My memory of China is not so good, so I apologize if this recount seems sparse or impersonal. Maybe I was starting to become homesick or something, but even China for all its greatness and outstanding achievements in the arts and great law enforcement making it very safe for travelers just seemed really... boring. By this point in time, the idea of discovery and prosperity just lost its glamour...
Anyway, as I attempted to recover and recuperate and later hit the road, in Gaza (I believe it was spring then) I had heard about some "plague" going around. At the time, I hadn't seen anything yet, so I chuckled at the worry some people because at the time, as far as I could tell, it was a minor outbreak.
I wouldn't have been laughing if I had known how many people were already dead.
As traveled through Gaza, I found it to be deserted, someone told me the daily death toll was counted into the thousands. I traveled to Cairo and was told that the death rate was at 21,000 a day, my God! I've witnessed my closest friends being killed by this vile flee spread disease. There was death all around me, and it really only takes several days of that and you change dramatically. A year later I learned my mother had died of the plague. I returned to Tangier and visited her grave (Im thankful that in death she was fortunate enough to receive her own grave, there was so many people to bury that they RAN OUT OF ROOM in the ground so they just burned cropses). Fiery, driven, assertive, great woman, great woman. She always knew how to make me smile. I didn't stay in Tangier for long, I continued to travel and spent my final days of traveling around Africa, in places like Mali renowned for its gold.
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