A camel lives between twenty and thirty years according to the food it has and the work it is given to do. A poor man in his lifetime has three, if he looks after them well, and he and the third grow old together.
-words spoken by Suliman Auda, Ma’aza camel guide, as recorded in The Red Sea Mountains of Egypt by Leo Tregenza
I traveled in the Red Sea Mountains in 1998 with a camel guide of the same tribe named Salaama Mir’i and his 18 year old son Suliman. As a boy Salaama remembered Leo being called Genza. He said Genza ate bully beef while he and the other guides ate bread. If Suliman Auda’s adage is believed, Suliman Salaama, presently age forty or thereabouts, would be just now acquiring his third camel. I still remember his words when awaiting resupply by a man named Salih. O Salih! Where is Salih? Salih came to us driving a truck, not a camel.