least, that would shatter the sacred routine. The men and boys spend every hour of daylight driving the livestock to water and grasses and letting them have their fill, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. Pastures are few and far between in the desert, but the Bedouin knows how to navigate the sands to find errant patches of life or, better yet, full-blown oases where streams flow and plains are fertile and palms are pregnant with dates. They do not linger long, only enough to bolster the strength of the beasts and replenish their own supplies. The law of this inhospitable land is unwritten but commonly respected: every passing tribe consumes modestly, then allows the resources to replenish themselves for those who come next. It has been done this way for centuries, and no one questions it. Greed is a serious infraction in these parts. The shaykh of any tribe that breaks the law is hunted down by the violated and variously humiliated, robbed, or beaten, depending on the extent of his trespass.
The women have their own responsibilities. At dawn, they collect the daily water for cooking, drinking, and washing. They prepare the meal for their goum, as the Bedouin family is called, in the morning and let it sit in covered pots until the men come in from the plains. Depending on the day’s bounty, the meal might be as elaborate as mutton stew on the days a sheep is slaughtered or as simple as a watery legume broth mopped up with globs of sticky cornmeal or bread baked in a sand oven. On a good day, the men bring fish they catch in the streams and the women rub them down with crushed cloves and cook them over an open flame.
After the siesta, when everyone naps to escape the punishing heat of the midday sun, the men return to the grazing lands and the women gather in circles to gossip, giggle, and sing as they weave their daughters’ dowries. Weaving and embroidery are hardwired into the genetic code of Bedouin women, so much so that it is customary for proud fathers to proclaim that their daughters are born holding needle and thread. Traders offer fancy beads, sacks of pepper, spices, and ivory amulets in exchange for the weavings, but the Bedouin women decline, not because they cannot be parted from their masterpieces but because they are serving a useful purpose, like separating the men’s quarters from the women’s or keeping the children warm on icy winter nights.
Evenings are special in the desert, a time for the goums to celebrate surviving yet another day on this unforgiving land full of dangers and hardships and interminable solitude. Men and elders, women and children take their places in the circle by the fire, chatting to their neighbors about not much at all until one of the younger men begins the festivities by pounding on a goatskin drum or scratching the strings of the rababa. The others join in one by one. The flutist blows into a clay pipe, releasing the cheerful, simple singsong of the animal herder. The old me n contribute to the percussion by shaking small dried-goatskin casks filled with date pits or seeds. The women are the singers of the group. Sitting together in a chorus of sorts, they sing of the seasons or the day’s events or love, their melancholy high-pitched voices piercing the silence of the night like claws of a tigress ripping the flesh of her prey.
Gabriel waited for the blood ink to dry before putting aside the length of dried goat hide that had been presented to him as a gift when he had emerged from the healer’s tent. It was symbolic of new life, an offering to show renewal of the flesh. He had been with the tribe many moons, too many to count, spending most of his time in solitude, observing and writing. He knew nothing of the desert, the sky, or these people who huddled by the fire night after night, their faces glowing copper in the blackness. He kept a journal in English, the only language he knew, hoping the recording of his impressions would help him come to an understanding of
The women have their own responsibilities. At dawn, they collect the daily water for cooking, drinking, and washing. They prepare the meal for their goum, as the Bedouin family is called, in the morning and let it sit in covered pots until the men come in from the plains. Depending on the day’s bounty, the meal might be as elaborate as mutton stew on the days a sheep is slaughtered or as simple as a watery legume broth mopped up with globs of sticky cornmeal or bread baked in a sand oven. On a good day, the men bring fish they catch in the streams and the women rub them down with crushed cloves and cook them over an open flame.
After the siesta, when everyone naps to escape the punishing heat of the midday sun, the men return to the grazing lands and the women gather in circles to gossip, giggle, and sing as they weave their daughters’ dowries. Weaving and embroidery are hardwired into the genetic code of Bedouin women, so much so that it is customary for proud fathers to proclaim that their daughters are born holding needle and thread. Traders offer fancy beads, sacks of pepper, spices, and ivory amulets in exchange for the weavings, but the Bedouin women decline, not because they cannot be parted from their masterpieces but because they are serving a useful purpose, like separating the men’s quarters from the women’s or keeping the children warm on icy winter nights.
Evenings are special in the desert, a time for the goums to celebrate surviving yet another day on this unforgiving land full of dangers and hardships and interminable solitude. Men and elders, women and children take their places in the circle by the fire, chatting to their neighbors about not much at all until one of the younger men begins the festivities by pounding on a goatskin drum or scratching the strings of the rababa. The others join in one by one. The flutist blows into a clay pipe, releasing the cheerful, simple singsong of the animal herder. The old me n contribute to the percussion by shaking small dried-goatskin casks filled with date pits or seeds. The women are the singers of the group. Sitting together in a chorus of sorts, they sing of the seasons or the day’s events or love, their melancholy high-pitched voices piercing the silence of the night like claws of a tigress ripping the flesh of her prey.
Gabriel waited for the blood ink to dry before putting aside the length of dried goat hide that had been presented to him as a gift when he had emerged from the healer’s tent. It was symbolic of new life, an offering to show renewal of the flesh. He had been with the tribe many moons, too many to count, spending most of his time in solitude, observing and writing. He knew nothing of the desert, the sky, or these people who huddled by the fire night after night, their faces glowing copper in the blackness. He kept a journal in English, the only language he knew, hoping the recording of his impressions would help him come to an understanding of
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