Valley of the Casbahs: A Journey across the Moroccan Sahara by Jeffrey Tayler: book review

In Valley of the Casbahs (2004) Jeffrey Tayler describes an epic and unique journey following the Draa River in Morocco in 2001 from the source to the sea. He travels in nomadic style with stubborn donkeys and camels and argumentative Berber guides – archetypal wanderers and co-originators of the Islamic civilization.

His previous attempt, fifteen years earlier, after reading Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands, had resulted in near death stranded in a desert storm with no water, food, maps or radio. His predecessor died from lack of water. Determined to follow his dream, he conquers the desert and relates the history of the desert Arabs and the decline of the nomadic way of life: “I found, in the Draa Valley and the Western Sahara, not modernized Bedouin but future residents of tin-shack slums and proud sheikhs humbled by the politics and police of nation-states.”

Much of the book is about the Sahara desert and its barren terrain. Here he learns of the various desert terminology: empty land was khla; flat sandy land was ragg; totally flat and empty country was mham; empty rolling country covered with rock was hidban; dunes without vegetation was uruq; dune with mottled scrub was nibka; dune with more than three trees was ghaba (forest); a patch of smooth land where a camel could kneel was mliss and a patch of land where a camel could not kneel was harsh.

Stories of the virtues of simplicity, hospitality and comradeship throughout his journey make this more than a description of captivating casbahs (Arabic citadels), fortressed villages, labyrinthine corridors and courtyards, and debilitating deserts. After three months traveling the moonscape gorges of the Anti-Atlas Mountains and the denuded dunes, he reaches the silver and white ocean foam of the Atlantic. His Berber companions reflect on their remarkable feat and the strength of his ancestors: “we Reguibat could once walk a hundred kilometers a day without tiring, drinking only a litre of water and eating only a handful of dates. By God, our ancestors were strong! Why, in the old days we walked all the way from here to Mauritania!”

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog