Tears of the Desert (4 page)

There was a man in our village who had an old oil tank mounted on a creaky donkey cart. He’d fill up with water at night, when the well was deserted, and come around in the morning, banging a stick on the metal drum. When you heard that noise you knew the water-seller was passing, and you could cry out for him to stop. There was a hole in the back of the oil drum sealed with a length of inner tube. From there he’d use his standard water container, a
koii,
to measure out the amount of water you wanted.

My father just couldn’t understand why we didn’t buy our water from the water-seller. It was almost as foolhardy as Grandma dragging us off to the forest to collect firewood. Once he’d finished telling my mum off, she went to have a word with Grandma. Grandma had just handed Kadiga and me our
libah.
It was hot and sweet and delicious. In fact it was so nice that I almost forgave Grandma for taking us on such a horrid journey. That was Grandma’s great gift, of course: In the space of a few hours she had shown us the harshness of life, before treating us to its kinder side. In that way, I learned to better appreciate our family’s good fortune.

“
Abba
Abdul isn’t very happy . . .” my mother began, but Grandma held up her hand to silence her.

“You think I don’t know? Let me tell you something: My father was a wealthy man, but still we had to work hard and do the chores. He used to say to us: ‘One day, all of this may be gone, and then you will have to know how to survive.’ You think our fortunes won’t ever change? You think we will always be blessed with peace and prosperity?”

“No, but all that way to this Lost Valley . . .” my mother began, before Grandma cut her off again.

“Where we went is none of your business. But if your daughter doesn’t learn to work, how will she ever get a husband? And when she does miraculously find one, you want her to be divorced because she’s never learned the meaning of hard work?”

With that my mother fell silent. In Zaghawa culture, there was nothing worse than the thought that your daughter might fail to find, or keep, her own Zaghawa man.

CHAPTER THREE

Moon-Bone Madness

The Zaghawa tribe is renowned for its independent warrior spirit, and its strong sense of identity. Our people are spread across the Sudan-Chad border region, in what is present-day Darfur. But for centuries this area was the ancient African Kingdom of Kanam, a vast land ruled by Zaghawa chiefs. The Kingdom lasted for hundreds of years, during which time our language remained a purely verbal form of communication.

The first attempt to write it down wasn’t made until 1986, when a scholar used the symbols with which the Zaghawa brand their cattle to form a basic alphabet. Today, each of the Zaghawa clans—the Towhir, the Coube, and the Bidayat—has its own dialect. The dialect I spoke as a little girl was closest to Coube, because Grandma came from that clan line.

My father was proud of our Zaghawa history, and especially our resistance against the British. He was forever telling me about how we had never been conquered by the
khawajat—
the white men. There were fierce battles between the Zaghawa warriors and the British soldiers. One day, the British commander decided it was time to crush the Zaghawa once and for all. He set out in a fleet of armored cars, carrying guns. En route other tribes fled from these terrifying mechanical monsters as they saw them.

The Zaghawa chief called together his finest warriors, and rode out on horseback to meet the enemy. The British commander was impressed by the Zaghawa chief’s warrior spirit and his arrogant bearing. The Zaghawa chief pointed at the armored car. “What is this?” he demanded. “Does it need food? Does it eat? Does it drink? Does it die?” The translator relayed the Zaghawa chief’s words. The British commander smiled. “No,” he replied. “It is like an ‘Iron Horse.’ It doesn’t need any of these things, and it will live forever.”

The Zaghawa chief proposed an exchange: They should swap his horse for the armored car. The British commander replied that he would need a whole army of horses of the flesh to swap for his iron one. Now it was the turn of the Zaghawa chief to laugh. The Zaghawa chief and the British commander sat down to negotiate a deal, and in the process of doing so they settled upon an historic peace accord. In this the Zaghawa retained control over their lands, but they agreed to support the British in their battles against other rebellious tribes.

Our fiercely independent nature didn’t mean that we Zaghawa were hostile to other tribes, or races. If they came in peace, we would welcome strangers as honored guests. It was inconceivable for a Zaghawa to refuse hospitality, just as it was inconceivable to eat alone. Eating alone was considered a sin, and it was as bad, if not worse, than living alone. And it was better to be dead than to be bereft of one’s family.

At meal times we would call out to the neighbors in our
gini—
our little hamlet: “Have you eaten yet? Come, come and eat with us! You can’t eat alone!”

We believe that the bigger the group that is eating, the bigger your appetite will be. We eat off one big tray set in the center, each person taking food with their right hand and throwing it into their mouth. We’d sit outside in the fresh air, drinking milk fresh from the cow, and eating meat fresh from the animals and vegetables fresh from the gardens. In our village eating was a celebration of good food, good company, good conversation, and good health.

My favorite food was
acidah,
the thick maize-flour mash. It was delicious with
mullah,
a spicy meat stew. But it was best when mixed with a dark powder, called
kawal.
Grandma used to make this using the leaves of a particular tree. She’d place them in a clay bowl along with some water and spices, and leave the mixture in a hole in the ground for several days. When she took out the gooey mush it smelled horrible. But once it was dried and ground into a powder, it had a rich, meaty aroma.

For breakfast I loved
acidah
with fresh yogurt. Yogurt making was another of my chores. Each evening Grandma would take me to the fields to milk the cows. I’d perch on a low stool and grab the back leg of the nearest animal, holding it tight between my knees. I’d place a clay bowl under the cow, take two of the teats, and start pulling and squeezing at the same time. If my hands got tired I’d ask Grandma to take over.

I’d pour the warm, frothy-fresh milk into a
tagro,
a gourd with a hole cut in it. I’d pop a cork into the top, and hang the
tagro
from the rafters of Grandma’s hut. Three or four days later I’d take it down, and start to shake, shake, shake. Eventually, the milk would separate into a thick layer of butter, with the thinner yogurt beneath. The longer I shook, the more butter we’d have.

In the same field as the cows we kept our goats and a donkey. Grandma was very proud of her goatherd, and she’d get so excited if one of her goats was about to give birth. She would sell off the young kids to earn herself a little private income, or keep them to fatten for the pot. I loved the goats when they were alive, but I hated having to eat them. They were so cute and so cuddlesome, and the meat seemed to me to be hairy, somehow, even after the goat had been skinned.

One day Grandma became so angry that she wanted to cry. Three of her goats had fallen ill, and she had to get a man to slaughter them. They must have been poisoned by something, but we had no idea what it might be. Grandma argued that they had probably eaten some plastic bags, which had bunged up their insides. Goats would eat just about anything. But I was worried that they’d been poisoned by something really dangerous, and if Grandma made us eat them then we’d all die.

Of course, Grandma was having none of it. She gutted the animals and each turned out to have a horribly twisted intestinal tract. Normally, we’d eat the liver, kidneys, and parts of the intestines fried with spices, as a delicacy. But even Grandma relented when she saw the state of the goat’s innards. She threw them out for the village dogs.

She skinned the animals and jointed up the meat. There was too much for our family alone, so she gave some to the neighbors—but she didn’t breathe a word about how the goats had died. The remainder of the meat she soaked in fermented sorghum flour, which has a strong bitter flavor. She argued that this would kill off any poisons that might remain. Grandma fried the goat meat and added lemon juice, watching over me with a big stick as I ate my share.

I survived eating Grandma’s poisoned goat meat with no obvious ill effects, and shortly thereafter my baby brother was born. I was five years old at the time, and the first I saw of him was a tiny wrinkled face all wrapped up in a white bundle. Like all firstborn Zaghawa males he was named Mohammed, after the Holy prophet of Islam.

Baby Mohammed grew up shockingly fast, and in no time at all his true nature began to show. He had inherited my father’s generosity and calmness, and my mother’s gentle softness—and none of Grandma’s warlike spirit and argumentative ways. As a toddler he spent his time making shapes from clay, and playing quietly in the yard. He was openhearted and kind. If my father gave him some sweets, Mohammed would share them. If my father gave him some money, he would pass it to Grandma to look after.

My little brother quickly became my mother’s favorite. As night settled over the village and oil lamps were lit in people’s homes, I knew the competition for the best sleeping place was about to begin. Especially during the cold season we both wanted to sleep with our mother, but Mohammed was always the one invited into her bed. As a consolation Grandma would stoke up the fire in her hut, and allow me to sleep by her feet—which was hardly the same as cuddling up to my mother.

Once he was old enough Mohammed started to venture outside to play, but it almost always ended in tears. He’d come crawling back in, wailing: “That boy, that boy, he beat me!” One day he was out playing when he was set upon by some boys from the Fur tribe. They stole his toy airplane, ripped his clothes to shreds, and beat him soundly. He came home with his face streaked in mud, and covered from head to toe in dust and scratch marks. He stumbled through the gate, half blinded by his tears.

Grandma Sumah was the first to spot him. “Mohammed! Mohammed! What happened? And where’s your plane?”

“The Fur boys . . .” he wailed. “They beat me . . .”

“WHAT? You let the
Fur
boys beat you? But you are
Zaghawa—
why didn’t you fight them?”

“I tried to,” Mohammed sobbed. “But there were four . . .”

Grandma knew just where those Fur boys lived. Their family had a house on the outskirts of the village. With barely a moment’s hesitation she scooped up Mohammed, grabbed me by the hand, and we set off to seek our revenge. The Fur boys saw us coming and they scampered inside their house, slamming shut the gate. But that didn’t stop Grandma. She hammered on the gate with her fist, demanding that they open up. When they refused, she flew into a burning rage.

“Come out!” she screamed. “Come out and fight! Come and fight like men, you Fur cowards!”

Still the Fur boys refused to open up. The fence was over a meter and a half tall, but Grandma wasn’t going to let that stop us. She lifted me up and dropped me on the far side. I was around seven years old at the time, so I was considerably bigger than the Fur boys. Even so, I was outnumbered, and as soon as they saw me they came running. Quick as a flash I unhooked the gate, just as the first of the Fur boys tried to slam it shut. By then it was too late, as Grandma set her shoulder against it and forced it open.

She burst in to the yard, her eyes blazing like angry coals. The Fur boys fled to a distant corner, where their mother was preparing some food. Grandma marched up to them in a towering fury. The Fur lady tried asking what her sons might have done, and told them to apologize, but Grandma simply ignored her. She grabbed three of the Fur boys and started to beat them, while I jumped on the fourth. I can’t remember if we managed to get Mo’s toy back—but it was a good fight and Grandma won the day.

My father was reluctant to buy us any new toys, especially if they were just going to get stolen off of Mo. As a result, we had to make our own entertainment. My favorite game was chasing my father’s Land Rover. When it chugged away in the morning it would take awhile to pick up speed, which meant we could jump onto the rear bumper. Kadiga, Mo, and I would hold onto the canvas-covered back for dear life, while trying to stifle our giggles.

Eventually, someone would call out to my father that he had a bunch of unwanted passengers. He would slow to a stop and come around to check, only to discover us kids hanging there. My father always found it too funny to get angry, or to punish us properly. We’d run back home, and on the way we’d stop to play the shadow game. I’d stand in the sun and make my body into an animal shape, or the shape of a teapot, and Kadiga and Mo had to guess what I was simply by looking at my shadow.

We’d make rag dolls from old clothes stuffed with straw. We’d roll up a sausage of straw and sew it into a length of cotton, tying it into leg and arm shapes. Then we’d sew those into the shape of a human body. If it was a man we were making, we’d use our own hair to give him a head of short fuzzy hair. But if it was a woman, then we’d try to find something longer and softer, like some sheep’s wool.

There was always a bag of our hair hidden in the rafters of Grandma’s hut. Each evening, she would comb and oil my hair, to keep it shiny and healthy. She would collect all the combings, and when the bag was full she would bury the hair in the yard. Grandma was forever warning me of the danger of letting others get hold of my hair. If you wanted to curse someone there were evil
Fakirs
who could do this for you, but they would first ask for some of the person’s hair to “work” the curse onto.

Once we’d made our rag dolls, we’d need cars for them to drive and houses for them to live in. We made them out of clay. We’d mould a car, complete with a roof, windows, and wheels, and leave it in the rafters of the hut directly over the fire until it was baked hard as iron. Or sometimes we’d made
herdih—
horses—for the rag dolls to ride. We’d place a man on the horse’s back, and a spear in his hand made out of a fine sliver of wood.

I’d make a warhorse for Mohammed, one for Kadiga, and one for me, and then we’d ride forth to fight the other children. We’d have one row of clay horses with rag doll warriors facing another, and on the order to attack the ranks would advance. “
Haribah! Haribah!
”—War! War!—we’d shout, although little Mo never sounded quite as enthusiastic as we girls did. Each side’s horseman would pick an opposing horseman to fight. Of course, the clay horses would eventually break, and the last one left standing would be declared the winner.

Often, it would take us several days to make replacement horses. Water was in limited supply, and Grandma used to grumble that it was for drinking, not for making playthings. I’d have to wait until no one was around and then scoop up a bowl-full, hoping that Grandma wasn’t watching. If that failed, we’d head down to the village well to see if we could scrape up enough mud from around there. But there were usually several other children with the same idea, so the competition was fierce.