Camels and Scorpions
Sudan 1984
Next day, we delegated four people to go and check out the area while the rest of the group boiled up hundreds of litres of water. We wallowed in soap and water, soaking everything: the lorry, our stuff and each other.
The four returned in the afternoon reporting that they had seen a caravan with well over a hundred camels. During the winter months, camels are led from the Sudan to Asswan where they fetch a good price. The four had been invited to share tea with the Bedouins.
To see such a caravan had to be an exciting experience. The following day, I volunteered for scouting duty and walked with my three companions for miles across the dusty land. We came past a ghost village, saw a few camels grazing on the opposite bank of the Nile, a few wild donkeys browsing around in the vicinity of the camp, tried in vain to catch fish in the river and Uschi and Norbert were adamant that they had seen a young crocodile. I even thought I had found gold, but did not succeed in separating the tiny glittering grains from the river mud. What we did not find was any caravans.
So we were disappointed when we finally returned to camp and were told that a second, smaller caravan had passed within a hundred metres of our tents.
The next morning we were late. Now that we had found the Nile, people were developing lazy habits. Reluctantly we started to pull down our tents and load the lorry. The mood became somewhat livelier as Uschi lifted up her dome tent and revealed two green scorpions which had been sheltering underneath the plastic floor. She had slept right on top of them.
Gerd, crafty as ever, caught them and hustled them into a small box.
(I do not know why Gerd has not featured in this journal until now. My original hand-written notes are lost and I only have hazy memories about people. Like Paul, Gerd kept his own counsel, getting on quietly with things. He was the second oldest in the group after Paul. He was paralysed from the waist down after an accident some years previously, but that didn’t stop him travelling the world.)
The lorry would not start. This time the fuel pump was at fault. Gerd’s experience as aircraft engineer came in useful as he was able to fix the damage with a hair pin, but we had lost half a day.
Once underway, we opened the box with the scorpions a fraction and showed it to Annette who had no idea what we had caught. She screamed. Uschi slid the creatures between the pages of a fat book and sat on it to kill them in a brutal but efficient manner.
That evening, I turned over every stone in the vicinity of my intended campsite to check for scorpions, although they were more likely to hide in holes in the ground. I decided against sleeping in the open as I had often done back in the desert, prefering instead to be kept awake by the wind flapping and rustling at my tent, but in relative safety.
As I tried in vain to go to sleep, I thought I heard a scratching noise above the racket of the fluttering tent plane. It came through the plastic floor.
I was tired enough to ignore it but dreamt vividly of scorpions with huge menacing stings. Waking up periodically, I tried to find a spot in a corner of my tiny tent as far away as possible from where I thought I heard the scratching noise, although I would be safe enough where I was.
The following morning I discovered that the source of the scratching noise wasn’t a scorpion but a beautifully patterned yellow and green praying mantis, still stiff from the cold of the night. I prodded it with a stick and it crawled away very slowly.
We passed two boys who waved cheerfully to us from the backs of their donkeys and saw an increasing number of mud huts, most of which seemed deserted. Suddenly, a few women and a gaggle of children came running into our direction and before long a crowd had gathered as we pulled to a stop in what appeared to be a village square.
The locals were surprised to see us but pressed forward to shake our hands with broad grins. Not many vehicles seem to come this way, let alone a truck full of foreigners.
We disembarked and before long a few old men beckoned us to follow them into a wide courtyard. Bowls full of dates had been paced on a blue and yellow reed-mat on the floor. We sat down and were offered sweet strong tea with fresh mint which was wonderfully refreshing in the heat despite being sweet and very hot. After the second cup of tea, someone signalled me and politely indicated a corner where the women were sitting, along with Ulrike, Uschi and Annette. I had been so intendly fixated on the bowls of dates, after days of living on potatoes, that I hadn’t noticed that men and women were segregated. However, the village women did not wear veils let alone the tent-like dress of many married women in Egypt.
Uschi had produced a dictionary and the women wrote their names carefully in Arabic wherupon she wrote the English letters underneath. Thus we managed to communicate after a fashion and when the time came to say good-bye, the women showered us with dates. We shook many hands and left with sadness.
We set up camp on a camel track not far from another village. Hordes of children had followed the truck for the last bit of the way and Harald walked slowly towards them intending to try and barter some eggs from the villagers. However, one of the boys pointed at the knife he absentmindedly wore on his belt and they ran away. We did not see them again that evening. I was puzzled because all the men clearly wore daggers under their jellabas. At least we had the dates to supplement our diet of potatoes and salt. And we had half a tank of fuel after meeting a colourfull lorry and haggling thirty litres from the driver in exchange for cigarettes and 30$. The driver was very pleased with the deal and so were we, because we would have been stuck without fuel.
The night was even windier than before. I used heavy boulders to keep my tent upright as pegs were no use in these conditions. Not for the first time I wished I had invested in a free-standing dome tent.
(At the time, these were cutting-edge technology and hideously expensive whereas my tent had cost the equivalent of 7$ in the sale…)
Not getting much sleep, I got up in the first light of dawn and went to look for a spot to relieve myself. The constant draft had begun to irritate my bladder. I couldn’t find a secluded spot nearby but everyone in camp was still asleep so I just walked a short way up the nearest hill and cowered down in the open with my back to the camp. A sudden stomping noise startled me into looking up. — There, right in front of me and within spitting distance of the lorry, about fifty camels were kneeling on the sandy ground and four Bedouins were sitting around a camp fire.
I jumped up as if electrified and ran to hide behind the nearest boulder. When I had regained my composure, I emerged smiling and waved a greeting at the men who waved back acting as if nothing had happened. Soon after Harald got up and the two of us joined the Bedouins for tea. I never knew whether they had seen me during that fateful moment but I reckon that people travelling through the open spaces of the desert do not comment about such matters.
Harald told me the caravan had arrived at night. He had been reading in his tent and not noticed anything until somebody called out. He had stuck his head through the tent flap — and looked straight into the drooping face of a camel.
The remainder of the camp was finally stirring into life. The caravan was ready to continue on its way. One of the Beduouns led his riding camel up to Harald and invited him to mount. Harald rode confidently around the camp, amid much shouting and wolf-whistling and the click-and-whirr of camera shutters. We handed the cameras to the curious Bedouins who took pictures of us in return. Harald bartered some Alka Seltzer and a few dollars for one of their whips, then we were all on our way. Just before we left we saw that the Bedouins had left something behind: a dead newly born camel.
Tags: Cairo to Capetown, Tag Index
Denni