January 2004
I just got home last night from spending New Year’s in the desert.
A couple of days before, I got a call from my friend Denise who asked if I wanted to drive out to the Bedouin camp with her. She drives a Ford Explorer which was given to her by the Corps of Engineers where she works, so the transportation wouldn’t be a problem. Her job also means that she has access to the Commissary so she prepared for the five hour drive to the desert by bringing Dorritos, Cheetos, York Peppermint Patties, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and some home made chocolate chip cookies. I on the other hand brought cheese, bread, nuts and oranges. The only "imported' item I had was a Luna bar which Denise had never heard of. When she tried it, she said, "not bad, but I'm not sure I would bother to import them".
I had never driven to the desert in a private car before. I usually go in a van or bus with a lot of other people. Denise warned me that we had to tell all the various checkpoints (four or five of them) that we were Canadian. "Otherwise if they hear we are American then they will feel obligated to escort us," she said. Since my American passport was sitting right there in my pack, it seemed a little strange to tell them otherwise but they didn't seem to really care. It probably cost them less trouble and kept everyone happy. "German or French?" they would ask. They would smile when we responded, "Canadian". Then they would write it down on a scrap of paper. I do wonder where all those scraps end up. They also wrote down our license plate number and where we came from and where we were going. They looked a little surprised to see two women heading out into the desert but when we told them we were going to Badawiyya (the name of the Bedouin place) it all seemed to make sense to them. The three brothers who own the Badawiyya hotel are local and have been doing desert trips for tourists for eighteen years.
I have been to the desert many times now but I have never gone out for New Year's. We arrived a little early at the oasis around 1:30 and were greeted by Saad who also runs the hotel there which he has been operating for five years. He just added a swimming pool. But since that water was cold, he suggested that we go sit in the hot springs until they were ready to drive out into the desert. It was a perfect suggestion. After all morning in the car, and with the cool winter air surrounding us, sitting in the hot springs and looking at the desert was wonderfully relaxing.
Finally around three everyone was piled into jeeps and we took off from the main road and drove out through sand bluffs and large white rocks to the camp site. From 4–6 p.m. the desert goes through so many changes of color. I tried to capture some of this in watercolor sketches while others unpacked and prepared for the cold which descended as soon as the sun set. This was New Year's Eve and so the camp was much fuller than usual. They had three big bonfires going all at the same time and about 100 people – French, German, Egyptian, British, three Canadians and three Americans. Plus of course, lots of Bedouin men. They had brought their male children for the celebration so there were a range of 3 to 11 year olds all dressed in Bedouin clothes complete with the scarfs on their heads and running everywhere or sitting trying to play the drums. Sometimes the drums were bigger than the child!
As the darkness set in we all grouped around the fires which were surrounded by mats and a large cloth wall which would have sheltered us from wind had there been any. Fortunately, though, there were no sand storms the three days I was there. At night though it was cold and one had to stay next to the fire. I slept outside the tent on both nights in the lunar-like landscape and was able to watch the half moon move across the sky and finally set followed by the stars of Orion.
Since it was New Year's Eve, they had planned a celebration different from the usual campfire songs. The men – maybe fifteen of them – took their instruments and began to play, mostly strong drum beats with the melody made by a wind instrument or their voices. But then, out of the darkness appeared a belly dancer. The Bedouin musicians began to shout and call out to her as they played, and she enjoyed the attention and began to wiggle every part of her body. She had three different costumes and kept disappearing and reappearing dressed in something else. In between her acts, other women (who were all foreign) would get up to dance but they didn't have the combination of grace and rhythm that the belly dancer evoked. The other women could get their bodies to make the sharp hip movements but they couldn't combine those movements with the sinuous grace of the hands which should appear completely separated from the rest of the body. I know how hard it is since I have taken a few belly dancing lessons, but the contrast between the women's talents made the difficulties quite obvious. Of course the men didn't seem to care. While they are used to spending the night and much of the day playing music with their drums, having a female dancer was a special opportunity and they fully appreciated it. After a while some of the men also began to dance and then at midnight, the foreigners let loose and the desert was filled with 100 people dancing away to the sound of the drums.
It was definitely one of my most unusual New Year's Eves. I went to bed around 2:00, and snuck into my warm sleeping bag listening to the music in the background still going strong and hearing the slight whirl of the generator in the distance. They had set up a light which lit up one of the rocks so that it looked like the face of the sphinx. And down below that rock, out of sight were two port o potties. With that many people it was a better system than letting us all find our own rocks to hide behind. When everyone finally went to bed, the generator was turned off and we woke up to the quiet of the desert with little gerbil tracks left in the sand around the camp. The gerbils must have had their own party hidden from us by the darkness.
New Year's Day went by quickly, just lying in the sand, painting and reading and going for a short walk. That night was quiet since most of the group left and we were entertained that evening by about six drummers and singers. All morning one could hear them playing music in a tent sheltered from the sun. Those drums seem to provide the main activity in the desert. I asked the words of one of the songs which seemed to go on forever and have quite intricate lyrics. I was told that the short version was that it was about a poor man who loved a girl but she was taken away from him by a millionaire. All he had to give her was his love and a flower. The main singer would sing the verse and the others would repeat the last line. Then suddenly he stopped. When he started up again, I asked what the words were now and they said that it was political about Jerusalem and that he had been afraid to continue because of offending someone. I recognized the words Iraq, America, Islam but couldn't follow it. It sounded like the same melody that was used for the poor man and millionaire song but they assured me it was a separate song. I wonder if these songs simply get longer and longer and become some kind of record of history. I'd love to know enough Arabic to be able to understand the words someday.
Although there were lots of people around it's really at breakfast where one gets to know the others. There is something about wandering back to the leftover coals from the night before and sitting around warming up in the sun that one feels a certain kinship with strangers who have also spent the same night in tents or out under the stars. I met an Egyptian man who said he was brought up in Italy. He now speaks Arabic but when he was at AUC for one year he said his Arabic was not very good. His wife had graduated from AUC just a few years ago and she is half Danish and half Egyptian. Another Egyptian had been studying math in Italy and is now doing his PHD in Paris. There was also a Thai woman who was traveling around the world by herself; and a German woman who came every year for New Year's. And a British woman was there who had just separated last January from her Egyptian husband who was also at the camp with his new girlfriend. The British woman had been married to him for six years but she had returned to England to teach Middle East Studies at Birmingham University in England and during that time the marriage had broken up. I was surprised at how freely people talked about their lives when out in the desert. It seems that the desert takes away all pretenses and breaks down ones defenses.
After two nights sleeping outside I always feel as if I have been away much longer. On our way back we drove through one of the oases before hitting the long stretch of highway that is simply bordered by flat boring sand on both sides for about 250 kilometers. As we pulled out of the main street of town we saw a puddle in the road complete with three ducks happily swimming. They must have thought that this was a new pond! I guess in the desert, any water will do and not many cars were driving through anyway.
Thinking of all of you and wishing you all the very best in this New Year!