This is a picture of my closest Saharawi friend, Fatima, and me on a lazy Friday afternoon.

Here is a picture of 4 English-speaking friends (from left to right, Nancy, Alice, Jessica, and Marite) and my Hassaniya tutor (Mahmood). Mahmood is preparing a traditional tea in his house. After 32 years here and with no repatriation in sight, his house, like many in the camps, appears pretty permanent.

This is a picture of my host, Haha, and her youngest son, Mustafa.

More photos!

This is a photo of some of "my girls" in the language lab at the Salam English School whom I tutor three times a week.

Geertz's echo OR Why should I be lonely now?

This picture was taken at one of the many weddings I have attended in the last couple of months. The woman pictured here is a member of the bride's family dousing a bunch of women crammed like sardines into the wedding tent with perfumed water. The picture doesn't capture the loud music, flying candies, and infectious hollering. Amidst such festivities as these (and now only a few shorts weeks away from seeing Jeremy and Mom), I have found myself wondering: Why should I be lonely now? It rings strange to say, but it is true that since I've become more familiar with this place--and more capable of communicating--I have felt more and not less lonesome. Then again, maybe it makes sense... When I first arrived, I didn't yet feel fully human, more like a statuette. After some modest inroads in language acquisition and network building, I now feel a little more myself, a little more human--and a lot more lonely.

My friend Alice frequently reminds me that when she was first getting to know this place 8 months ago, she felt like she had the subjectivity of a goat. If Alice was a meager goat in her first months here, I have begun joking that I was (...it is only funny in retrospect...) some triumph in taxidermy. Maybe more exotic than a goat (Alice's European origins are old hat. But America?!), yet also far less self-sufficient. Like a stuffed moose from the far off plains, I was either stared at quizzically or overlooked altogether. In either case, not exactly treated as human, and not exactly playing the role. Luckily, I’ve been retreating into my moose statuette less and changing the scenery more. Because I am feeling more able to get around on my own, I feel freer to change my surroundings when people are either paying me too much or too little attention. I have even begun running some in the early morning, which is the closest thing I've found here to living on the wild side.