The Prophet's Camel Bell (21 page)

“I was explaining the design of the
ballehs
to some of them today,” he said, “the fact that the wing walls will have to jut out in a straight line, and I realized from what they said that they don't have any real concept of what a straight line is. Why should they? There aren't any straight lines here. There isn't a tree that doesn't grow crookedly.”

Every culture in the world passes on knowledge to the next generation, but the nature of that knowledge suits the survival requirements of each particular place. The significance of this difference was borne in upon us one morning when we heard a flock of birds crying nearby. Jack and I paid no attention, for the sound had no meaning to us. But every Somali in the camp dropped what he was doing and rushed out, shouting.

“
Wa mas!
Snake!”

Sure enough, there it was, a big diamonded Russell's Viper, its thick body raised and tense, its flat evil-eyed head
swaying, holding the birds horribly enchanted. Abdi killed it with a stick, and Jack asked him how he knew a snake was here. The old warrior looked surprised at our ignorance.

“When the
shimbir
speak that way,” he said, “the snake is there.”

So, piece by piece, both ourselves and the Somalis accumulated a little of this new knowledge, this knowledge not our own, the things that had not been handed down to us.

But the difference in the heritage of facts was not the only reason for a disparity in outlooks. We looked at the whole of life through different eyes. Our basic outlook came from science; theirs, from faith. We put our confidence in technical knowledge. They appeared to put their confidence in ritual.

One evening, doing some repairs, Jack told Isman Shirreh to clean a pipe on a tractor, for a lump of dirt was clinging to the outside, and if it fell in it would clog the pipe. Isman obligingly snatched up a rag and cleaned vigorously – holding the pipe so that the dirt fell straight in. To him, it was the act of cleaning which was important. The concept of keeping dirt out of motors was meaningless. The same was true of greasing the tractors – the important thing seemed to them to be the faithful application of grease almost anywhere, not the fact that the grease had to be forced into bearings, however difficult to get at, for it to do any good.

A few snatches of mechanical information, imparted as the need arose, could never be sufficient to change a man's total outlook. The drivers maintained their belief that there was a mysterious virtue in the repetition of certain acts. They cleaned the tractors conscientiously, following the same procedure each evening, and as long as nothing altered in the situation, all was well. But if one factor was different, they did
not adjust their actions to meet the changed requirements. Even if they were told to do something differently, they often seemed compelled to continue ritualistically in the same way as before.

The soil of the Haud was so hard that the ripper's steel teeth became bent and twisted. Jack found it necessary to borrow a heavier ripper from
P.W.D.
and to use it with additional weights attached. Every day something occurred to tax the ingenuity. But the technical problems, however many or however tricky, were much more easily solved than the human ones.

Whatever the day's difficulties, the arrival of dusk brought a feeling of peace to the camp. The tractors and scrapers came lumbering in, big dusty yellow machines, driven by dust-covered men. At one side of the camp, the Illaloes were going through their drill, with much slapping of rifles and snapping to attention. On the other side, the rest of the Somalis were facing Mecca and chanting the evening prayers. Above the shouts of the corporal and the low roar of the tractors could be heard the chorus of
Amiin
– Amen.

To guard, to work and to pray – in these ways our camp was related, after all, to the camps of the Somali tribesmen throughout the whole land.

When the first
balleh
was completed, we moved to Balleh Gedid. For the Somalis this process – packing up, heading off, re-settling – was one which involved a great deal of excitement. The camp was like a circus, with its air of noisy festivity, its songs, its tents, its crowd so busily exuberant.

“
Helleyoy
–
helleyoy
–”

None of the songs were sad today; all were eager and elated. The Somali equivalent of the English “Hey!” was

warya
, and the camp was loud with this reiterated cry, as the tents were dismantled and the equipment gathered.

“
Warya
, Abdi-o!
Warya
, Mohamed-o!”

Everyone yelled at everyone else. Come and give a hand with this tent-pole! Who has seen the other baramile? Where does this water drum go?

Finally the parade moved off, an imposing array of vehicles and shouting men. The small speedy Land-Rover led the way, followed by the yellow Bedford three-ton, with its brown canvas canopy mumbling in the wind. Next came the water truck, a three-ton fitted with a big tank, and towed behind it was the diesel-fuel trailer. Then the bulldozer chugged along with majestic slowness as it pulled the heavy workshop trailer containing the tools and spare parts and the generator which we now used to supply the camp with electric light. Next in line was Gino's caravan, now our home, towed by a tractor with scraper. Finally, at the end of the parade came the other Caterpillar and scraper, pulling the ripper and plough. The scrapers were piled high with tents and petrol drums. Our numerous water drums were wedged onto every vehicle where any space could be found. Men were perched all over, some on the trucks, some on the scrapers.

Jack and I could not help wondering what the Somali herdsmen thought as they watched our crawling but thunderous trek. We knew very well what the Somalis in our camp thought about it, however, and we were in complete accord, for this was one feeling we shared spontaneously with them – an upswinging of the heart for no reason other than merely to be going somewhere, to be on our way.

At Balleh Gedid, we found ourselves with some camp followers. The camp of one Somali family travelling by itself was known as a
jes
. Jack and I became aware of the nearby
presence of such a
jes
, in which dwelt one rather disreputable looking man, an attractive girl of about sixteen, an old woman and a little girl. New licences for desert tea shops were not being issued by the government at this time, but when we questioned the Somalis in our camp about this
jes
, they told us blandly that it was “just a small tea shop,” or else they pretended complete ignorance of it.

In the evenings, the drivers and labourers drifted over in that direction in ones and twos. When they returned, the next batch ambled over. If the jes was a tea-shop-cum-brothel, we did not mind. But one thing we had to be concerned about – the
jes
was using water from our drums. We had a camp of thirty men, and although the water truck went into Hargeisa once a week, we always had to be careful.

“What is happening,” Jack said in annoyance, “is that they are taking water on the sly, to give to the
jes
. I'm not going to have it that way. I'd rather give an understood daily ration. I suppose it's fair enough. The
jes
provides amenities of one kind and another.”

So the
jes
received its allotment. The old woman sometimes visited our camp. She had a high and whining voice, and whenever she saw me she began her monotonous plea for alms.

“
Baksheesh! Baksheesh!
”

Asha, the little girl, who was about eight years old, had a curiously vacant and withdrawn look. Then, from Arabetto, who was more frank than the others, I learned that she was a child prostitute. There was a special name for such children, which meant literally “a small opening.”

Asha sometimes came alone to see me in camp. She wanted me to give her a comb, which I did. This comb was the only thing she ever asked from me. Her hair was unkempt, and her face was unwashed, an unusual sight here, where
children were normally well cared for. We did not talk much, Asha and I, for I did not know what to say to her. I never asked her about her life. My knowledge of Somali was too limited, and who would I get to translate? She sat quietly in the brushwood hut, and when the afternoon shadows began to lengthen, she went away.

“
Nabad gelyo
,” she said. “May you enter peace.”

But I did not reply, for I found myself unable to say
nabad diino
to her – the peace of faith.

I did not know what to do. If we forbade the
jes
to stay near the camp, the crone would only move her trade elsewhere, so the child would be no better off. Here at least Asha got enough water. Possibly many Somalis felt the same as I did about children such as Asha, but how would they feel about my meddling? I had the strong suspicion that I might easily make Asha's life worse by interfering. I could not take her away from the situation entirely, and what else would do any good?

So, whether out of wisdom or cowardice, I did nothing. The
jes
remained with us for several months. Then, in the
Jilal
drought, it vanished one day and we heard no more about it. But Asha's half-wild half-timid face with its ancient eyes will remain with me always, a reproach and a question.

The
Dhair
rains failed, and the
Jilal
began again. The dry winter months crawled by, slow as the giant tortoises that outlived the droughts of a century. On the great plain, what was left of the grass lay wind-flattened and white. The vultures could be seen again, on the thorn trees, waiting.

Each year it was the same. In the
Jilal
, the Somalis were a dying people in a dying land. The dust filled their nostrils like a constant reminder of mortality. The wind whistled through the dried seed pods on the thorn trees, and the aloes
plants dwindled and wilted, their shrunken brown flesh stinking in the sun. But neither the people nor the land would die, although the weakest of every species would not feel the rains of spring. There was a toughness deep in these people, like the fibre of desert cactus, the ability to eke out life, the refusal to die easily. At the times of prayer they knelt, for they were the People of the Book, the People of the Right Hand. They were not forsaken but judged by the Lord of men and djinn. They did not understand His will, but they bowed before it. Though the rains of compassion would not fall for a long time, yet was He the Compassionate. When He willed it, the land would be reborn out of the dry womb of death. Fresh water would be sweet in the mouth again, and there would sound once more the songs of men and the laughter of young girls. But nothing could make it happen sooner, nothing could hasten the day, neither rage nor tears, neither curse nor prayer. It would happen when Allah willed it, and not a moment before.

With the onset of the
Jilal
, we expected an upsurge of rumours about the
ballehs
, but these appeared to have tapered off permanently. We no longer heard that the tribesmen were saying the
ballehs
would contain poisoned water, or that the water would be sold by the government at enormous prices. Now that the actual construction was going on, the tribesmen might be reassured by the sight of what was being done. Or more likely, their attention was diverted from us by the fact that so many Habr Awal were still in the Haud, and the other tribes were complaining about their presence.

Sometimes a group of nomads came to watch the work. Usually, they did not say anything. They stood at a distance, and watched the noisy tractors snorting through the dust, and then they went away. We did not know what they were thinking, nor
whether they realized that next year these
ballehs
would be of some use to them.

Then one day Ahmed Abdillahi, the young Eidagalla chieftain, came to visit our camp. He was as handsome and deep-voiced as ever, and had it not been for the drought he would have been perfectly happy, for his wife had just borne him his first son. Through Hersi, he questioned Jack about the almost-completed
balleh
.

“When the rains come, this
balleh
will be full of water? So large a thing?”

“We hope so,” Jack said. “We think it will be.”

Ahmed Abdillahi nodded approval and then produced an outsize camel bell, which he had made himself, out of
galol
wood, and presented it to Jack.

“Some of my people are too proud to say now they think the
ballehs
will be a good thing,” he said. “But after the rains,
In sha' Allah
, they will say so.”

This camel bell ranked as Jack's first, last and only presentation. It was a strange and unwieldy creation, with a hank of handwoven rope at the top. But we valued it greatly, for it signified the first real acceptance of the
ballehs
.

Almost imperceptibly, the work changed, became less a matter of perpetual crises. The tractor drivers were growing more accustomed to the machines, more adept in operation and maintenance, less liable to make the mistakes which plagued the first months of excavation. Also, where Jack once felt he was constantly talking at cross-purposes with them, now some kind of understanding had grown between them and himself. They seemed to feel themselves part of the camp now, and in their work they operated as a crew a great deal more smoothly than they once had. The misunderstandings
and the immediate problems presented by the desert terrain – these did not cease. But they were settled somehow. The work was getting done.

Balleh Gehli. Balleh Gedid. Balleh Hersi Jama. Slowly, the line of reservoirs was emerging across the waterless Haud.

T
he Italians lived apart, in a separate community, more truly exiled than any of the English here. Most of them had come out to Ethiopia as settlers, after the Italian take-over, when there was nothing for them in Italy. They were overwhelmingly non-political. They had come to Africa hoping to own their own land or their own business. Things hadn't worked out that way. They were taken prisoners-of-war by the British, and after the war they were offered jobs by the Protectorate government, for they were excellent mechanics and road-builders. Now they lived in Hargeisa in a settlement of men, for none of their wives were with them. But by Italian standards the pay was high – enough to justify this unnatural life. They lived frugally and sent most of their pay back to their families in Italy. They went back on leave, but they had really said a final goodbye to their own land. They spoke of home often, and lovingly, but with a shrug and a cynical grin. Sure, life was rotten – who didn't know that? They had been kicked around by history, but when had ordinary people not been? There was the music, the
vino
– they took what they could, and lived from day to day.