Scamp returns from his office with their paperwork. 
The nomads start packing up, getting ready to leave 
Timiaouine. I really wish I could go with them. 
I step outside to survey the town I have been stuck 
in for the last two days. Dust devils prowl the 
streets, tearing at rags hung outside the open-air 
windows. It's not just a shithole; it's a shithole 
extraordinaire, consisting of a group of perhaps 
forty hovels surrounded on all sides by hundreds of 
miles of baked nothing. There's no reason for anyone 
to be here except to maintain an official presence. 
If everyone left, it'd take about five minutes for 
the desert to swallow it whole. The prospect of 
remaining here alone with Scamp is disconcerting, to 
say the least.

When I found him the day before, he was slouching on 
his hospital bed in the shade against the outer wall 
of the customhouse. Not reading. Not thinking. Just 
sweating. He remained slouched as I handed him my 
passport. He looked at it, set it down, and bid me to 
sit on the mattress with him.

I had this idea that we were gonna do our business 
one-two-three, like at the Minnesota Department of 
Motor Vehicles or something. This idea was dispelled 
over the next several hours as we sat there, sweating 
together, swatting flies, making painful small talk.  
Among other depressing details, he told me (with 
delight?) that although Timiaouine might get as many 
as five cars crossing the border in one day, it wasn't 
infrequent for five days to pass with no cars at all.

I started to feel trapped. All I wanted was to get to 
Mali. There, I would find my best friend, Mark, who 
was working for the Peace Corps. I'd been traveling 
for a year and a half, and I really needed to rest. 
I'd been discovering, learning, orienting, adjusting, 
embracing; all the things you travel for, and now I 
was starting to go batty from too much of it.

Our shade began to disappear as the sun made its way 
across the sky, and Scamp asked me to help him push his 
bed to the other side of the street, where the shadow 
was getting longer. That done, he said he was ready to 
stamp my passport. He looked at me expectantly. I told 
him that I thought he had it. He shook his head. I 
searched my pockets. I couldn't find it. I asked him if 
I hadn't already handed it to him. He checked half-
heartedly and shrugged. I couldn't believe it. But he 
was the official. Why would he lie? I checked again, 
rummaging through all my belongings. I still couldn't 
find it, so I checked everything all over again. Just 
when I was about to start bawling, he lifted his leg a 
little, exposing my passport. Then he grinned, slyly. 
Hence the name "Scamp."

Scamp invited me to stay the night at the customhouse.  
He treated me to a cozy dinner, brought by a 
servant whom he abused mercilessly. I'd never seen 
anything like it. Non-stop: "You fucking pig, can't 
you do anything right? You boor! Your mother must've 
been a fucking slut to have given birth to such a 
useless pig! Bring me more food!" On and on it went.

I got diarrhea like I've never had before. Unreal. 
Not just the usual Drippy Traveler Butt; this was 
something new, gut-wrenching, explosive, frequent, 
and without warning. I felt like my innards were 
flying out. There was absolutely no point in roaming 
more than ten feet from the bathroom.

The toilet, by the way, is a little cement dome 
about six inches high and two feet across with a 
hole in the middle. One simply hunkers down and 
squats over the hole. Instead of toilet paper, 
there's a spigot nearby. The idea is that you wet 
your left hand and use that. This has been going on 
since Morocco, so I'm getting used to it, but most 
whities I meet think it's disgusting. Locals shrug; 
they find our habit of toilet paper to be equally 
disgusting. Why would anyone wanna smear their own 
shit upon themselves when they can simply wash it off 
entirely? I think they definitely have a point, and 
it's something we should all think about from now on. 
On the other hand, I'd feel a whole lot better if 
I'd seen soap in any of their bathrooms. 
What's up with that?!