The next morning, all of a sudden there was a way to fix the truck.
We were about to be off when it was discovered that the key was lost, nowhere to be found.
The truck had to be hot wired.

More and more of the desert,
The scenery was beautiful–huge dry expanses, a few scrubby trees, bare rock mountains,
blue cloudless sky

In the desert, I participated many times in a tea ceremony.
A small metal enameled pot with a long sprout is packed with tea and sugar.
Water is heated on a small portable stove.
Then everyone who is assembled is given a small glass of strong, sweet, hot tea to drink.
No matter how many or how few people are sitting around,
there is always just enough tea in that little pot to go around.
The process is repeated twice more using the same tea leaves & adding more sugar.
Each participant is given three glasses, each sweeter and weaker than the previous one.

We are again waiting for another truck to come by.
The axle is really broken this time, not fixable.
There was a severe drought in the Sahel in the early 70′s.
There was no water in the river & there was nothing to eat
in the town where we broke down this time.
People were starving.
I will never forget the face of the boy who must have been 12 or 14
who looked like an old man
& ate the discarded empty cardboard box from the tea ceremony
for the remaining grains of sugar on the box.

Around this time, I started fantasizing everyone I had ever known
showing up in a land rover to rescue me.
Old friends, old lovers, family, even people I never particularly liked.
Sometimes these people also rescued other passengers from the truck.
It has been a week and a half since I’ve spoken English!
except for the few very welcome words that the customs official knows.

We from the truck ate & a few grains of rice fell on the ground,
they ate that.
So I ate as little as I could & gave the rest away.
It got to the point where no one could eat very much.
It was decided by the truck passengers that we had to get out of town
because no one could take it.
By popular demand, somehow by changing the tires around,
the camion was able move enough for us to break down a few miles out of town.

I explained there were also people in the US who don’t have enough to eat
& had to further explain that it was not for of lack of food but for lack of money.
I have been explaining that yes, the government is rich, & some of the people are rich,
but not everyone.
The Algerian man asked, “Why isn’t there a revolution?”