Tea in the Desert after Lawrence of Arabia
Text and photographs by Albena Shkodrova
“I’ll give you a hundred!” offers the buyer.
“God forbid!” the seller replies.
“Your face betrays more generosity…” the merchant observes.
“A hundred and eighty and you’ve got a deal,” the mediator intervenes.
“A hundred and thirty.”
“I can’t pay that much!” the customer says angrily, raising his eyebrows.
“In the name of Allah, the camel is perfect!” the middleman says, attempting to calm him down.
“That offer is unworthy of Mohammed, whom we all worship!” grumbles the merchant, in turn.
A crowd of onlookers has already gathered around them, tossing in encouraging comments about the quality of the merchandise.
The scene, which took place in 1936 at the Bedouin Market in Beersheba, in what is now Israel, was related months later in the pages of the National Geographic magazine. T. E. Lawrence, an archaeologist, classical scholar and colonel in the British Army, better known historically as Lawrence of Arabia, had died a year earlier. But his romantic descriptions of the Bedouins, the nomadic people of the Middle East, still resonated: “All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake up in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may pursue their dream with open eyes, to make it a reality.”
The “dangerous” Bedouins, who have been roaming around the biblical lands since time immemorial, are a constant source of nuisance to that part of the Middle Eastern population living a settled life. The quick tempers and aggressive habits of the people of this tribe, which initially inhabited the Arabian Peninsula but later spread to Syria and Egypt – and even beyond, deep into Africa – have been documented in great detail.At the beginning of the twentieth century, when the lands they roamed were part of the Ottoman Empire, the Bedouins caused trouble for the Sublime Porte, from the Sahara to Jerusalem. As Lawrence of Arabia’s story proves, they were at the heart of the Arab Revolt, which eventually resulted in independence for the peoples on the peninsula.
However, this did not prevent many Middle Eastern countries from adopting an anti-Bedouin policy soon after they formed their own governments. The new regimes encouraged the tribal people to give up their nomadic way of life, implemented measures to limit itinerancy and even practised their physical extermination, thus gradually reducing their numbers. In Egypt, for example, Bedouins made up some ten per cent of the population in the 1890s; today they account for less than one per cent. Some were entirely assimilated into the rest of the population, while others took to agriculture and, although remaining a largely autonomous group, adopted a settled way of life.
This was also the time when the Arab nations began to look down on the nomads as uneducated, poor “losers,” while they, in turn, adopted a contemptuous attitude towards those who had given up wandering. Their image as a proud, rebellious, and unsociable tribe seemed more acceptable to them than one as a marginalised group living in the cities of the Middle East.
Today’s Bedouins continue to rule and guard many of the routes across the Negev, Sinai, Sahara, and Arabian deserts stretching all the way across North Africa.
The Ababdeh nomads’ Sheikh, for example, is personally responsible for the safety on the routes across the Sahara, and is obliged to live in the valley of the Nile. His men are so famous for picking up trails that the government often hires them to track down criminals.
Over the past few decades, the Bedouin settlements have quickly lost the romanticism and harmonious beauty of the times of Moses, the Ottoman Empire, or Lawrence of Arabia. Their black, goat-hair tents, which in literal translation are called “houses of hair,” have been supplemented with plastic bags, oilcloths, and battered plastic vessels in various colours. Their camps are more reminiscent of a flea market than a biblical scene; this is especially so in the more developed countries, like the Israeli territories.
Still, having a cup of tea in a Bedouin settlement is an incredible experience. The first thing you notice is the bird tower – a white, cone-shaped structure pitted with nests, standing in the highest spot in the camp. It is a symbol of a double welcome: it not only invites birds to nest, but it also reveals the proximity of people, food, and water to desert wanderers.The next thing you notice are the settlement’s various constructions - shabby, built mostly of wood and cloth, and surrounded by goats, dogs, and camels. The hub of the camp’s social life is underneath a tent, lined with swinging tassels, which scare the flies away. The women knead loaves of flat bread, turning them over with a toss over a fire of camel dung, while the men, squatting on the sand near their camels, frozen still just like them, stare off into the distance. Neither the children, animals, nor adults are actively shaping their lives, but rather waiting for them to pass by, their eyes fixed on the sands of the motionless desert. As you lean back on the thick cushions, sipping tea in total silence, nothing seems to happen, not a single thing. Not to you, anyway; especially if Lawrence of Arabia was right when he said that the Bedouins are people who dream with their eyes open.
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