Waiting For The Storm

Lily and I have super powers. Well, I guess, to be honest, they’re not so much “super” as just slightly-better-than-normal powers. Lily can predict storms. It’s got something to do with the drop in barometric pressure and she’s usually about 20 minutes ahead of the giant orange sand cloud. Her power really comes in handy here—especially at night, when you can’t see the storm building on the Northeastern horizon. Usually an extremely sound sleeper (I once watched her dog run across her face without budging her), Lily will sit up out of a dead sleep and say, “It’s coming.” This usually gives us plenty of time to pack up our sleeping gear, bolt all the windows closed and get inside as opposed to waking up as the wall of sand begins to pelt you, threatening to destroy anything that isn’t cemented down. My power is a little different. If you’ve seen the first season of Heroes then you know about the artist who paints scenes of the future. A while ago I thought it would be fun to draw my own comic strip—a little tongue-in-cheek homage to my time here as a volunteer. It was called “The Horrors and Harrows of Life in Mulafa Land” and featured little blobular people accidentally lighting themselves on fire, getting run over by donkey carts, chased by animals, etc. When the story lines started coming true I decided it was time to put away the colored pencils. What fun is a flaming mulafa when a 12-year-old girl suffers third degree burns? My power can’t be stopped that easily though. Even though I’ve resigned myself to drawing about only minor annoyances (cockroaches, sandstorms, God’s judgement in Deuteronomy 28:19-24), it’s found a way to manifest itself in my dreams. For a while now, since before we had any idea of the trouble the new PC invitees would have getting visas, I’ve been having dreams about the end of Peace Corps Mauritania. At first I chalked it up to Mefloquine side effects, but the situation here continues to spiral downwards and now those dreams seem more and more likely. I can’t have an opinion on the political situation here, but I can say that a lot rests in the balance in these coming months. The election, which has been pushed back to mid-July, will determine how other countries see Mauritania, and the person who is elected will decide how Mauritania views the rest of the world, including the US. And then there’s the visa situation. Will we get new volunteers to work alongside, to whom we can pass along our projects? No one is sure. All we know is that the storm is on its way, but there is no way to predict its intensity or its after-effects. Will we have to pack our things and run for cover or will it be light shower we can sit through before normalcy returns? All we can do at this point is wait and hope for the best.