The Boy of the Desert Pt. 1

The Boy of the Desert

Azad was a boy of the desert. From the moment of his birth (and very likely to the day of his death) he was surrounded by the arid beauty of the eastern desert of Jordan. He lived with his Father, mother and seven brothers in several of the traditional tents of the badawī; his people. Azad helped his father and brothers tend to their large herd of both trade and racing camels. He was proud to help in the family business and always was trying to impress his father. Therein lay the trouble.

Azad was the fourth of eight sons and was no different from any middle child anywhere else in the world; he tended to fade into the background. Which could be both good and bad; on one hand Azad rarely was in trouble, but on the other it was hard to get recognition for his hard work. His days started early, before dawn, with watering or otherwise brushing down the camels. He worked with his twin brothers Farid and Marid.

They were aptly named. Farid, meaning unique, was very much so in the ways he could conjure up ways of getting into trouble. And Marid, meaning rebellious, seemed to try to live up to it with every living breath; always having to do the opposite of what he was told. Which is why both were sick and asleep this morning. Marid had been told by his mother to not smoke his uncle’s hookah, which meant he really wanted to do it and Farid had the idea of stealing it and having a grand time in the desert. It only took a few puffs and the twins were sick for the night and well into the next day. When they got through throwing up, their father was going to really teach them a lesson.

So Azad was alone today in the pre-dawn cool that only a desert can have. He pumped gallons of water from the family well into his buckets and transferred them to the various troughs around the camp. It is heavy work, but Azad knew his father appreciated him doing it.

There was one particular camel, kept apart from the others, that was his father’s favorite. It was a thoroughbred, supposedly descended from a royal bloodline, and was to be hand fed, massaged and brushed with a fine brush every day. It was named El Deloua, for it was indeed a “spoiled child”. It was secured in a small pen on the outskirts of the camp.

As Azad approached the enclosure, still an hour before the sun rose above the horizon, he heard a commotion start. Something had startled El Deloua and the camel had started to protest loudly and was now trying to shatter the wooden posts of its corral with its huge feet. Breaking into a run and dropping his load of food, Azad arrived just in time to see El Deloua tear the fence down and bolt into the surrounding sand dunes.

His first thought was “Father is going to kill me.” His second was to look in the pen to see what had scared the camel so. In the back corner was a small white rabbit; which was odd, because rabbits, white or any other color, don’t live within a thousand miles of Azads family camp. He took this as bad sign.

Azad decided he would rather face the heat of the desert during the day than his father’s anger at losing his most treasured possession. So he gathered a few pieces of flat bread and a small sack of cured goat meat into a satchel and slung it and a canteen of water onto his shoulder. He stood at the edge of the camp, looked back once and sighed. “It is going to be a long day.” He then set out following the fresh tracks into the desert.