One Desert road

Their accurate acquaintance with the roads in every direction across the desert is truly wonderful.

-Travels in Kordofan, from the chapter The Kubbabeesh, Ignatius Pallme, 1844

When I travelled with KhairAllah it was only on one road, to Cairo, on the Road of the Forty, keeping al-Jiddi, the North Star, on our Wishsh Shamal, Left Cheek, the northerly wind full in our face. Yes, he could spin the compass wherever he wanted and instead go west to Um Badr, Mother of a Full Moon, east to Um Ruwāba, Mother of Sour Milk, or south to Um Ramād, Mother of Ashes. But we went north to Egypt, Um al-Dunya, Mother of the World.

Allah's Gardener needs a dictionary

Count Anteoni, dressed as an Arab, played by Basil Rathbone- I’ve adopted the Sahara, or perhaps I should say the Sahara has adopted me. Domini Enfilden, played by Marlene Dietrich- Someday I must make a pilgrimage into the desert as you do. Anteoni- Let me advise you Madame. Wait, wait until the call is so strong that it can’t be ignored.

-The Garden of Allah (1936)

Most of the Arabic spoken in this film is gibberish.

-Internet Movie Database

When you hear the call of the desert, make sure it’s not Ratāna, Gibberish as Wehr translates, which is what KhairAllah called the Nubian language spoken in the lands he passed through on his way to Egypt. I ask myself what he calls English after meeting me.

Allah's gardener needs a sun hat

Domini Enfilden, a seeker of the exotic in the North African desert, played by Marlene Dietrich- Perhaps the sun has something to do with it. Batouch, her dragoman- Oh, this sun is nothing. Wait until you get beyond these mountains to the gates of the Sahara. There the sun blazes. Domini- Let it blaze….

-The Garden of Allah (1936)

She wanted freedom, a wide horizon, the great winds, the great sun, the terrible spaces, the glowing, shimmering radiance, the hot, entrancing moons and bloomy, purple nights of Africa. She wanted the nomads’ fires and acid voices…She wanted- more than she could express, more than she knew.

-The Garden of Allah, Robert Hichens, 1904, describing Domini

I have a word of advice for Domini…Be careful of what you want in the desert. And whatever you want, whatever you come for, be certain of one thing, that you know the Arabic word for water. After three years sitting in a classroom and another year wandering the streets of Cairo, I still didn’t get the Sudanese pronunciation right. It’s Muyya, not Mayya, and not Mā’. I might have died of thirst out there if it had not been for KhairAllah and his goatskin.

From Wadi al-milk to the high arctic

If something exists in Pyramiden, then it is probably the northernmost example in the world.

-Jamie Lafferty, New York Times, May 17, 2021, on his visit to the Russian town of Pyramiden in Svalbard, 78.66°N

A spot on this globe photographed in an abandoned Russian school in Svalbard caught my eye. Just where the Nile River’s blue squiggle bending again downriver north is entered from the west by the dotted line of the Wadi al-Milk, where KhairAllah and I rode in from the desert and Dar al-Kabābīsh. Once, after telling him about the broadcast of Voice of the Whip on BBC television, I said, It is true Wallahi!, By God!, You are Mashhūr, Famous, in Lundun and Barīs and Moskū. Little did I then know it was even more true than that. KhairAllah was famous above the Arctic Circle.

©Jamie Lafferty

The casbah is a nut

The Police Inspector of Algiers- You’ve just arrived from Paris, Commissioner. You’re not familiar with the Casbah. The Commissioner- Casbah? What’s that? Some kind of nut? Police Inspector- A very hard nut to crack. You see, Pépé le Moko lives in the Casbah.

-Algiers (1938), Hollywood remake of Pépé le Moko (1937)

A hard nut to crack? On the contrary, an ear very soft, the one you only want to squeeze. Wehr gives the translation of Earlobe as Shahma al-Adhan, literally Fat of the Ear. Lane gives the secondary meaning of Shahma as A Game Played by Arab Children in the Desert. One child playing with another. Listen to the Casbah, whisper into Pépé’s ear.

Citrullus lanatus Cordophanus

We discovered that a Sudanese form of melon, known as the Kordofan melon, is the closest relative of the domesticated watermelon and a possible progenitor.

-Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Susan Renner et. al., June 8, 2021

Big news in genetic sequencing. It all started in Western Sudan, Cordophanus to Linnaeans. America’s favorite varieties, Golden Midget, Little Darling, Yellow Doll, Sugar Baby, Mini Love- we now know they all can call Kordofan home. KhairAllah and Bilal wouldn’t be surprised to hear this, for Dar al-Kabābīsh is not far from a place they call Umm Batīkh, Mother of the Watermelon.

Power, luxury and the exotic

The camel was associated with the lands of the Bible, but also with power, luxury, and the exotic.

-Camel fresco, possibly 1129-1134, San Baudelio de Berlanga, Spain, Metropolitan Museum, The Cloisters

You are driving thousands in front of you, in the form of camels.

-KhairAllah Khair al-Sayyid, speaking of the financial trust given him by Sudan’s largest camel exporter, Hajj Bashir abu Jaib

KhairAllah was no stranger to power, the mere flick of his whip could turn the herd, but luxury and the exotic? No. He slept on the ground and ate millet paste for forty days on his each trip to Egypt, nothing luxurious about that. And when he arrived in Africa’s largest city, Cairenes may have thought him exotic with his hippo hide whip and Kabbāshi dialect, but as his friend and companion Yusuf Hamid said, The work of a trail boss is just a job, and a miserable job at that.

Postcard home n°29

Dear جنفيف, This camel has a big nose and little ears so he can smell his food from all the way across the desert sands but he can’t hear what the Sphinx is telling him- and these are his words- Be good to كنت who is your little brother!

Postcard home n°28

Dear ج, That lady in front does not know how to ride a camel but the lady behind does! And how do you like those cute baby pyramids?

Postcard home n°27

Dear ج, Thank you for your sleeping bag, I use it every night out here in the desert. The doctors will soon come to put the elephants to sleep and their radio necklaces on. That will be fun!

Postcard home n°26

Dear ج, What did you do in school today? Did you draw and color and eat a salami sandwich? I think the man in this picture is holding a cat and a snake in his arms. And the man in the white hat has a funny pointy beard. Do you want me to grow one when I come home?

Postcard home n°25

Dear ج, They say this mosque is the Taj Mahal of Africa, very large with ostrich eggs on top of the spires like gargoyles. The market is full of children singing songs about camels.

Postcard home n°24

Dear ج, What do you think of these doll soldiers. They marched all the way to Ethiopia to bring back gold and ivory and ostrich feathers. I think you would have liked that.

Postcard home n°23

Dear ك, What do you think about finding a hippo in your bath tub? There are many elephants and wild donkeys here, also people who wear turbans and long colored gowns and speak strange languages like Fulani and Bambara. I will soon go to camel country and sleep under the stars all by myself.

Postcard home n°22

Dear ج, I am fine and want to see you in Cairo. Why don’t we visit the Sphinx and climb the Great Pyramid together? Maybe إ will come too and bring baby ك in the stroller. The orange juice here is very sweet.

Postcard home n°21

Dear ج, This Wicked is milking a goat. If you don’t drink your milk then you’ll have to drink hers, so bottoms up! I hope you are learning something everyday in school and putting on your snow pants and playing in the snow and riding ك’s red birthday sled. But it will soon be spring and you will wear your Easter dress and hunt eggs.