Amazing weird happening here in Nkob

Can't even begin to explain how unbelievable this was, and how much I freaked out.

EVIDENCE No1 : This is the book I was reading, an English copy of 100 Years of Solitude

EVIDENCE A-1 (Detail) This is where I picked it up, the PC Library in Rabat. Picked it up in person, took it home with me.

Evidence A-2 (Detail)

Even more remarkable. I've seen this place a lot-- it's the used bookstore in my hometown, maybe 10K from my house and 5K from where my grandparents live.

But the thing that made my mind explode just thinking about it : I didnt bring this book with me here. And looking at how old it is (at least before 1982, when Marquez won the Nobel prize, judging by the absence of that fact in his biography above), it's been here in Morocco, or somewhere, a LONG time. So, in case you don't understand yet, this book came from Jackson and I came from Jackson, pop 50,000 in the city proper, but we came here independently of each other. But I'm not really reading it, I just grabbed it thinking that I might use it to look up the hard Italian words I don't know in the real copy I'm reading, the Mondadori Italian version (or Bompiani, not sure which).

So it's amazing that I found it here in Morocco. It's more amazing that I would never have known had I just read the Italian version using just my Italian-Spanish dictionary. More amazing, still, is the fact that I had one English copy--very doubtful that it, too, was from the Book Nook--but I got a second copy in English after my first one wasn't stolen. If I still had it, this one from my hometown would still be sitting in the library, unbeknownst to me.

Even, I only opened this version up after I'd read 30 pages, and then I only went to the front to read the bio age again. It would have been just as crazy if I'd had the book and never even known that it came from my home town.

This book, my hometown. When we have tens of thousands of book stores in the United States that this might have come from instead. And it's not even so important that it's 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE, the book I've read more than any other and that propelled me to Colombia, a life-changing experience.

Other crazy ideas--who knows when it got here, how many people have read it, and is this from a volunteer from Jackson that also served in Peace Corps Morocco? Or did someone's aunt or uncle find it here on their way through town and mail it to them, or did a volunteer from Ghana swing through and pass it on after they finished it? THIS is why I always write my name and my Moroccan town, plus the date each time I finish a book. But now I might start writing my hometown, too. : §

You can't imagine the strange thoughts that ran through my mind when I finally stared at this page and I realized it was from Jackson. But before I realized that it wasn't my copy, I was trying to think of when I bought it, where I kept it in my luggage when I flew here, etc etc trying to make sense of it. Finally I just said, no, this can't be mine, this cover is nothing like the cover of my old English copy, and the book looks older than me!

A memorable night, I do dare say.