HUGGING A GOAT IN THE SAHARA
Algeria. I decided to head east. After Morocco, there is Algeria. I thought, Ok! With an excited smile, I crossed the border.
I came into the city of Oran, the capital of rai music. It sounds like Arabic reggae. They sing about life, love, and in my taste, just damn good music. Some of the artists playing on the cassette tapes that I managed to get ahold of back then are very famous today, like Cheb Khaled.
Always Welcome
I am used to sleeping on the street, which I sometimes like because I’m on my own. Also, I decide when I wake up and where I want to go afterwards. However, in Algeria, you are not supposed to ignore anyone according to the way of Allah and Islam. I pretended to be a foreigner and an atheist; I even insisted that I was Jewish, but it didn’t matter. Christian, Jewish, or anti-religion, you always have food and a song in my home! And you don’t sleep on the street! Period! Good!
To this day, Algeria is still the country where I met the most number of loving people among all the places I have visited.
Sahara Nights and Days
I hitchhiked on and came to Merzouga, which is considered the gateway to the Sahara. It so happened that I had committed to a job as a translator and bodyguard for a German geologist in Central America, so I had to be back in Europe by December. It was already October-something when I thought I had to at least see the world’s largest desert before I went back…
I went out of town and watched the horizon, which looked like an endless red sea as the sun was making its way down. The headlights of two cars broke my reverie. My thumb went up without thinking. The two cars stopped when they came upon me. The occupants were traveling together to Niger and I was welcome to join them.
2,000 kilometers (1,245 miles) and three days later, I reached Tamanrasset. Here, I said goodbye to my friends who continued in their Peugeot 404, which they would eventually sell. They would then fly back to France and do their trip again. They made money by buying second-hand Peugeot 404 or 504 in France and then selling them in Niger.
In Tamanrasset, I loaded up with water. Using the sun as a compass, I went due north to the mountains for two days. In the middle of nowhere, I met a shepherd; a boy my age with goats. We had tea together despite not understanding a word of each other’s. He had a metal pipe in which he had made holes and played for me like a flute. After a couple of hours together, he disappeared with his goats, and I found myself alone again. I made my way back to Tamanrasset and got a lift to a village a bit further north from some Tuaregs, the nomads of the Sahara.
Riding with 150 Goats
I had been sitting in the shadow of a wall for almost 24 hours before the first vehicle came; two, actually. Onboard the two trucks were 150 goats crammed in a two-level apartment and 12 men from the tribe of Hausa in Niger, who are more proud than the Tuareg. The men looked like bandits with their heads wrapped in cloth in a very special way that I myself eventually learned to copy. It’s a good protection against the heat and dust in the day and it keeps you warm at night.
I signaled my request to catch a ride. This Hausa man, one of the leaders, jumped down from the truck and declared, “You can come with us if you work. We are going to Libya.”
Getting Employed as a Goat Picker
“Good,” I replied in French. I mostly spoke French in Algeria as my Arabic was extremely limited… I climbed up on the second level of one of the trucks. The lower one had 30+ goats with two men who were huddled together to take care of them. I had luxurious accommodations because I had more air and less dried goat shit flying around me.
My job was to hold on to the goats’ legs to prevent them from falling down. Otherwise, they can trampled on by the other goats and die. And, three times a day, I had to take all the goats down so that they could stretch their legs and eat. Then back up again. I think that’s why they decided to give me a lift when they saw me; because I was tall and quite strong.
On we went through the desert, offloading and loading the goats back on to the truck. Some nights got so cold, close to 0 C (32 F), that I used one of the goats as my blanket. I hugged him to keep myself warm while we traveled in the starry nights. We had a romance going on, but it was before I got married. What happened stayed between the goat and I.
Participating in Prayers
We drove day and night through the desert. No roads, just through the Sahara desert heading east. At night time, I realized that the rule of thumb still was to navigate by the stars. No compass. Day after day, night through night, I don’t remember if it was four or five times a day we stopped to pray. After my second day, one of my friends poked me in the ribs and said, “You have lived, worked, and slept with us. So, pray with us!”
It was not an obligation and I was raised Baptist but removed from religion… but in the midst of nature and this greatness of being in the middle of nowhere, I followed suit. In the absence of water, we soaked our hands in sand before our prayers as we turned east. The leader of our convoy, a stately Tuareg, led our prayers. Allahu ‘akbar! Muhammadun Rasul Allah!
I went down on my knees and bowed my forehead to the sand, up again and back. In the end, we were all together, but alone with our thoughts in this big space. Very relaxing. It reminded me of yoga, but this was bigger. I participated in all prayers after this for my own pleasure and peace of mind. I had some of the best spiritual and unselfish experiences in my life here with this wonderful mix of people: Tuaregs, Hausas, and Arabs.
Food
When we stopped to rest, we slept in a circle around a little fire. We baked bread in the sand and cooked one of our companion goats either with pasta or with couscous. Man, it was so good and spicy! We ate it all with our left hand (you know what you do with the other one…) sitting in a circle, sharing. You always have a bit of sand in between your teeth. You grind as you chew, so you also get a teeth-whitening polish for free.
The evening meals were our real meal, big and rich. And, being the only white person in the group, I was forced to take some of the best pieces even if I tried to refuse. Nevertheless, they really put me to work during the day. Our talks were short, mostly in French and a few in Arabic that I picked up. The very proud Tuareg leader of our desert fleet hardly engaged in conversation, just the occasional smile and handshake.
One morning, just when we had woken up, one of the men saw that a snake had crept up to him in the night to take shelter against his warm body. He quickly jumped up and we stoned (well, I stoned) the poor snake because it was of the poisonous variety. I skinned and gutted it, then took it for a small breakfast. I kept the skin. My friends did not want to try it. I just don’t like to waste animals; if you kill them, then you eat it and keep whatever else you can. That is the way I was raised as a hunter and a fisherman. Every life from an ant to a blue whale is still a life. So I ate it.
An Exploding Star… A Prophet Was Born? It Wasn’t Me!
One night, while I slept on the ground in my usual position with my face straight up to the sky, I woke up with a jolt. A great light woke me up. When I opened my eyes, I saw the whole sky bright as day. The light disappeared and was replaced by a sun, then a moon, and finally, a star. Then the star disappeared. I was not dreaming; I was wide awake. I thought a prophet had been born, but I don’t know who. He still hasn’t shown himself since that day as far as I know.
We were on our own for eight days on sand, stone, and rocks until we reached our first oasis.
