1188  Guide talks about his life as a Bedouin

1188  Guide talks about his life as a Bedouin

A Guide chats through Geoff about his life after being an Inuit

(Geoff)
All right, this is very similar. Vast areas, camels crossing deserts, and you’ve got this big open space, this big clean environment, clean energy, pristine energy. Now this was a little bit different because where we had like a village, we would travel for miles across the desert, take a train of camels, and go for miles enjoying every minute. In the evening we’d light a fire, we’d eat and  sleep under the stars; very cold sometimes but totally at peace and again the stars were our heavens, they would guide us we took our direction from the stars and that was just passed down from one generation to the next. Something you had to learn crossing a desert. Because to find a town which is maybe two or three hundred miles away across the desert which would take you a couple of weeks to get there is quite something. And if you miss the direction you’re going in, you could easily bypass it by just a few miles on either side. That was quite something we had to learn, of course. So when we went out in the beginning, we went out with guides, they taught us, and it was just passed on from one generation to the next. Now, when we got to the villages, it was not even big enough to call a village, maybe 15 to 20 homes. And that was where people lived in their little community and they very rarely left that. So everything was based on just that particular community, very, very isolated.

And for them to have us come along as traders was quite an event. Firstly because of the goods that we bought, because there were a lot of things that they would like to buy, general sweetmeats and so on, that they didn’t have where they were. And it may be months between traders coming along again. And we would do so much trade and they would make certain things for us and we would trade for what we brought along and we’d take it along to the next place.

In the communities, everybody knew everybody and everybody knew everybody’s business. And they function as basically an open community, if you can understand that, where everybody knows everything. It’s like everybody living in one big home, except there are 15 or 20 homes. And you can imagine there wasn’t much to do in those particular areas. So a lot of it was just talking, talking about the past, talking about history and what could be done and the weather and small things but entertaining things. A lot of storytelling as well which is very nice.

Again, storytelling for the children so they would learn different things. And then when something went wrong or where a house needed for instance repairing, everybody would just check in and they would all repair it and then maybe in the evening or a couple days time they would all have a party there, a get-together where we shared drinks. We made all our own drinks depending on the religion but even the religions where alcohol was banned it was quite acceptable to create something which was just a little alcohol it was left to our discretion and you can imagine food out there because there’s very little you can grow out in the desert; you can grow certain amounts but it’s very sparse you’ve got to be very careful about regrowing getting the seeds to regrow and of course there’s no such thing as fertilizer or such in those days. It was just a matter of water of course. But there was always a well in the towns and the well was always very well looked after and very shared. A lot of animals of course, chickens, pigs and goats.

And that was where your main meat came from;  and then dates, awful lot of dates, date trees and that was very common. As far as marriages go it was mainly the people in the village because it was just too much for for the villagers to travel maybe two or three hundred miles to go to another town because even if they go there and they spend some time there now they may have to wait months to find a train coming back to their village.

So obviously very expensive, they didn’t know where they could be staying and so on. So they tended to stay in the village and they would just find themselves a mate there. And it wouldn’t always be the perfect marriage if you like, but if you can understand that where they didn’t have all these niceties that you have in other areas they settled for less as that we would see it as being less they would see it as the maximum there is available there so they would see it as a perfect marriage, as an example, but your choices are very limited so therefore perfection is a much lower scale than we would see.

Yes, that’s your perception of your experience and that’s your choice and your awareness and everything. And the perception of the availability of what is there. Yeah. So again, very little communication, only in the last… from the Second World War, were there such things as radios that could reach out there and that was just a rarity. So there’s very little outside news and of course from the traders you would have storytellers. They would say exactly what’s going on in the world again if you could exaggerate your stories etc. But the stories they pick up from different villages and towns that they go through along the way and they are not all that exciting because not a lot of exciting things happen in those area.

But to them of course it was it was it was very nice We would be very well entertained, very well looked after. They would listen to all our stories. Trade was very fair. And nobody took advantage of anybody else. And that was simply because we all respected what each other did. So we were all very fair. And we all understood that we would be passing this way again in a year’s time, so we need to keep good relations yeah so nobody was ever taken for a ride or overcharged or whatever and we would help where we could if somebody said they wanted something it may be a year or so before we came back but we would try and get that for them and bring it back And that was just the way it was Very a very enjoyable period of our lives.

Now When you camp at night when you eat in the desert, the temperature can drop dramatically, but it is crystal clear. You feel an awful lot of energy and of course we’re all so into nature because nature was basically 99% of our lives crossing a desert.

Another unusual thing is the desert that changed every time we went from one town to a next, was we would have the direction but the dunes would change so there were no specific roads we had to go by experience and mainly by the stars so when you camped at night you’d make sure that you look up and you were going in the right direction. You’d make a note to make any adjustments for the next day and we would just do that day after day after day. Then eventually in so many days We’d know we should be close to this village and that’s when we take a little bit more care, And just a little bit slower and we would find exactly where we were going to. One thing that is interesting is crossing a desert. You need to bring food with you.
So let’s say you’re away for three weeks and there’s maybe 10, 12, 15 of you. You need to bring enough food to last that time and it’s food that will last for that period. You know a lot of vegetables for example won’t last that long. So it’s certain a lot of dried meats and of course salted foods. So the foods that we made along the way were very acceptable but when we got to a town a village then of course then all sorts of things that can be cooked, so that was very enjoyable to sit down and eat. It was literally a feast for us. But what we would take out there and remember every night we’d have to have fires because of the cold. But where do you get the wood from?

… A lot of it was charcoal. And we’d have huge lumps of charcoal that we’d take with us, we’d start fires. And it would just be one fire, we’d all sleep around that fire. We’d often put-up tents, and just one communal tent, very basic. But it kept the heat in. So that was our lives.

And of course you would like what you use now as duvets. What we had were huge, packed blankets, mainly made out of wool. I was just trying to think what’s a better way to put that. Anyway, goats, sheep, all sorts of different types of wool which we got from different villages along the way. I think that is all I need to tell you.

My lovely journey through the deserts. Yes, Sahara Desert by the way. There are quite a few deserts. Sahara was the one we travelled backwards and forwards. And the distance across, far bigger than you realise. I mean we’re talking about several thousand kilometers so imagine you traveling from here to well just imagine 7,000 kilometers across just desert you just stop at different villages along the way. Very interesting. The other luxury we had was when we got to water. So you imagine an oasis. I mean this is heaven because at your oasis you’ve got trees which will grow around the water supply and often a lot of date trees there but there are a lot of fresh herbs, leaves, berries, all sorts of things which go around an oasis so that’s quite something. There’s always a place where you could stay for two or three days and just refresh.

A little about our religion. We would pray every night. The religion would be what you would call Islam, but in those days it was a little bit different because you didn’t have for instance teachers and the Quran and so on, it was information that was passed down from one generation to the next. What they did in their generation was based on the Islamic religion, and of course that also has various degrees of sincerity let’s call it. So we get information passed on to us; but our real religion was nature and basically we would pray at night, we would face Mecca, we would basically worship what we call the universe, the stars. Overall everything is one, very similar to your way?

(Sharon) Yes, very much so.

(Geoff) A couple of more things that’s come into mind. Sandstorms. Huge sandstorms.
But then we would bed down with the camels, they were quite used to it. And we just suffered a sandstorm every now and again. The other thing we had which people don’t realize was a huge amount of fog. You get to some areas where there is in the morning just not a morning mist but fog. Really thick and heavy. But that was good because you could get so much fresh water from that and then within a few hours it would disperse and the temperature would rise dramatically

Often we have to stop in the middle of the day Simply because it was too hot to travel. it would use up too much water especially for the camels So we would stop relax for a couple of hours and then continue so basically early morning first thing in the morning till late morning and then late afternoon till as far as you can go into the evening yes two extremes and they can be very extreme as well. Right, I will leave you now.

(Sharon)
Thank you so much.