And once out in the desert there is no return. One has to go on, whatever happens. It is now, at this moment and only now, that I have a chance to get off. Always the same alloy of panic and joy at the moment of departure. It is like losing one’s footing at the beginning of a great love affair.
-Exterminate All the Brutes, Sven Lindqvist
I wonder how many of the first time drovers felt like quitting just before their time to saddle up. I guess it was too late to change one’s mind once having eaten roast lamb at the Karāma, the goodbye and good luck ritual meal, like backing out of a parachute jump when standing at the plane’s open door. It was different for me, I was heading home from there, those forty days were my first steps getting back. But a young drover like Ibrahim, on his first trip to Cairo, Africa’s largest city, must have felt like Columbus’ cabin boy, afraid of sailing toward the edge of the world and falling into the unknown.