We were going home. Nothing remained for us to do but change our dirty clothes and come again.
-KhairAllah, remembering his thoughts when prompted by a photograph taken in the Cairo camel market thirty six years earlier
That is how fast they put those forty days behind them to start again with the next dabouka. I asked KhairAllah how many times he had made the trip and he answered me variously, Hundreds of times, or, I have not counted them, or, Do you mean before or after I became Khabeer? I did see that in the market the drovers still did their own cooking and tea making but had their clothes washed by Egyptian women. They were soon to set off on their return journey by train, Nile ferry, and desert lorry, from Africa’s largest city to Dar al-Kababish. For that they wanted fresh laundry.