29 Jan Africa: Camel markets

Some of the places that most excite my effervescent imagination (and which I can reveal here without blushing) are the Saharan camel markets. They have the power to take me back to those remote, almost vanished times of the great caravans that opened the trade between Sijilmasa and the Kingdom of Ghana and that could gather more than 30,000 camels or those of the Darb el Arbain or 40-day route, which started from the oasis of Kharga towards the Sudan, and which the clever reader will have guessed by now how many days it took to get there.

Fortunately, there are still some caravans like the Azalai that links the salt mines of Taoudenni with Tombuktu, or those of the Afar in Ethiopia and Djibouti, from Lake Assal or the Danakil, so that every time those of us romantics who are still left in the world are punished by being tied to an office chair, we can continue dreaming of imitating them and enjoying a freedom as infinite as the horizon that surrounds us, with no more need than the company of a good wine and a better friend.

On horseback, or rather on camels, markets flourished along these routes, such as those of Guelmin, Agadez, Douz, Ghat, Daraw, Babile, Abéché.... where people came weekly from the desert to sell or buy animals, and to socialise, catching up on the gossip of the Wilaya and then being able to pass it on to their wives (depending on one's desire for complication). Some of them still persist, but most of them have disappeared over time, swallowed by the dunes and oblivion, as in Siwa or Sijilmassa.

As I was saying, markets are and will always be a place to spread gossip and this photo below is the obvious proof. Driven by that insatiable curiosity that takes hold of me, I went over to see if I could find out what was going on, but as I am not fluent in the more than 20 dialects of the Zaghawa (I don't really understand any of them) I was left wanting and I can't tell you what they were talking about, but I'm sure it was super loud....

Apart from the Taoudenni or Bilma Salt Caravans, large groups of camels can still be seen crossing the Sahara, but they are probably just herds destined to be sold as food. Males are slaughtered when they are 6 or 7 years old, and in some countries their meat is a delicacy. Females are saved for breeding or milk production.

They say that camel's milk is the richest in vitamins and very beneficial for health, the difficult thing is to milk it, because the friends have a caracteeer... I tried it for the first time in Khazastan, a long time ago, but I don't forget it, for me it has a "different" taste, so since then I have to drink it with nesquik because if not, it makes me a ball.

Of all the camel markets I have been able to visit, I would definitely choose the one in Abéché in Chad (once again, I don't remember if I have already told you that I lived there). When it was the capital of the sultanate of Ouaddai, it became an important communications hub on the trans-Saharan routes, and its market still has something in it that evokes the splendours of that time (it seems more authentic, if possible, than the medieval market in Las Rozas).

Within the apparent chaos, everything has an order, and I like that (not order, I mean chaos). There coexist in the same place and under several layers of dust, dirt and flies, the fruit stalls with those of coloured fabrics; further to the back, there are the areas destined for prayer, business, playing dhaemon al Essigue, or the spreading and exaggeration of gossip; in the centre, in groups, horses, camels, donkeys and zebus, and everywhere, omnipresent, that revolutionary prototype for waste disposal, namely the goats themselves, eating plastics, leather, fabrics or tyres...

For me, these places have something in the air, something special, intoxicating, everything looks different and predisposes you to get tender and even to lose your head for loves as strong as they are impossible. As a friend recently complained that in my photos there are too many landscapes and not enough portraits, I'm going to post a photo of some triplets with whom I was flirting in the camel market in Douz. They are blondes, very cute, look at their eyelashes, the way their eyes fall...!

This bottom pair also gave me a lot of looks, but for the moment, I'm more attracted to the top triplets.

Going back to the camels, I remember that for about 1000 euros you could buy a good one. However, if your budget was a little tighter, for a little less they sold this other camel. The owner told me that believe mister, believe me, it is a runner camel, a real mehari, and he explained that he had just got over a flu and that as he had such a bad face, they were selling it cheaper.

Now that I've said my piece of bullshit, and I'm more relaxed, I'm going to continue with the Abéché market. I was telling you that there was something about it that particularly attracted me and that's why I went there every week. I often met small groups of Daza who had just arrived from the northern mountains. I remember standing in front of them with a pleading look on my face, anxious to be allowed to accompany them, as I watched them pass by, moving away, lost in the distance, swallowed by the pink dust of the harmattan, on their way to the desolate plains of Tanezrouft, the desert of deserts, or to the reddish sands of the Karnasai...

Then I drowned my sorrows in my favourite bar, L'etoil de Afrique, almost the only one there was. I remember there was another one run by a French ex-legionnaire, but we hardly ever went there because its reputation was more than dubious and we didn't miss anything, of course..., if ever...

So I was telling you that I was going to the bar to drown my sorrows and continue dreaming that I was emulating Monod's travels and returning to the rolling dunes of Amatlich and the holy cities of Adrar, or to the black peaks of Tibesti, or also to the red dunes of Ackhar, and to Iyil and the dazzling mirror of its salt pans, to Amukruz and its acacia forests, to Bir Nzaran and Bir Gandús (two villages of nothing in nothingness, which tell me so much...), to the colourful lagoons of Ounianga or those of Ezzemoul, where herons and flamingos rest from their long journey...), to the colourful lagoons of Ounianga or those of Ezzemoul, where herons and flamingos rest from their long journey in defeat... or to so many places that I refuse to let time erase them from my memory or from my dreams.

I imagined myself with them, at dusk, after the halt towards the east for the last prayer, the ichâ, camping in any of those thousands of nameless places that only they know, sheltered from the winds and in the heat of a fire made from the remains of acacias, telling old and new stories while we savoured a frothy tea, sweetened with rock sugar and served in three gulps, you know, the first bitter as life, the second strong as love, and the last sweet as death. And then, out in the open, we let tiredness overcome us while the fire slowly died out....( how beautiful it is, I can see I'm very feminine today, I'm going to let my lonely hormone continue writing for me).

On these African nights I like to play a bit of African music on my iPhone and I immediately enter a trance-like situation very similar to when I get fried, but always alert. I usually have Terakaft, Tinariwen or Tartit..., monotonous music like the desert that inspires it, but as the explorer Camile Douls used to say, with a special charm that lulls the senses and makes the spirit dream.

For me this music and the nights in the open lead me to others. I was in Villa (Dakhla) travelling through Western Sahara with my friend Paco, when a Saharawi friend, whose name I omit for safety reasons, prepared a fire for us to give a good account of a poor gazelle recently slaughtered in the dunes of El Aargub. Ainss what a night, how many memories....

I imagine that at this point, you've got your hair "enritao" with my stories and you've got a huge urge to escape NOW to the desert, well, it's easy, join us. Although maybe you prefer to be told about it or watch it after lunch in the documentaries of la 2, from the sofa while you placidly cross the snoring barrier. It's up to you, I've already made my choice...