China→USA→Qatar→Pakistan

Home leave was exhausting! Don’t get me wrong. I was happy to see everyone. People hosted me, massively rearranged their schedules to make time for me, and/or worked with my last minute availability. I am so appreciative. But all the bouncing around (Seattle, Minnesota and Michigan, California, D.C., Connecticut) was a LOT.

Bloody Mary garnished with a Slim Jim

Best Potato Chips in the world

Really?

Questionable Food and Beverage Choices in the Midwest

First time since 2011 (?) all eight of us were there?

The Marenisco July 4 Parade

How to spend the perfect day

Cabin time in the upper peninsula of Michigan

Add lost luggage and cancelled flights to the mix, and I have to figure out something different for my next home leave. My preference would be to chill out in/near Seattle. If I rented a house with spare bedrooms would people visit? Seattle’s amazing in the summer!

The mountain is out!

Anyway, I have two years to figure that out.

During my time in D.C. I took a short class at FSI (Foreign Service Institute), which is back to in-person classes. When I started in 2018, I learned the FSI cafeteria was the place to witness reunions among people who had served together at one post or another but hadn’t seen each other in awhile. “Will that be me someday?” I wondered. Yep. Literally day one, five minutes in.

I also saw my sister, got in some final meals, and managed one bit of sightseeing with a visit to Arlington House, home of traitor to his country Robert E. Lee.

Arlington House seen from the cemetery

This looks like marble and sandstone but, like Robert E. Lee’s patriotism, is a cheap façade.

Quarters for enslaved people

kitchen where enslaved people worked for the Lee family

Then it was off to Islamabad, with a one-night rest stop in Doha where I wondered about the wisdom of scheduling said rest stop in a city where August temps reach 115°during the day. I did venture out, but only by night.

The old market, Souq Waqif, was a short but sweaty (at least it’s a dry heat!) walk from my hotel and I loved it. It was like Disneyland Morocco. While it was one hundred percent an Arab souk, and therefore familiar and comforting, it had none of the catcalling or the hygiene concerns that I expect from a visit to Marrakech or Fes. I got enough of a taste of Doha to want to return (in the winter), which is great because it’s an easy long weekend away from Islamabad.

Art!

Art?

Traditional dhows, which used to be part of the fishing and pearl diving industry, now carry tourists for a view of the modern skyline

Ice cream stand

Buying sweets

Daytime view from my hotel ,where checking my weather app and touching the glass of the window made me decide I should not go outside.

Remember how when I was in China I was basically locked inside the country for 18 months (because of Chinese policies) and couldn’t do leisure travel anywhere else? Here in Pakistan I have very restricted movements within the country (because of U.S. policies) and can only do leisure travel somewhere else. Who wants to meet me in Istanbul, Doha, or Muscat (Oman)?

Speaking of freedom of movement, I need to dispel some misconceptions. Yes, I live on compound here. And with three restaurants, a bar, and a commissary on embassy grounds, I don’t necessarily need to leave. But I am not confined to compound.

I can stray, with some caveats. We have a curfew (1:00 am – 5:00 am, as if I’ve been out during those hours any time in the last decade).There are areas of the city we are not allowed to visit or may only visit with permission. I can freely walk around the diplomatic enclave (the area surrounding the U.S. embassy), but have been told that after dark I may encounter wild boars. I am not allowed to use local transport, but am allowed to use government cars and drivers as my own personal taxi service.

In my first two weeks I have left compound to visit my colleague’s favorite bookstore, two of her favorite carpet and textiles vendors, three of her favorite restaurants (Thai, Pakistani, Afghan), and her tailor. I see bespoke linen dresses in my future. (A-line to hide the food baby I’ll be growing with all these samosas and chapati and kebabs.)

These were all within the area I am allowed to roam, but on another day we went to my colleague’s favorite furniture maker, in a “with permission only” section of the city, requiring a bit more advance planning.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This furniture maker uses reclaimed wood from abandoned buildings to fashion into new pieces

Some “special incentive posts” allow you to save money not just because of the extra pay, but because you can’t really leave your house and there is nothing to spend your money on. That is clearly not going to be the case in Pakistan.

I could really use some new pieces to spice up my bland apartment! But the apartment is fine, if not as fancy as what I had in China. There’s definitely no robot bringing me takeout orders. I can hire a housekeeper, but there’s also no in-house cleaning service providing light vacuuming and twice a week sheets/towels/toilet paper refresh for a mere $600 a year. I am longing for my HHE (household effects) to arrive with my precious robovac! Once I get my stuff and I purchase the inevitable rugs and custom made furniture, I hope to be pretty comfortable here for the next year.

It’s been awhile…

I haven’t blogged for awhile because we’re all stuck in this never ending loop of sameness. What is there to say? But I figured I could do a quick update for anyone I haven’t been in touch with personally.

I left Kazakhstan in March 2020 and I never got to go back.

My last full day in Almaty, where the city showed off its juxtaposition of soviet and sublime that I will always remember (and love).

Like most responsible people, I’ve spent the past year mostly huddled up inside.

I departed my Almaty apartment with one and a half suitcases worth of stuff and that’s about all I had for the next six months. From March through October I was teleworking for the consulate in Kazakhstan from Seattle.

You might think you need a lot of stuff but one large wheelie bag, one backpack, and a few trips to Target can get you through six months!

While I sometimes regretted leaving Kazakhstan (it was a choice–I wasn’t forced to evacuate), I didn’t regret choosing Seattle instead of DC as my “safe haven.” Usually when the Department of State evacuates people from a post, they put them to work in DC. There’s always an office that needs help. But they had never before issued such a broad evacuation order and in-person work was off the table anyway. So, many of us could continue working for our posts, just not in person, from various parts of the USA.

It was nice to be home, even if Seattle was a bit of a ghost town.

Nearly deserted Pike Place Market.
But DeLaurenti’s cheese selection is still awesome

I saw a few friends, mostly in outdoor settings, drank some good beer, ate some good food, and racked up a lot of Marriott points (#yourtaxpayerdollarsatwork) while always hoping that “soon” things would get back to normal and I could return to Kazakhstan instead of teleworking from a completely opposite time zone.

I was excited to check out the Korean grocery store that opened downtown while I was away

Many of Seattle’s BLM demonstrations were close to my hotel.

After enjoying proximity to the Tian Shan, I admit the Cascades seem a little small. But still stunning!

Unfortunately, by the time I would have been allowed to return, it was time for me to finish my tour. I said goodbye via email and supervised pack out of my Almaty apartment via video phone. At that point I was allowed to send myself 250 lbs. of personal items and the rest…I guess is on an actual slow boat to China? (Kind of possible, even from landlocked Kazakhstan, although I suspect my things are actually in a U.S. warehouse.)

After officially PCSing (permanent change of station) from Kazakhstan I had a month of home leave—congressionally mandated for Foreign Service people so as to make sure we don’t lose touch with “life in these United States.”

My plans to spend that time flitting around from Seattle to Minnesota to California, catching up with people I haven’t seen in awhile, were scrapped. I risked one visit to California and then quarantined with good friends and their rambunctious but adorable dog.

Now I am in Arlington, Virginia, three months into nine months of language training. I’m in temporary lodging, originally chosen for its now-worthless proximity to the Foreign Service Institute shuttle bus (classes are on Zoom). The apartment is bigger than my Seattle long-stay hotel but just as blandly inoffensive. Truly a symphony of beige. Yes, I could hear sirens on January 6th, no I did not participate in any of the activities necessitating the deployment of those emergency vehicles.

While I generally consider myself pretty unattached to “stuff,” and I have been reunited with those 250 lbs. of personal items, I have had days where I would be willing to violate my personal if somewhat sketchy moral code for the ability to cook with with my own pots and pans or wear some different clothes (I am baffled by my original packing choices. What did I think I was going to do with all those bras and work-appropriate dresses? But none of us knew).

Like everyone else, I can’t believe what happened to 2020. I know other people have lost so much more during this pandemic but I still ask for permission mourn my cancelled vacations (Republic of Georgia, Faroe Islands, Aral Sea) and my inability to see most of my family in person.

As someone who has made a lot of life choices specifically designed to facilitate increased ability to travel, it’s caused a bit of an identity crisis. Who am I even if my passport sits unused? I sustain myself by remembering just how much of Central Asia I got to see, which is all I wanted when I ranked Kazakhstan as my #1 choice for a first assignment. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan plus jaunts to Morocco, Moscow, Thailand, and Malta, all in 2019. I even went back to DC for a training. That’s four continents in one year so I’ll stop the pity party.

My work in Guangzhou is scheduled to begin July 2021, when I hope I can make up for lost time by exploring China and beyond. I’ll go into the joys of language learning another time. As expected, I am not a surprise savant. Mandarin Chinese is…不容易.

Stay healthy everyone!

Protected: Peace Corps Epilogue

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

End Credits

Yesterday I landed back in Central Time Zone USA after 876 days away.

The final 10 days of my COS trip flew by–back to London to dive into laundry and “the great repackening” of my bags, going to see my first show at the Globe (Merchant of Venice–problematic play, outstanding production), saying very difficult goodbyes to my family on that side of the Atlantic, and then stopping mid-Atlantic for a final few days in Iceland to hike and soak in hot pools with my friend Gina.

Getting to Thórsmörk requires rugged transportation

Seljalandsfoss waterfall, en route to Thorsmork

En route to Þórsmörk (Thorsmork)

House of the Huldufólk (elves)

Some of the hiking trails near Thorsmork have stairs

Some of the hiking trails near Thorsmork only have scree slopes

Tröllakirkja (Troll’s Church) on the Tindfjöll Circle hiking trail in Thorsmork

Our relationship with trail marking poles grew deep and meaningful.

View from the top of Valahnúkur, a one hour (give or take) climb from Þórsmörk Volcano Huts

Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavik’s most famous building

After two months of wandering through mostly Catholic and Orthodox churches, the stark interior of the Lutheran Hallgrímskirkja is like an assaultless assault on the senses.

Doors of Hallgrímskirkja

Reykjavik street art

Reykjavik street art

Gina indulges in a hot dog at the famous “Bæjarins beztu pylsur”

Icelanic ponies at Árbæjarsafn

Turf house at Árbæjarsafn

Operator–give me Murrah Hill triple seven eighty five

Creepy doll at Árbæjarsafn, the open air folk musuem

Árbæjarsafn: Reykjavik’s open air folk museum

How the fashionable ladies of Iceland used to dress

Harpa, Reykavik’s glorious new concert hall

Crikey–and I thought the hijab was impractical!

Inside Harpa

Lava fields of the Reykjanes peninsula

Where do I go from here? Minneapolis? Seattle? Somewhere else? Because I don’t know, my Peace Corps journey still feels incomplete. I suppose the idea is it’s never “finished” as I will always carry this experience with me.

In the coming months I am likely to have some deep and important thoughts on reintegration that I want to share, in which case I will almost certainly add an epilogue or two on the blog. But in the meantime, this is a nice place to add some much needed end credits.

Thank you to everyone who made my 876 days away better!

• My mom: devastating health news came something like ten days after I accepted my invitation to Morocco but she still encouraged me to come and never made me feel guilty that I couldn’t stay in contact as well as I used to.
• My sister Kerry, who kept things going on the home front and was so good about keeping me up to date but was always calm and collected even if she must have sometimes wanted to say “get your ass back to the U.S. and deal with this yourself!”
• Andrew, Bruce and Chris: I knew that having family on a slightly closer continent was going to be a bonus and I already knew you were amazing, but the extent to which you opened your home (and your washing machine) to me, and the incredible generosity you showed to me and to my other family members over the past 2+ years leaves me truly humbled.
• Everyone who let me store stuff at their house: My remaining worldly possessions are scattered throughout the homes of my aforementioned mother, sister Kerry, and friends Hilary, Derek and Gina, Anju and Rahul, and Sara and Todd. I think that’s everyone. Oh wait–Vinnie has my stand mixer. But I’m not sure who did whom the favor in that scenario.
• Everyone who visited Morocco and inevitably picked up the tab for a meal or two or a dozen: Sara and Todd, Shanna, Lia, Sara’s parents Ann and Marc, Derek and Gina, my mom, Savitha, Colleen. Did I forget anyone? I hope not! Special love to those who came all the way down south to visit my site. I know you could have spent those days in a beautiful beach town but instead you came to N’Kob to stay in my mud house. Thank you.
• Everyone who send me care packages: Sean, Vinita and Bruce, Laurie and Vance, Lia, Kerry, Shanna, Gina and Derek, Gretchen, Dave and Cindy, Julie, Natalie, Michelle. Oh my–I really hope I am not forgetting anyone but it’s possible that I am because people were really generous. Please know that your boxes of Mac n’ Cheese or bottles of hot sauce=pure love.
• Everyone who tried to send me care packages: I know that Gina’s mom Bev as well as Sara and Todd tried to send me some love but either it went missing or was returned, bruised and battered. If anyone else tried and failed, I’m so sorry. But I still feel the love!
• Everyone who made my vacations awesome: Taking some kick-ass vacations was one of the best things about being in Morocco. Bruce, Chris and Andrew get another HUGE shout-outs for hosting me in the U.K. multiple times, each visit even better than the last. Fellow PCVs Anna and Courtney not only made traveling around Morocco a fun adventure–there’s no one I’d rather be crammed in to the back of a grand taxi with–but also followed my suggestion of New Year’s in Budapest. Kerry, Erik, Zeke and Keara hauled themselves across the Atlantic for the first time and put themselves in my hands in Paris. Heidi joined me in Italy and took charge of getting us tickets to an opera at La Scala. Gina and Derek and I spent an idyllic week in Portugal and I think we need to revisit the idea of purchasing an apartment in Lisbon and going to that wine bar every night.
• All the people who stayed in touch. Too many to name but everyone who read my blog, commented on my Facebook posts with encouraging words, emailed me, and generally made an effort to communicate even though I was cut off from some kinds of communication. Knowing that you haven’t been forgotten on the homefront is very comforting to a PCV.
• Peace Corps Morocco staff and fellow volunteers for a bazillion reasons.
• Finally…all the Moroccans who showed me some of the most amazing hospitality I have ever encountered and gave so much of what they had to make me feel welcome. In America I know it’s probably just going to creep out strangers on the bus, train or airplane when I offer to share my food with them, but I hope I never lose the habit.

Bacon, Beer and Blasphemy

Post Peace Corps life is here. I arrived at London Heathrow and essentially melted into a puddle of gratitude to be fetched from the airport and, in short order, given wine, dinner and access to a hot shower. My London relatives are incredibly generous people.

I headed into London the next two mornings, fortified with a sausage and bacon breakfast because why have just one kind of pork when you could have two? (This is not a particulalrly popular view in Morocco). It’s trite to say but London is one of those cities that always gives you something new. It helps that I have some random interests. So after visiting Tate Britain (creepy medieval ladies, huzzah! JMW Turner, not really my thing. William Blake, exhibit sadly closed.) I investigated a nearby star on my google map that I couldn’t remember placing there.  “Why did I just pay to see a charming but tiny garden outside a deconsecrated church now housing a vegetarian restaurant?” I thought to myself. Didn’t seem like me.

But you know what does seem like me? Tracking down random grave sites. Turns out that just past the goat cheese and beet root salads lies William Bligh, better known as the captain of the HMS Bounty when Christian Fletcher and his distinctly unmerry band of men mutinied.

The following day I found the Cross Bones Graveyard, mass burial ground for paupers and prostitutes of times past…

The fence is decorated with ribbons to remember those buried here.

…as well as the St. Dunstan’s in the east garden, created in the blitzed out ruins of a church.

Here’s a fun fact–there are places in this world where it is incredibly easy to get a beer. London is one of them! So when my feet were tired from walking to the Prime Meridian in Greenwich and when I had an hour to kill before The Book of Mormon, I just went into a pub and had a beer!  

Regarding the holy book musical, it was as good as everyone says. Perhaps my cousin, a retired minister, didn’t exactly love it. Understandable. The language is totally what you would expect from the men who brought you Cartman and the sexual content is filthy and the attitudes expressed regarding the truthfulness of Mormonism, and by implication all religions, maybe crosses the blasphemy line by a few steps, assuming those steps are taken by some kind of Atlas-like titan. But I laughed a lot and I found the comentary on foreign missionary work maybe not totally irrelevant for those of us who have done foreign development work. Plus, religion being poked fun at using sexual content and swear words in a venue filled with women and men fraternizing (sometimes even canoodling!), drinking alcohol and wearing clothing sure to displeaseth the Lord? Those are exactly the kind of western values I’ve been missing. I’m still an ocean away from the U.S. but hamdullah, I’m home.

802-814

The final days. Not necessarily the final blog post though. See below*.

Day 802: As my Facebook feed is taken over by news of the first group of COSers I find myself unaccountably surprised at how quickly people are back in the States. “That’s it? You’re already back?” It seems somehow that since the process for getting here took so long, returning should be a slow process too. Nope.

Day 803: My last (please please please) babysitting call from my “handler.” He is my on-site supervisor and spent the first 18 months of my service totally giving not one rat’s ass where I was and what I was doing. But since last October he’s been on me like white on rice. Calling me at least once a week (more often if he forgets he just called me), asking where I am. If I don’t answer his call for whatever reason (my phone is in another room and I don’t hear it, reception is bad inside my house and I don’t want to crawl out from under the covers and go outside to take a call, I am just being petulant that a grown ass woman like myself has to account for herself like a teenager with a strict curfew), I get called maybe 11 more times. Recently he (or the local gendarme–I’m still unclear) even called Peace Corps and I got in trouble for not being exactly where everyone thought I was. Many local authorities are ratcheting up their PCV surveillance after last fall’s flooding and then, earlier this year, an incident where a Moroccan young man sent a threatening Islamic-State related Facebook message to a few PCVs. The message was terrible and the man is in jail now and our security truly wasn’t ever really at risk but the Moroccan authorities take this stuff very very seriously, especially with what my gendarme euphemistically refers to as “the world situation.” Even though I know it’s all for my own safety, I am ready to be a grown up again and leave my whereabouts unaccounted for.

Day 805: Two year anniversary of arriving in my final site. Also, tonight my amazing counterparts, Zhour and Saida, wrap up the Life Skills training program we’ve been doing at the boarding school. Hamdullah!

From the closing activity right before certificates/diplomas were awarded

Day 809: N’Kob’s new volunteer has arrived. I have eaten my last couscous with the family. The reality of leaving has hit me physically as I find myself exhausted but unable to sleep and also vaguely nauseous. Probably the stomach meat in the couscous did not help. The kids on my street and I enjoy a final “hefla” (party) involving two piñatas that I made and then stuffed full of all my leftover candy, stickers, small toys and other things that people have sent or brought to me. No one is fatally injured in the final grab for candy so I count that as a win. Moving all the stuff out of my house and into the new volunteer’s place is arduous and made more chaotic by all the people (mostly kids) who want to ‘help.” There is definitely legitimate help like sweeping. Then there is help like going through my refrigerator, bookshelf, garbage piles looking for treasures.

Day 810: And I’m off. My last trip over the Tichka pass on this bad boy.

Days 811/812/813: Rabat. It has often served as a respite from “real” life in Morocco. Now my days of needing respite from Morocco are over, but I still love this city. The other PCVs who are COSing this week and I exchange stories of our last few days in site, our travel plans, and how many of the required medical tests we have completed. Shots are given, bodily fluids/substances are collected, dental X-rays are taken, lab tests are run, surveys are taken in which I answer questions like “Did a rebel, terrorist, or insurgent group hold you against your will and make demands of a political nature?” (No). My nervous stomach is gone and I just go with flow through the occasionally chaotic COS process.  On day 813 I stamp out. This is a PC-Morocco specific ritual in which we sign our name in a book and get a stamp.

Day 814: 1:40 am train (night travel is against PCV rules but I am no longer a PCV!) to Tanger. Next stop, London Heathrow!

*I’m not quite ready to stop blogging and besides, I have a few Luddite friends who aren’t on Facebook but are kind enough to want to keep up with me. So as much as possible, I’ll post a few pictures and updates on my COS travels and maybe even some post-Morocco reflections as I slowly make my way back to USA! USA!

792-801

Continuing the countdown to 814–the total number of days I will have lived in Morocco.

Day 792: Posted on the Peace Corps Morocco Facebook page:

Customs will no longer allow tajines in carry on bags. One fell on someone’s head. Pack them in your checked baggage.

 

 

Day 794: The good news is that my favorite boy students (previously banned for speaking to a girl) is back. But I am very concerned for several of the other boys in my class. When I tell them to stop side talking, they use their hands (or, in one boy’s case, the corner of his Jedi slanket) to cover the lower half of their faces while continuing the side talk. Oh teenage boys. Isn’t this a phase of psychological development that you were supposed to go through as babies? When you realize that the person playing peek-a-boo with you can still see you (never mind hear you) even if you cover your face? What other stages of development are you all missing? If I bring in a mirror and test you for mirror self-recognition will I have a whole classroom of boys pecking at their reflections like chickens?

I will miss Morocco’s Star Wars winter wear

 

Day 796: Packing. I isolate a precious few pairs of undersauncies that are in decent enough condition (barely) to accompany me on my European jaunt. The rest will be burned or disposed of in Marrakech, as I have done before. Public (and anonymous) trash bins are common there, although the trash is still gone through by those looking for discarded treasures.

Conversation with fellow PCV:

“You know that means some rando in Kech will probably masturbate with your nasty old underwear.”

“Yeah, but that’s better than my 6 year old neighbor girl showing up at my house wearing them as a headband!”

“Fair point.”

Day 797: Collage making with the neighborhood kids, who love paging through the American magazines many have sent to me. I try to pull out anything offensive before the kids get a chance to be scandalized but I’ve learned to recognize the excited titters of a “hshuma” (shameful) discovery when I’ve missed something (a woman in a bathing costume, a man kissing a woman on the cheek). Today I exposed the children to this piece of gender-bending agit-prop from the radical feminist publication known for its consistent challenges of cisnormative gender expectations, Good Housekeeping.

Aahhhh! It’s a woman who looks like a man! (because of the short hair, apparently)

Day 800/801: While some from our group have been granted early COS and are already back in the States, now is when the first official COS group from my staj leaves. Facebook posts of people signing the COS book appear; sooner than seems possible, posts pop up of people’s return to the USA. This is really happening!

 

Protected: 768-791

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Close Of Service Trip

Looming unemployment + proximity to foreign lands + resettling allowance = COS trip. I carefully considered many options and themes and polling data…and then wound up throwing something random together based mostly on luck and happenstance.

Here’s the gist:

FYI, I’ll give a dollar to anyone who reads Black Lamb and Grey Falcon before I land back in the United States.

The Last of the Last Times

Last summer, my sister asked me why on Earth I gave my nephew a piggy back ride when he’s getting far too big for that. “Because I can,” I told her. “But I think it might be the last time that I can.” He’s growing up and I’m growing old and he’ll be practically taller than me when I see him this June.

I obsess over the last times, often left unremembered and uncelebrated because we don’t know it’s the last time until the time is long past.

I don’t know when my obsession with the last times started. Maybe with Nancy Drew. I remember when I was quite young and my mom had helped me through my first chapter books by reading them aloud to me. But eventually Nancy’s fast-paced and exciting adventures were too pressing to wait for my mom. I began reading them on my own.

At some point I remember realizing I’d taken an irreversible step; I had crossed over into a land where my parents no longer read aloud to me. And I was left without knowing when—or what chapter of what Nancy Drew tale—was the last time my mom read aloud to me.

I am pleased with myself when I recognize a last time as it happens. Right before moving away from Minneapolis I had a moment when I thought “this will be the last time I am out with this particular group of people.” Conversely, I can get upset when I don’t. A few years later, after my boyfriend and I broke up, some of my most sorrowful pangs were when I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ridden on the back of his motorcycle.

Maybe my obsession over the last times is not the healthiest thing in the world. So I don’t know if it’s a bad thing or a good thing that I am in a position to recognize almost all of the last times here in Morocco.

Next week I will have my last GAD Committee meeting. On the way there I will have my last night in Marrakech. I will meet my last visitor from home (my sister Colleen) and together we will visit Fes and my host family from CBT for the last time.

On my way back to site maybe I will stop in Ouarzazate at the coffee shop/hotel where all the PCVs hang out and maybe it will be the last time that Mohammed nods at me and brings me a nus-nus (half espresso/half milk) without my having to ask. But what if I don’t stop in Ouarzazate and what if I already had experience enjoying nus-nus in that coffee shop, scanning the room for other PCVs who might have stopped by?!?!?!

All I can do is try not to be too melancholy about these last times. But I’ve got a long month ahead of me. All I can do try to keep the melancholy to a minimum. At least for every last couscous at my host family’s house there’s also a last time someone sitting next to me on the bus throws up.