The Timbuktu School for Nomads by Nicholas Jubber

Author:Nicholas Jubber [Nicholas Jubber]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2016-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

I am getting into the routine: our twilight departures, riding across the plains, gentle conversations around the evening fire, the childlike pleasure of life under the stars. Life feels purer, stripped of clutter and distractions. Perhaps Roger Deakin put his finger on it when he wrote, ‘There’s more truth about a camp because that is the position we are in … a camp represents the true reality of things: we’re just passing through.’

I am always ready to sleep as soon as the opportunity comes – exhausted mentally as much as physically, from the linguistic challenges and all the lessons I am trying to absorb: strapping the luggage, hobbling the camels, tying the ropes around their legs (always keeping yourself behind to avoid a lethal kick), fastening the rope inside the camel’s mouth, tight over the gums, locked with a small twig under the chin.

Today, we set off well before sunset, so I have a good opportunity to see the land we are crossing. Bunchgrass and mimosa show up like smudges on a sheet of paper. Sometimes the wind thickens and sky and sand interfuse in a wheezy brown haze, before cleaving, allowing us to continue. It is hardly the glorious desert promised by Hollywood – Tatooine’s golden swathes or Lawrence’s sculpted barchans. Rugged, unpristine, this is an honest desert that few would bother to photograph.

Eventually, Jadullah calls out. He has spotted a tent. He calls it an imbar, as opposed to the khaymah we stayed in last night. An armature tent, built around a frame, it pokes the sky like a lone tooth in an elder’s mouth. It looks only a short trot away. But we still haven’t reached it an hour later. Its promise of rest and food tantalises, like a neon-lit motel on the brink of a highway.

‘Who lives there?’ I ask.

A rattle of laughter: something has tickled Lamina.

‘Oh, Yusuf, tonight is a special one for you, God willing!’

We gallop into an ashy tunnel of dusk. Trying to keep up with the others, I dig my heels into Naksheh’s flanks, slapping the reins against his neck, like a cowboy. The wind lashes our sides, raising will-o’-the-wisps around the camels’ hooves. The sand churns beneath us.

At last, we couch and climb up a dune. A stooped, raggedy figure emerges from an awning of goatskins. His face is cracked and mottled, his chin filigreed with light beard like fonio grass, his eyes sunk in deep-ribbed sockets. He looks at least a hundred years old.

‘I praise God a thousand times! Oh, what a blessing! God is great, God is great, God is great! Truly, this is a blessing! God is great, God is great, God is great!’

We have arrived at the home of Lamina’s chatterbox cousin, the mercurial Ismail.

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