Finally, relief. Morning comes. Everyone wakes up, rolls out the prayer mats, faces Mecca and does their thing. The boys laughingly try to teach me their prayers, which they say in Tomachek, the Tuareg language. I ape it as they go along. They're good teachers. The chief comes along and nods approvingly. Evidently, there's not going to be any sand bread breakfast, but after the terrors of the night, it's a relief to focus on something as mundane as mere hunger. We push-start the truck again and take off. I assume we only have a short way to go before reaching Aguelhok. Maybe an hour? Before long, though, it becomes apparent we're in trouble. The truck starts to slip in and out of gear. We lurch into drive for a few hundred meters, then coast for a couple hundred more. We bump along very slowly for a few minutes, and then stop again. First the chief, then grandpa, get below the truck and fiddle around with pliers and a screwdriver. I can't see what they're doing. But I notice that for what must be about seven in the morning, it's already frighteningly hot. Finally, after another push start, we get moving again. After a few minutes more, we stop. Everyone gets out. Not to fix the truck, though. To pray. To me, it seems absurd and stupid. Now we just have to start the truck all over again. I notice that I am doing most of the pushing. The Tuareg are not very strong. I'm not very strong either, but it turns out I'm stronger than they are. They look at me admiringly. The chief is proud of me. He asks me if I want to join them. He says (I'm not making this up), "You'd make a pretty good nomad. Y'know, you could marry one of these," and he points to one of the huge, veiled, whistling women, saying something about her "touche." Everyone laughs. I tell him I'll think it over. I smile for a while, imagining happy, indigo-veiled domestic scenes. I'm glad they've accepted me, and wish that I could take them up on it for a while. A few months ago, maybe even a few weeks ago, I could've and would've done it, but I know I'm too tired now. I feel like I have about four Sanity Playing Cards left out of a deck that probably wasn't ever full. We continue, stopping and tinkering and starting and push-starting and stopping and praying and starting and stopping and tinkering and starting again. We only cover a couple miles between stops. My water runs out, despite rationing. The air keeps getting hotter and hotter. Each time there's a push start, I get sweaty and thirsty, but I don't dare ask the Tuareg for water, because I haven't seen any. They really seem to be okay without it. I would feel like a jerk depleting whatever reserves they might have. We're obviously in deep shit. The baby starts to cry. Still, the Tuareg don't seem panicked. They take it all in stride. I try to hold down my own rising anxiety level and drop down to about two Sanity Playing Cards. The intervals between stops grow shorter and shorter. We seem to be zig-zagging around a lot. I think we are lost, and I think these guys are a bit loco. They're definitely not real truck kinda people. For one thing, they often times have us push-starting the truck up hill, like maybe they haven't figured out the whole gravity thing. At one point they hand me the pliers and the screwdriver and indicate that I should try to fix whatever's wrong. Well. Okay. Except I'm not real truck kinda people either.. We sit for a few minutes, stalled. Gramps and Chief each make a half-hearted attempt to fix the truck before giving up again. I'm sweating and panicking like I've never sweated or panicked before, but the Tuareg are maddeningly calm. I feel like they must have better things to do than worry about me, so I don't let on how nervous I am. But I am worried now. Officially worried. The most worried I have ever been.