Now, I head towards another terminal for this shot. I inquire within. Many people are averse to do much searching, whether it is the language barrier or a lack of motivation on their holiday - it is Eid after all. These workers must want to jump ship. This is why the Yellow Fever shot is nowhere to be found in Cairo. I bounce from here to there, chipping time from my gratuitous grace period between the 4 AM and 4 PM flight. Finally, terminal one holds the treasure I seek. Quarantine. Like shining Vegas lights to a sobered drunkard in the desert. The shot is here, in a room so apocalyptic. A covered woman sleeps. I wake her. She administers the shot and sweetly speaks Arabic to me slowly with hopes that speed will teach me to understand. I try. Nothing. I pay 150 Egyptian Pound, or 9 USD, and go on my way.
10 AM. Back to the terminal. I wrap myself around my bag and tuck my arms beneath my head. I sleep like this in shifts, four or five times. In moments of lone-ness, I people-watch at a meditative state. Not wondering where they have come from or where they are going, but who they are and what they are thinking. I hum to soothe any other thoughts away. In an instant, it is 1 PM.
I check-in for my flight to Casablanca. I go to the gate, I find 30 minutes of WiFi, and I call my mom. I’m still kickin’, I say. I download the maps to Mauritania, but I’m not sure that they’ve completed as my mother’s voice drops out and my phone becomes a chunk of metal again. Oh well. I board the flight. I sit next to a woman reading a book in Arabic. I marvel at its beauty and backward-frontwards fashion. I sleep, heavily, on and off. I get to the next airport with an hour between flights. For transfer, it seems that everyone in the crowd is in the same hustle. So I wait. I make it through with ten minutes to spare. My gate is a hefty length away. I do not run. I pace myself for timing. I do not feel that they will leave. I arrive, and the flight has yet to have even boarded. I look for WiFi to send my mother an OK and continue downloading the maps, but alas, 9. Kaput. I stand with a woman who looks middle eastern but screams ‘have you ever heard of a little thing called the western world?’ She is wearing a strappy sleeveless top with her hair down and glamorous hot magenta on her lips to match. There is something written in Arabic plated gold and cradling her neck. We smile at each other gently, as it seems there is something common between us: we do not belong. We stand in line to board the flight. For ages, I think. I lose myself in watching a Muslim mother move her cover aside to let her child kiss her face. In the arms of love, priority lay claim. Once we start to move, the conversation between us sparks. Some joke was made (like a mutual, exasperated finally), and I knew it was time to talk.
She is a Syrian woman, living in London, traveling to Mauritania to see her husband. They’ve just married in April. We find our seats. She is sitting a few rows ahead and tells me she will seek me out once everyone has boarded. The doors close. We do not move aside from her switching seats to rest by my right hand. “The man up there would not sit next to me. He was asking women in Arabic, please, switch with me, please would you sit next to her? I finally answer, ‘OK, do not worry. I am moving anyway. You can sit.’ What am I, this thing? This thing he cannot share a seat with on a flight? Anyway, I answer in Arabic, and I think he stopped talking then.” She smiles between almost every sentence. I can tell she is not a happy person, but that she wants to be. So she becomes positive. We talk about Syria, what it is like to have grown there, and to have left. Her family still lives there. They cannot leave. The situation is better now compared to what the worst had to offer, but it is not good. There is no water, houses are crumbling, food does not satisfy. She tries to visit once a year. Last year, all of her and her children’s passports were stolen. She was a wreck. Thieves can sell them well because they are British passports with many stamps of international travel around the EU. This could save someone from living a life in Syria. She understands this. She moves on and eats the money it takes.
Fourteen years she has lived outside of London. She had a first husband, but he was so negative, so wrong for her. She ate his feelings, too, and became hardened by it. Because she is so keen to be positive, she lasted so long in a relationship that tore her apart. For this, she has regret. If she could redo it, she tells me she would. It affected her mood permanently, and her children saw an ugliness they cannot unsee. She is quick to feel anger now, whereas before, nothing could phase her. I tell her that maybe this is good, to feel more emotion, but to not always let it run so carelessly. She has learned, and too, must unlearn. I tell her of this philosophy, and she agrees. Now, she has found love in the man she is visiting. He is her second cousin. Her father’s cousin. He loved her since she was little, but she married young, and he let her go. Once she divorced many years later, their contact erupted, and they fell in love. She married for love. She tells me this is the most important, basic, complex aspect of being alive. I agree.
She hears of my travels alone, and she is shocked at the determination. Impressed, even, with a twinge of fear. We eat our airplane food, and we nap on the flight. She sleeps on the floor. I have never seen this before. I like her very much. Her name is Y——-.
We wake to the rumbling of turbulence and a smack to the pavement. We land, perhaps without control. She and I look at each other, a bit distraught and teeming with nervousness. We are here. Nouakchott. We get off the plane, and the airport is a room. I think there are only two flights per day - one to leave and one to arrive. Y——- finds her husband at the doors and embraces him with youthful emotion. I can see the love they have for each other. It has been one month since their last meeting. Without a hitch, she introduces us. I don’t catch his name. He asks how I will arrive at my destination and who I will stay with. I tell him I will grab a cab to “Big Market” and that the man will wait for me there. He says, La. Y——- tells me he will drive me to my destination and call the man, L——, for me. I am grateful. My visa process takes a long while, and I soon realize that she and her husband are nowhere to be found. That I am the sole person left at the airport. As the visa is being adhered to my pages, Y——- materializes from thin air, calling to me. No one speaks English, only French and Arabic. This will be difficult. Her husband is questionable about the man I will stay with. He says that he should have picked me up from the airport. I get into their car. I thank them profusely for all that they have done. I make a few jokes to lighten the anxiety of helping someone else when you feel it is necessary. She laughs, and tension leaves our enclosure. She offers me food in the back of the car. She and her husband flirt in Arabic. I love to see them. The road from the airport is one long stretch of asphalt in a sea of sand.
He calls L—— as we arrive. I see him. I offer them money. They say no, but that they’d love to see me soon, perhaps for the sea. I tell her I will message her though I am not sure that I can without WiFi. I squeeze her as another thank you and we part, our parts having been played and bowing. I meet Limam in the square. There are many traditionally clothed men selling sim cards dangling from their hands. They hold them out like a ribbon of granddaughter and grandson photos in an elderly woman’s wallet. L—— shakes my hand and hugs me in the street. He immediately purchases a SIM card for my Nokia that N—- so graciously bequeathed to me. I put it in. Even if I wanted to eat the money it would take to use data for a call, it would not be possible. There is no service here. This is my priority. L—— and I return to his home, it is a very homely home. Bare minimum, a touch of running water, a few things in the fridge. He labels the few items with his name so his family does not eat - some fruit and some yogurt. L—— sets up the yogurt and dates for us. We sit in a room, upstairs, that will be mine. The walls are covered in sharpie drawings from other travelers. The Mauritanian flag hugs the wall, proudly showcasing the mass gratitude and thanks by the hands of many travelers - French, English, Chinese, Arabic. He tells me this is my home, I do not have to cover. He will do with me whatever I would like tomorrow. “I will take you to the camel markets.” He must wake up for work in the morning and so he must sleep - 3 hours. He will see me tomorrow. I lay my head, I sleep in my clothes. I turn off the lights and open a window. I have made it here. I am alone and yet, not at all. My thoughts cannot scare me, I have done more fearful things than they would have me believe I have done to me. I charge my Nokia, and I sleep.
