rap so I had to do some careful editing. It’s also true what they, you haven’t seen a…okay, never mind, they don’t say these sayings and no one will actually believe that anyone does. I could say it’s a Morocco thing but it’s not, I just want to have sources to back up my super cool claims about myself. All that I’m really trying to say is that these kids love Nicki Minaj. It’s true that Nadir and I have our jam out sessions where we listen to things outside of Nicki Minaj and by listen, I mean we go off to our own corner and bob our heads to the music until he looks and me and tells me to stop and he continues on his own. He’s liked anything I’ve managed to throw at him which I’ve enjoyed because I just play random songs and he grooves to the beat nevertheless. Muhed though, he’s a sucker for Nicki. Just yesterday he was angling to get more and more of that Moroccan music, that Arabian flair, but as soon as Monster by Kanye West came on he was a different man. Which then obviously was followed by Nicki’s, the Pinkprint, and her hit single, Anaconda. We went through quite a few songs on the album and he never let go of my phone. Since he was holding onto it, and just dancing. I was a little worried that he’d throw my phone right smack dab in the asphalt but I think he was too entranced by the melodic tunes to even dare such a thing. As I walked with older kids, I didn’t limit myself to just Nicki, I did bust out Kanye (as previously mentioned), Kendrick Lamar, and of course, show tunes. I’m not entirely sure what the other volunteers may think of me when I’m singing, quite loudly I must add, the Little Shop of Horrors Broadway soundtrack but at least the majority only speak French so I wouldn’t be able to understand whatever they were saying about me anyways. For all I know they probably do speak English as well since all Europeans seem to be at least bilingual but I’m going to tell myself they only speak French and are constantly in awe of my belting out girl’s solos. It’s just good to feel that the orphanage is a bit more carefree, and loose, and just less depressing compared to how I started to feel at the end of my first stint there. I know if I was there for a long period of time again, then the same feelings would most likely start creeping back up onto me but with this brief two week period I think I should be okay. It’s still sad when you think about it, it’s still sad that you know these kids will live and die here, but it’s reassuring to know that we’re making a bit of an impact when I can just walk around with someone and sing off key (to put it lightly) and have them enjoy it. On Monday when I first came back there, Nadir came up to me immediately and gave me a big hug and a kiss. Other kids remembered me and made mention of it. At the very least, I’m doing something right. So it goes.

I promise that this post won’t be as depressing as the title potentially makes it out to be. It’s more that I’ve posted about long lost loves (Patty), mortal enemies (Justyn), near death experiences (Moroccan taxies), and those who created me (parents) but I haven’t given enough shout out to my friends. To friends old and new. To friends and blue. I could have gone with Jews there as well. Also to clarify, the title is just a lyric in a song, not some insight into my heart of hearts. Though I do miss all of my friends. I don’t really feel I’m losing touch, but that’s probably not entirely true either. I’m losing touch in the way that you can talk to your friends frequently over the internet except it’s not going to compare at all to just hanging out with your buds. I may have alluded to these points in earlier blog posts or at least in conversations with friend so bear with me if this is redundant or anything. It’s true that you meet quite the arrangement of new faces while volunteering but they’re all temporary. They last a couple of weeks and you form bonds and then they’re off again. You’ll speak of reuniting and getting back together but in all honesty, you’re probably living in different states, leading different lives and then after a couple months you’ll just fade away from one another. Which I’m not saying to sound like a depressing bore, saying friendships can’t last, because there are a few people who I very much still keep in contact with and would love to see again and again. It’s just that after over six months of that you begin to really appreciate how great your friends are. Your ride or dies, your homies, your crew, your besties. Be they in the south, the north, the midwest, the east coast, the west coast, online, or otherwise you don’t know how much you appreciate them until you’re separated for them for months at a time. Maybe that isn’t true. I always knew I appreciated my friends. I’ve always loved them. It’s just that I thought I was better than the rest, that I’d never even get homesick, that I would be able to survive. And surely I can survive but it doesn’t mean that it’s getting harder. I can talk to them online, I can skype, but I can’t pick up the phone and give them a call or just make plans to actually hang out with them. I made references to wanting to go elsewhere than Florida upon arriving home and that may be the case, but it doesn’t change the love I have for the people. Because this is just all for my Florida peeps, though they know who they are, it’s for everyone. I’m happy that this showed I can still make meaningful and substantial relationships with people in just a few weeks time and start planting the seeds of a long bond, yet that doesn’t change the desire I have to just go home and be myself from the get go and not have to ease in my actual personality. I can just be me. I can be me and hang out and enjoy their company. Sometimes you do get lonely. I’m not talking a romantic lonely, I’m just talking a friendship lonely. If there’s even a difference between the two. It’s just that it’s hard to get to that level with people, the level I’m lucky to have with quite a few great people. I miss it, I want it. I’ve had a great 6+ months but I am looking forward to that. I’m looking forward to seeing the loves of my life and I’m not mentioning my cats. Though I miss them too. They’re friends! So friends out there, get at me, I’ll appreciate you no matter who you are. Until then, I’ll just keep on truckin’ here in Morocco. It’s been a great ride, and as the ride is coming to an end, I just want everyone to know how much I love them and appreciate them and miss them. That sounds like I’m dying or something. I’m not dying. Just dying to see some people. Get it? Oh man, oh man, oh man. Hilarious. So it goes.

This story would probably go a lot better if I knew the actual names of the children I’m referencing. I might know a couple of the names, although I have no idea how to spell them so I won’t even try. Thus, in honor of the NBA Finals which I can’t watch because all the games happen to start at 2 AM here, I will deem them Lebron James and Steph Curry. In the hospital, the moms tend to hang around their children though occasionally they just drop them off with us or the kids find us themselves. At the very least though, it’s not like we’re completely alone with the kids. Except today that is. Whenever we see Steph coming into the room because he’s always a wild little guy, a little guy that’s between 3-5 (which probably means I’m +-10 years off his actual age). He’s also typically chased by his mother who sometimes pulls off her shoe so she can slap him with it. And sure, I wasn’t one to be beat by a shoe growing up but even if I was, I think I’d be smart enough to know that kicking my mother repeatedly in the shins afterwards wouldn’t be doing myself any favors. Steph and Lebron know each other though, they were aware of each other, it’s hard to miss him with his inverted, lopsided arm that kinda swings inward probably due to a break and bad placement. He could ball, he could throw balls, he could do everything a normal boy could do. He was also probably ten or so, which again is probably way off because kids ages don’t make sense anymore. All that matters is a period of anarchy began without the mother’s to defend the homeland. Or to reel in their children. Because we can only do so much, we don’t have actual authority over the children and we’re there to play with them, not really discipline them. Which is more it’s just impossible to discipline kids when you can’t speak really speak to them. Unless you wanted to just start beating them up. I just think that might be a little uncouth to do inside a hospital for sick and needy children. The only point I’m trying to make is that we’re a fun crowd. How anyone would ever think I was trying to make that point based off what I’d just written is beyond me though. What I’m trying to get at is that we were an unsupervised mess, and the energy was high and frantic today. The testosterone was high as well. You could smell it. It smelled like high testerone things. Or by that I just mean there was only like one girl during all of this and seven boys and that’s a ratio that had never happened before. To cut the story short, an epic battle started to occur. An epic battle that ended up with me bleeding for the first time since my war with Justyn. I wouldn’t be able to deconstruct and describe the action sequences as much as I wanted, so suffice to say, it was two kids, Steph and Lebron, whose ages did not make a fight seem possible but it was indeed a bloodbath. Even if the only blood shed was my own. I’m just saying though, this was a battle that culminated with a four year old grabbing a rock that may as well have been a bolder to him from a planter and lift it over his head to chuck at the other kid and would have done specifically that if I didn’t swoop in to rip it out of his grasp. To summarize the whole ordeal actually was just Lebron would run away from Steph because he was bigger and faster than then sometimes come up to him and start kicking him while Steph punched him and then I’d grab Steph and pick him up into the air where he’d flail all around and then proceed to attack me once I sat him down. A couple of mother’s did emerge and all they happened to do was cast disgusted glances and try to protect their own children. Doctors and nurses also walked by and just snickered and didn’t proceed to intervene in anyway. I mean, it didn’t look super painful as a whole but it was a boy probably twice the age of the other kicking his little butt for a period of time. Even if we did break up the fights constantly, it never stopped little Steph from coming right back after Lebron again and again. It only truly ended once the mother’s came and took them both away and they were surprisingly calm in doing so. When the shoe beating would occur without much incident, no punishment seemed to be doled out for him grabbing a rock to smash another boy’s head with. It was entertaining though. Minus my possibly, probably, permanently scarred hand due to my valiant attempts to be a pacifist. No matter where I go, the battles seem to follow me. No foe is too small, that’s the lesson I’ve been taught and reminded again and again. So it goes.

Don’t worry. This will be the last one. This day might mark 6 months abroad for me but it also marks something much more important. The birth of my mother, Kate Durr Elmore, way back in 1951. She is now 64 and I’d say she doesn’t look a day over 58! Impressive work. I know I gushed and praised in her in my post on Mother’s Day so I’m not here to do that. I’m just here to give her one of the illustrious Hank Wolf shoutouts. Like the Colbert Bump before me, where an author or artist would go on his show and see radical improvements in sales of their work, I’m trying to do the same thing here. Sales of my mother? Sales of her art? I don’t know if those apply and I don’t think she’s for sale. I’m more just trying to spread the word that it’s a day of celebration and she should be wished a happy birthday. Why? Because she made me. Without me, she’d just be a woman that spent the first 39 years of her life doing amazing things without having to worry about her spawn. Now she’s a woman doing new amazing things while I’m trying to be half the person she is. Continue getting older mom, and continue to do it elegantly and gracefully, and continue to do whatever it is old people do. Enjoy AARP next year and Social Security and Medicare and all those perks. Just enjoy being you. And to everyone else out there? Enjoy her. So it goes.

to bring you a piece of on Circumcision Parties! I had a few ideas rolling around in my head for a blog post but let’s be honest, they weren’t the greatest. I would’ve made something out of them but I wasn’t like pumped to write them. I just want to give the people what they want. Content. Everything changed though when we were in the building which I can’t spell and it looked like they were setting up for a banquet. Which they were. A post-circumcision banquet. And sure, the reason I was so excited to write this blog did get tampered down a little when I learned some more information. But then I learned even more information and the excitement returned anew. With circumcision on a downward decline in the US for reasons that won’t be discussed here, well, I’m not sure where I was going with that sentence. The point is, I have no idea what happened at my circumcision. I have no idea how old I was, I imagine I was a baby. It didn’t happen in the last six months, I can tell you that much. All that matters is that I initially was said that circumcision happens between 3-7 years old. Which is old enough that you’re going to remember having some skin off your penis chopped off. It was the goat poop that really got to me though. The goat dung. The fecal matter of the goat. The fecal matter of the goat that you push your penis through and then the local barber (LOCAL BARBER!) would chop it off. Then a party is held with drinks and baked goods and dancing. Lots of dancing. I did find it a bit strange to find the reception being held in a hospital if you had to find a local barber to perform the operation. Plus, the babies they brought in who were wearing their post-circumcision outfits looked to be only about 2 and not 7. Then I found out some more information that as I said, tempered down my excitement. Apparently, children have the procedures done in hospitals now and they aren’t second graders when it happened. I mean, sure they still got a party and as far as I can remember I don’t remember having a celebration back in the day. Either way, no matter how old or young the kid was, just seeing a giant get together set for a celebration of foreskin removal was enough to make me write about it. I did learn more about the goat dung related circumcision process I mentioned earlier though. It was the local barber, but don’t worry, he cleared out a section of his shop to perform the act. I like to think he did it with a straight razor because that would really embody the barber image I have in my head. The goat dung was there yes, yes. Oh, and to distract the kid? He said “look at this corner in the wall, there’s a bird there” and slash! That’s it. No anesthesia, none of that because damn Arabians are tough as nails. They while the child cries, the women of the village, because this takes place in a village and not modern cities which now use hospitals, dance around the child and sing and proceed to sing louder in accordance with the child’s screams/wails. There were some other facts that I’m probably leaving out too. Oh wait, I remember one. They then take the foreskin in a bowl of henna to the mosque to bless it before burying it. Oh yeah! They also neuter a rooster or something as well in order to please the djinns. There’s something about leaving blood above the door the night before too in order for good blessings. Apparently there’s a lot of bleeding and blood involved. It’s brilliant. So yeah, savor this. Instead of some lame attempt at a blog post, you get my excited ramblings about babies losing parts of their privates. So it goes.

The desert. The Sahara desert. An experience that can’t be conveyed through words or throught photos. An experience that we talked about how we were all taking so many photos and that none of them would capture the majestic nature of what we were seeing. An experience that we would tell about and they’d say “Oh, that’s so cool!” and we’ll nod and think “Of course it is.” but we’ll also know that they’ll never be able to fathom just how cool it is without experiencing it for themselves. It was an experience where I was looking to the distance and thinking about how it looked exactly like a stock desktop wallpaper you’d see when you first got a new computer and how I literally was living inside of a screensaver. There was a time when I woke up in the middle of the night, looked up at the stars after the moon had set, thought to myself how cool it was, and then turned over and went back to sleep. Did I take pictures of everything? No. Because it wouldn’t be enough, it wouldn’t convey what I wanted it to convey. Did I take plenty of pictures though? Yes, because I still want to rub it in everyone’s face that I was riding a camel in the Sahara. Heather/Javier, you were truly a great camel and I really feel you took after your dad, me. I’m not sure how other volunteers confused your genitals with that of a lady but they did so originally you were Heather to me. A fashion queen I referred to you as due to your pierced nose. A king you became though. I knew we were quite a match when I sat atop you and you instantly started pooping. Knowing it would make your father proud, you proceeded to poop and sometimes pee the entire trek. From what I heard from the girl behind me, you never seemed to quit. Ever. You did seem to try to throw me off more than any of the other people except that’s noteven true because one boy was thrown off his camel entirely. Which then started a small, temporary, mini stampede where I began to run for my life to avoid one of their giant legs. Well, Javi didn’t move during that stampede though. He was a chill guy. What else happened though? Hmm, in the span of one weekend I spent 20 hours on a bus ride where I didn’t have much leg room. That was unforunate. I got to see tables and fountains made out of fossils millions of years old that sold for prices I could only dream of. I got to fail miserably at climbing up giant sand dunes, only to eventually reach the top because I persevered and found an easier route of which to ascend. There are other stories to tell, I just don’t know how to tell them. I don’t know how to properly express the experience of laying outside under the stars, listening to Sigur Ros, and closing my eyes and seeing things I’d never seen before. This is something I struggle writing down because I’m not sure what happened or how to explain it. All I know is that I laid down, and I turned on some music from Iceland and I closed my eyes and I felt like I was on a rollercoaster. A rollercoaster through the entirety of earth and it’s future and it’s past. That I was speeding through and traveling seeing the mountains, seeing the ocean, seeing the rainforest, seeing the rise and fall of civilization through my very eyes. Upon taking out my headphones, I couldn’t get the magic back. I just laid there in a state of dumbfounded elation and drifted off to sleep. I have no idea if it was the specific music, if it was the magical sand of the desert, or if it was just a combination of everything. It was just an experience. An experience I can’t help but recommend to anyone who ever has the chance to do so. Ride a camel, play in the soft sand, stare at a moon so bright that it hurts your eyes. Live it up. So it goes.

Is a blog post that I wanted to write yesterday. Or at the very least I figured I’d still be in the same state of mind and it would apply today. Sadly, that isn’t true. Or rather, happily, that isn’t true. Obviously I’m exaggerating and I wasn’t going to die but that’s probably what the first people who had ebola thought as well. Okay okay, I shouldn’t compare myself to an ebola victim especially when I’m in Africa because that just seems rude. I was sick though. I still am feeling sick, just not at the level of which I was yesterday. I only make such a point of this because sickness for me is rare. Or rare enough, I think this would be maybe the second time I’ve ever really felt unwell in the last six months or so. Last night when I was burning up underneath a blanket but feeling extremely cold if I even moved without it, I didn’t think I would be going to work today. I didn’t think I’d be going to the Sahara today either. Luckily that has changed. Probably because my body doesn’t tolerate feeling like crap or maybe because I prayed to Nick Saban for strength. I could say I blame this on the hospital but seeing as how I mainly work with asthma patients and then children with a variety of ailments in the other center, I’m not going to blame them. Even though Denis the Doctor said the hospital we work at reminded him of Italian hospitals in the ’80s which he compared to hospitals in the US in possibly the ’40s. So I’m not working in a haven of innovation, sanitation, or some other word that ends in -tion but I’m still not going to blame that place. I will blame the boy from West Point. The boy that has now gotten close to half of the current volunteers sick.  It’s okay though. Because I think I’m ready. Or I’m ready as I’m going to be because we’re leaving on a ten hour bus ride in about forty minutes and I don’t have much more time to get ready if I wasn’t already. Remember me folks. I said that to people yesterday when I thought I might be overcome by my fever in my sleep. Remember me though in another way. In a non-dying related way. Remember as the boy who trekked into the desert and wore a turban and rode a camel. Remember me in other ways too. I’m not entirely sure why you’re remembering me because I’m in no risk of dying but I will be without internet for a couple of days and with attention spans as short as they are nowadays, remember me because may consider me dead if you haven’t heard from me in a day or so. When I return I’ll have conquered the desert. I may also look like a tomato. I may hate camels. I may hate sand. Or I could experience new visions and become a changed man. Anything is possible out there. I was told no matter what I did in Morocco, that experiencing the Sahara was something else. That it was the thing to do. Thus I shall do it. I’m excited. So it goes.