Proverb. Al-Saariq bi-layl wa al-Qassaas bi-nahar, [Camel] Thief by Night and [Camel] Tracker by Day
—Sudan Arabic, Sigmar Hillelson
Qissa, n. A story. Qaseesa, Qasaa’is (pl), n. A camel which one follows after, the footsteps of travelling camels. Qaass, n. A teller of stories in their proper order, because he tells story after story.
-Lane’s Lexicon
We invited Billa Ali al-Grayn to eat at our campfire at ‘Idd Ahmad when he approached us after dark driving in one of our camels, claiming he had picked it up as a stray we’d left behind. KhairAllah didn’t think that we had, he thought that Billa Ali had cut it out of our dabouka after nightfall and then presented it to us expecting a monetary reward, which we gave him, and also a goat meat dinner. After he ate with us he went over to Muhammad al-Humri’s camp to eat some more goat meat. KhairAllah thinks this is the funniest story from that trip and he always begins it by saying, The night Billa Ali ate twice…