Every morning at dawn they emerge from the desert, black women with earthen red jugs, tall thirsty jugs…
-Disaster Was My God, Bruce Duffy
In Dar al-Kababish they carry water not in jugs but in skins, goatskins they can mend with twigs that swell when wet to plug holes pierced in the leather by acacia thorns. Clay always cracks and leaks, water lost drip by unstoppable drip. Everything fragile in the desert becomes useless…tea glasses, ink pens, camera gear. But not a tin cup, not notebook paper nor pencils with resharpable lead. So these were what I carried, unbreakable.