Land of water for the body, Land of sand for the soul
Water is life, Milk is food
-Tuareg proverbs
Perhaps the Tuareg I met in Agadez could live without water if they had milk, but what mattered to us was that which we couldn’t stir but could stir us. Seligman’s lexicon of Sudanese Arabic gives the word for Sand Devil, a Whirlwind, as ‘Usaar, and Lane offers a secondary meaning in Classical Arabic, an Exhalation of Perfume. I will take both as one, a Stirring of the Sand, a Scent for the Soul.