Vector Vago?

Day before, yesterday, I woke up at Raphael’s feeling worse than I’ve felt in a long time. This flu came on sudden and strong. I hope it doesn’t pass on to my friend and his family. If I would have known it would feel like that, I wouldn’t have stayed there.

As it was, Raphael and his daughters were gone for the day and so I cleaned up, left a thank you note, and headed out. I was suppossed to couch surf with a new friend in Charleroi (remember 2 hours away where Brussels South Airport is) but since I was feeling like my head would explode and my breathing was strained and that perhaps I had actually caught H1N1, I opted instead to go to the nearest hotel to the airport and get a room, get some medicine, and rest. My hope was that I would recover enough so that I wouldn’t act as a vector, as it was, if I were Typhoid Mary, I would have done my job well.

I rode the crowded train from Brussels to Charleroi. Then I took a crowded bus to the airport. The hotel didn’t start running it’s shuttle service until 6 pm so I ended up sitting in the airport because it was raining and I didin’t want to get soaking wet again, the airport was nonstop crowded with incoming and outgoing flights for the 2 hours I was there. Then I took the shuttle to the hotel after buying some medicine in a pharmacy, I laid in bed and slept. I woke at 4 am and showered, then went to catch my flight.

It was delayed for 2 hours because of an Air Traffic Control Strike in France. The medicine seemed to have helped. My head felt better. I could breathe. I was incredibly excited to see my sweetheart after 5 months away.

Got to Morocco, they had some sort of star trek flu detector system at customs and I was able to go through, so probably just a bit of sinusitus from the cold and rain. Took another bus to Fes, a taxi to Sefrou, walked in and Salaam a leykuumed my Moroccan family. Really nice.

If I was a virus vector, I exposed thousands in a very short time…wow. I can see why disease outbreak control is a nightmare.

For the first time in a long time, I have no destination, no where I am going, no flights to catch, nowhere I need to be. I do have things I need to do though.

Hanane and I want to marry as soon as possible which might be a long time given the mountains of Moroccan bureaucracy and my Vagabond status.

I need to find work.

I need to find a place to live. Not that it’s bad living with the Souidi’s, I love them, but it’s the sort of frenetic place where one can’t really write, study, or work. Constant activity of eating, cleaning, catching sheep, painting, and more.

I’m really happy to be back in Morocco. I’m happy to be back with Hanane. I am totally optimistic for the future and sure that things will work out.

So here, this blog perhaps takes a turn towards building a life in Morocco and starting from zero. The challenges of international marriage in a Muslim nation and the joy of successes that are yet to come…inshallah.

Wish me luck and welcome along for the ride.