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Chances are, if you ever find yourself in the middle of the Sahara while on a trip to Morocco, it will feel familiar.

You'll wonder at the silent strangeness of the dunes at Erg Chebbi near Merzouga, but fully expect to see people or things you "know" from books and movies -- Paul Atreides and the Fremen, Luke Skywalker or even Lawrence of Arabia -- pop up from behind the hills of sand.

In the Valley of 1,000 Kasbahs, approaching the desert on an

all-day driving trip, my husband and I pass through what seem like

hundreds of small towns. I'm casting about for a subject of

conversation when I spy something that reminds me of home:

construction.

When I ask about what seems to be a boom in homebuilding, our

driver says that many of the towns' residents work in Spain and

France. They send money home for family members and to build

palatial houses for their eventual return to Morocco.

I also am struck by how the streets in the small towns are filled

with men. Women are almost nowhere to be seen, but when they are,

they're mostly covered.

I expected that in this mostly Muslim nation, but the reality of

the near-absence of half the population from many towns' streets

saddens me. I've been told that Morocco has some of the most

liberal women's rights laws in the Islamic world -- and when I was

in Fes and Marrakech, large cities, that distinction made sense.

But my Western eyes have a hard time adjusting to these towns. I

wonder what these women think of their sisters in the big cities,

and vice versa.

But some things are the same everywhere: When we drive past a

school, we see teen boys wearing jeans and slouching under the

crushing weight of their bookbags while teen girls walking nearby

giggle on cell phones.

Do camels laugh?

When we arrive at Merzouga, we are greeted, as we had been

everywhere in Morocco, with hot mint tea. We wait awhile before we

set out for camp because our guides want to time the trip so that

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