12.moonlight flit

My wanderings with bob marley aka gollum took us right across the dunes and out into the "black desert" - a huge flat sandy, slightly gravelly plain with slightly shiny black stones which give it its name.  We stayed the 2nd night in a nomad village - a few tiny, squat buildings, each with a berber tent, spaced out on the edge of the black desert near the dunes.  Across the plain you can see a long line of sombre dark cliffs - the disputed border with algeria.  There is a huge sense of space and sky, and silence, the gold of the dunes, the occasional tuft of green grass and the gorgeous blue of the berber robes contrasting with the great black plain, the squat buildings provide the only shelter.  It is stunningly beautiful.

The downside was the arrival of an enormous party of french prople towards evening - noisy, chattering, shouting across to each other, foraging about.  What they saw of the desert or gained from the experience I have no idea as they were totally preoccupied with thenselvrs.

This was the night of the full moon, hazier tonight making huge haze rings around the moon - a different kind of beauty.

We spent the next day in another village.  The family here have several children in their late teens to early 20s and I sat with mother and daughter in the tent working on the knotted wool carpet they were making.  Every knot was done with the greatest care and attention to detail using lovely natural wool and fibre, and every knot had to be just right - several of Hassan's efforts were laughingly tutted over and removed.  It will take 3 weeks to finish and will be about 6' x 4', its quite a rough, loose thick finish and I am very sorry to say that this labour of love, by this beautiful, clever, skilled girl wearing a stylish outfit that would look good anywhere in the world was hideous - a cacophany of gaudy and garish colours and shapes.

We were joined by 2 spaniards (pleasant) and 4 japanese (inscrutable and aloof) one of whom was dressed in a skirt, a longish cotton tunic with a stand up collar and a sort of soft tall hat with a round flat top.  He had a wispy beard; smoked funny cigarettes and was carrying - and playing - a didgery doo.

We all went to bring back the goats in the evening, 2 of the boys chasing off after an errant camel making a determined bid for freedom in the direction of Algeria.

This family is happy, healthy, clever and on the ball.  The boys speak spanish, french, english and arabic as well as their native berber.  They have never been to school.  There isn't one.  They  don't have cars and televisions and washing machines or even chairs or beds or a radio.  Are they desperately poor and in urgent need of aid, education and rehabilitation, or are they proudly and happily living a traditional and honourable life with their strong culture, social structure, family bonds and religion?  I certainly do not know the answer.

Unlike in other remote places I have been, the people here seem to treat us as a commodity to be serviced, a source of income, but they keep their distance and do not seem to want our trappings of civilisation.

After supper we saddled our camels and set off in the hazy moonlight, padding back through the silent dunes for a last sleep under the sky.