It was really cold again, last night.
The bad news is, it’s going to get worse.
The Coptic month of Amsheer is about to begin. This will signal the start of great dust storms from the desert, and icy winds from the north. In other words, about as far away from pleasant resort weather as you can imagine.
Then in March, the khamaseen — more dust storms, lasting for weeks.
Last night one of those aggressive mosquito-flea insects go in the house, bit me several time, and kept me up most of the night.
Yesterday, the real estate guy who was going to show me the new place called to cancel. So that suddenly looks iffy.
I called him back about all the pool and gardening guys showing up at all hours, unannounced, at the villa where I’ve been staying.
But he couldn’t talk: in church, he said, commemorating something to do with Jonah and the whale. The story of Jonah (or يونِس in Arabic), resonates: is religion a mere blanket from the cold?
I am staying focused on my weight loss program. But it’s definitely dragging around here. The weather is absolutely grim this time of year, especially at night, and the insects are a pill. I hide from them and the cold under layers of blankets.
Yesterday the feral cat that I feed brought back a mostly eaten bird and left it at the door. It was gross cleaning it up.
I feel like leaving, again, but the news from America grows more disturbing by the day.
But this infra dig life in Gouna is starting to wear thin. Were I Moroccan, I might describe myself as unmoored.
My wife tells me one the unpleasant neighbors (the 91-year-old one with the loud jackass “kids” with Joisey accents who visit her each day for hours) has put her house on the market.
Goods news: that means only three asshole neighbors remain, with none of them young. Things may be looking up.
Being here is starting to turn into a slog, though. You go through the day, but each day is the same. Each day here is about removing dollars or Euros from the tourist. And much of what goes on here is as superficial as it gets: watch Gouna TV (channel 1) for more than 5 minutes and you wonder if anyone here is real.
I am not sure at this point if I want to come back in October. The weather here is just too unpleasant most of the time: either boiling hot, or freezing cold, and I really have had it with the bugs.
Leaving Amerika 