An AP photo from the sand storm in Beijing. When the air tastes like sea water!

Here in Nkob we've had two days of a sandstorm. It comes and goes but a mile away in any direction and everything beyond that has disappeared. I spent 40 minutes yesterday washing my 5 tshirts in the aqueducts down the line from my host mom Aicha, host sister Ilhem and a couple of other ladies. Osama and Jamal were cleaning some kind of tarp (Osama is 7 maybe) and he looked up and yelled: Walu! Because everywhere around us there was just palm trees and nothing, walu, other than our tubs and the pack of Tide soap. It was like it had all been eaten up, or else we had fallen into a dream world that was still being created.

A while back in our Nintendo 64 days there was a game called Turok, and the graphics were good up close, but anything far away disappeared into a haze. This is a bit like being in a sand storm. It was bad enough one day that

Using my new blue turban I went running today, and since there wasn't much too see, the best thing is to wrap the fabric over your whole face and head. And the material is thin enough that you can still see to aim where you are going. So I ran 10 K today and I looked like this lady.

A few weeks ago and I was in Tinjdad with Sam and Will. Sam and I have turbans --or a turban substitute, the Buff--and you just pull it over your eyes. But Will didnt so it looked like he was escorting too giant, 6 feet tall -burn patients , or else maybe two Invisible Men. Not sure if there is a picture of that floating around anywhere, but it's pretty common enough occurrence all year long here.

Next blog post will be called 'Five Years ago part 1' all about the MdS, and why it's a major reason that I'm here. Then I will be able to tell you all about spring camp which starts in four days! It will be me, 7 other PCVs and about 100 Moroccan kids in an amazing tour de force experience for all of us, located about an hour from the Mediterranean and a few steps from the Algerian border in a place called Oujda.

Peace and love!