Crossing the Ténéré

Things are better today. I’ve been taken off Ekawik and allotted a white camel of extraordinary docility whose name I’m told is Ashid. Instead of the VIP saddle, which threatened to castrate me every time I tried to dismount, I now sit astride a less glamorous but much more comfortable roll of bedding.

We have left the mountains behind but are still in a landscape studded with volcanic remains. Fields of cracked basalt rock occasionally break through the stony cover, providing streaks of vivid colour, jet black against the pale straw of the sand. The low ridges make for difficult going. The camels are not happy on slopes, especially if they are covered in soft sand, and Omar has to lead them down with great care, moving forwards at a slow shuffle, testing the ground, as if picking his way through a minefield. The camels slip and slide unhappily in his wake, back legs stiff, straight and awkward, as if this is the first time they’ve ever been asked to walk downhill.

I’m beginning to get to know the cameleers, though none of them speaks anything but Tamahaq. Harouna is the oldest and is frequently consulted by Omar. Elias and Akide Osman are the youngest, affable but detached. I get the impression that a career in cameleering is not all they want out of life. Izambar’s chanting is becoming a bit of a bore, but that could be because I’m not getting the full benefit of his improvised lyrics, which occasionally crack up the entire camel train, probably at my expense. Omar is a good-natured and thoughtful man, unquestionably respected by the others. I’ve never seen him on a camel. He’s always walking, keeping an eye out for loose loads, checking the route ahead.

He speaks good French and I like to walk and talk with him, as it takes the mind off the monotony. We talk about the recent war between the Touareg and the government in Niamey. The Touareg, rather optimistically, demanded more funds and less interference. The north of the country virtually closed down for six years, Omar had friends killed and arrested and most of the foreign visitors were frightened away. As he was taking tourists on desert safaris for ten times the money he made from salt caravans, this seriously affected his livelihood. But he never considered giving up and doesn’t expect he ever will. He likes walking with the camels. He says it gives him time to think.

By midday he has brought us to a spreading acacia, where we are to lunch and rest up in the heat of the day.

The sight of this single tree, which only survives out here because of root systems which search out water 100 feet or more below the surface, gives an extraordinary lift to the spirits. It’s like coming across a house or even a small village.

Everyone gets to work. The camels suddenly become talkative, making their usual sounds of complaint or joy as their burdens are removed. Their front legs are hobbled, but this doesn’t stop them shuffling nimbly off to a particularly tempting goblet-shaped bush. Soon they’re squeezed around it, feeding, with heads lowered in concentration, like men at the urinals when the half-time whistle has gone.

Those camels that can’t find a place at the bush, nibble away at the acacia, impervious to thorns as hard and sharp as small nails.

Today we have a special treat, the Saharan equivalent of a Sunday lunch. And it will be fresh. Omar is sharpening his knife and the two sheep and small black goat which have been brought along from Tabelot are eyeing him beadily. Harouna and Izambar drag one of the sheep over. His companions, far from shying away, follow curiously and have to be chased off.

Whilst Harouna and Izambar hold it down, Omar deftly cuts the sheep’s throat. It gasps and shudders as the blood drains from its body. The goat approaches again and this time Izambar throws sand at it to keep it away. Moussa takes over now, skinning and disembowelling the sheep, hanging the carcass from a stout branch and carefully cutting it up. The valuable hide, meanwhile, is laid out and rubbed over with sand to clean it.

Wood has been gathered and a fire lit. Akide Osman is making bread, kneading the dough into a flat disc. Once the embers of the fire are hot enough, he rakes them to one side and lays the bread on the hot sand, first one side, then the other, after which he piles sand and glowing embers on top, creating an instant oven. Omar, meanwhile, slices an onion using a broken razor blade, and Moussa prises open a tin of tomatoes with his knife (memo to enterprising businessman – tin openers for the Touareg), drops them into a blackened cooking pot and mixes them with couscous.

Twenty minutes later, the roundel of bread is exhumed, and, after the charcoal and sand have been dusted off, it’s passed down the line. It’s not quite what I expected, being much harder, stickier and sweeter than bread.

‘Galette,’ explains Omar, helpfully.

Izambar, who is keen to teach me Tamahaq, the language of the Touareg, points to it.

‘Tagella,’ he says.

‘Tagella,’ I say, exactly as he’s said it, only this time everyone falls about.

‘Tagella,’ he repeats.

‘Tagel-la,’ I reply, this time with extra care. Everyone falls about again.

This pantomime goes on until we’re all laughing hysterically. Clearly my pronunciation does not mean bread. It probably means the private parts of a goat, or personal attributes of my mother, but whatever it is, it proves that there’s nothing like a bit of incomprehension to bring people together.

I am honoured to be the first to taste the mutton stew. The meat is a little tired, but it had been walking in the sun for four days. Thankfully, the Touareg do not insist on my rolling the food up into a ball with two fingers of my right hand before popping it into my mouth. Out here in the desert they know how to live. I’m handed a wooden spoon, one of four that we share between us.

Izambar teaches me ‘isan’, meaning meat, and ‘izot’, which I think means ‘this is very good’, but induces more mirth when I say it.

There is some laughter too when I take off my turban, or tagelmoust in Tamahaq.

‘You have a blue head,’ says Omar, and I laugh indulgently. It’s not until someone holds up a mirror that I realise I do indeed have a blue head, a stripe of indigo following a perspiration line right across my forehead.