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While I was sipping the unusual beverage, a woman of the family
was shaking a heavy goatskin bag full of goat's milk. She was in the
process of making a thin, clarified butter for the camp. The churning
was difficult, but a good physical exercise. No nomad women looked
idle here, nor was any man walking with the herds and working on
the grove.
This woman churned and churned for about an hour, until she
squeezed her arms out of pain and sat on the floor, tired but content;
her task was accomplished.
I had watched step by step her beating from the entrance of the tent
where we had moved. Aureoles of perspiration had appeared on her
back as well as on the front of her veil that she had used from time to
time to dab her eyes and chin. Her outer garment made of wool had
swayed with each jerk, making her various adornments tinkled lightly.
I was careful not to appear too interested as the men began stirring
the roasting coffee beans on a fire. We had moved in a large tent, a
few feet large.
Other men had joined us.
They all looked like noble men dressed in immaculate dishdasha.
These had been the nomadic people, the people of the trip, always on
the road, enjoying their liberty. Now, it was more important to plant
and harvest than to move in the spring. They had let the few crippled
fruits of the road to the wild beasts; they had made their choice.
A man moved copper and brass pots of coffee near small china
goblets. The ceremony of coffee had begun. Like tea, coffee was
drunk in three stages: one cup had to be bitter as death, one cup had
to be good as life, and the last cup had to be sweet as love. Between
each phase of the ceremony, the host roasted, grounded, pulverized
the coffee, cast it in the water and finally tapped to signal that the
next round was ready.
Then he served everybody, patiently filling the delicate vessels every
time the guests gestured by turning them over. I was content in this
atmosphere where men recited poetry and talked about the latest
news. Even so, my mind was distracted by the mystery beyond the
veils of the tents.
In the distance, women were weaving, lying looms in the sun or
carefully stretching a thread of wool and spunmimg it around a
wooden shaft.
The entire process intrigued me. Women had no part in the hosting
because the family was not receiving other women. Or did they? I
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suddenly remembered the woman of the hawdaj. Wherewas she?
Photo courtesy of Maha: http://www.almaha.net
For a man of the desert, it was easy to recognize the identity of a
woman just by looking at her pace or the way she holds her veil. But
for me who was a novice in the matters of the land, it was impossible
to know who were the inhabitants of the oasis and who was the new
comer. I scrutinized but to no avail. As the sun went down, it was
more and more difficult to distinguish features among the women and
some had shyly retired to the back of our tent. They had left the flap
of the tent's inside door open, so that we knew they were there. It
was their way of participating. Children played between the wooden
pillars or came to sit on our laps before leaving again for other
enjoyments. One little child put his fingers in a man's beard in tender
gestures; the man kissed him on the forehead and shooed him
towards his mother. Some women were chattering and plaiting the
dense hair locks of a little girl in the back of their portion of the tent.
They occasionally immersed their fingers in a mixture, apparently of
goat’s butter before returning to their task. I noticed that small
leather bags were used to store grain, sugar and coffee. If I
stretched back a little, I could see more of the insides of the tent.
Near the women, small bags containing combs and pins had been
artistically embroidered with colored silks and encrusted with buttons
and small beads. Fringes, tassels and burnt patterns gave to these
bags a whole range of colorful effects. I had seen these kinds of
artifacts in pictures, but they looked even more beautiful in reality;
they usually were finished at the neck with delicate cyclamen-colored
nylon.
Djaliil came next to me and began talking. Her mother had
been once part of this clan. She had been widowed and she could
not remarry inside her tribe because it was regarded more pleasant
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