The normal age of a camel is reckoned to be…the period, as the Arab counts, between the marriage of two generations of the same family- a camel, which comes in its youth to a man as his wife’s dowry, being expected to be yet “under him” on the occasion of his son’s marriage.
-The Heart of Arabia, St.John Philby, 1922
Human generations are widening everywhere and maybe too the lifespans of camels. KhairAllah’s first son Soliman is nearing forty and still unmarried. Much has stood between him and a future bride. University study, a shop-keeping start-up, the marriages of two older sisters, moving the family to safety in a time of civil war, and now building a new house for all. Try legalizing a land purchase without a functioning law, or making mud bricks without running water, or cutting a houseful of lumber with only a hand saw. Soliman may well be over forty before all that is finished and he marries, about the average lifespan of a camel.