May Allah bless you. Praise Allah for your safe arrival. How is your condition? And yours? May Allah bless you. Praise Allah for your safe arrival. How is your condition? And yours? May Allah bless you….
-Straw boss Ahmad Hassan Abd al-Majid greeting Sudanese camel drovers upon their arrival at his Upper Egyptian stable, in a late scene in the documentary film “Voice of the Whip”, March 1988
I have known Ahmad since 1984 when I arrived for the first time in the company of Sudanese camel herders at his home in Binban Bahri village across the river from Daraw, 40 km north of Aswan. He was not expecting to find two Americans, me and David, in the company of the drovers after their completion of the camel trail up from Kordofan, but he threw down the welcome mat and received us like kings.
In following years I wrote him postcards from my foreign travels- India, France, Peru, Cuba- always addressing him with the honorific Al-Aakh al-Aziz, The Distinguished Brother, and adding formulaic words of greeting, knowing full well that it would be read by every Egyptian postman in its chain of delivery, from Cairo’s central PO all the way down to Binban’s humble mail desk. In those days the Egyptian postal service functioned well, and most of the cards arrived. He later showed me a stack of them.
In 1988 I needed another favor. Our film crew had decided to leave the herders on the Sudanese side of the border, fearing trouble with Egyptian police, and instead took the ferry to enter the country by the book. In Aswan the customs inspector bought our story that our 40 rolls of 16mm film, Aaton camera, and boom mic were just personal video equipment- the usual tourist stuff, we said.
We arrived at Binban a few days before the herd and told Ahmad that we would film the herd’s arrival as they approached. But we had problems. We did not know exactly when the herd would arrive, and our film camera’s 12 volt lithium battery had malfunctioned. We would need to improvise with 8 fresh D cell batteries strung together. Finding fresh batteries in rural Egypt is not easy.
Ahmad solved our battery problem, positioned us in the correct spot to intercept the herd outside the village, and had a vehicle stand by for us to film on the move when the time came. It all worked out perfectly, and we filmed Ahmad greeting the drovers and spreading straw bales for the hungry camels.
The film was completed in 1989 and I had returned to see Ahmad twice in the meantime but not with the film to show. The 16mm had not yet been transferred to DVD. In 2010 I had my chance to screen the film at the Nubia Museum and in Binban. I had my own DVD player and digital projector with external speakers.
We had three screenings- in Ahmad’s compound, one for the women and one for the men, and in the village diwan for the elders who had not come to Ahmad’s house. There was much murmuring of recognition and understanding from the audiences, because most knew the Binban merchants on camera, and they knew enough about the Way of the Forty to pay close attention to its daily details- making the millet paste dinner called aseeda, patching sore camel pads with cowhide, etc.
And naturally Ahmad was the village favorite- batal al-shaasha, I called him with a wink, hero of the screen. Greeting the drovers, giving them double cheek kisses and embraces, and acting like the camels were all his and his alone. It made him into a village big shot. A much bigger shot, no doubt, than someone who knew people in Peru, India, and Cuba who called him Distinguished Brother.
