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he looked about seventy. Ahmad, or so Awad insisted, was at least a hundred years old -
and, from the look of him, it was easy to believe.
Bala had introduced us to them on the eve of our leaving Khartoum, insisting they were
the best camel handlers in all of the Sudan. Bedouin by birth, Ahmad had magnificent
whiskers that made him look like an Indian pirate, while Awad took great pleasure in mak-
ing obscene noises, bursting into raucous laughter whenever one of the camels broke wind.
Neither of them had had an education, except for the rearing of camels. 'I milked my first
camel at the age of three!' Awad had declared when I first met him. Neither of them could
write and the only thing they could read were the distance markers on the roadside stones.
'We learned it,' Ahmad said with a grin, 'by playing cards with the blacks at an alcohol
den . . .'
Under Awad and Ahmad's direction, the camels made swift work of the desert ground,
and we quickly found a rhythm, covering almost 40km each day. As the river cut its course
north, the land around us grew more flat and featureless, but the monotony of the land-
scape had a different quality now that Ahmad and Awad were here. In between long bouts
of silence, Ahmad's voice would sometimes flurry up in song. For hours, he'd sing, keep-
ing a perfect harmony with the sound of the camels' footsteps - and, every time Gordon
grew bad-tempered, Ahmad's songs soothed him. For an old man, he had a beautiful, del-
icate voice. I only wondered what he was singing about.
'Camels and women, mostly,' said Moez, trying to control his laughter. 'This one's a
play on words. You see, we call a woman's private parts ' jamal ' - it means camel. So he's
joking about how he wants to screw his camel . . .'
I looked over my shoulder, to see the glint in Ahmad's eye.
For days, we followed the river north, seeing vestiges of the colonial era along the way
- not least the old British railway line that followed the course of the river. A relic from the
late 19th century, this had been a feat of engineering like no other - connecting Khartoum
with Cairo in the far north, and allowing British troops to be deployed into central Africa
with alarming speed. Now, modern Chinese bullet trains ply the same routes, and the net-
work is being expanded to reach into Ethiopia and Chad. There's talk of South Sudan, too,
but I suspect that may be several years away.
In the remote villages we passed, there was often nowhere to stay, so instead, we'd camp
on the village outskirts, making our beds out of blankets underneath the stars. On the fifth
night, Awad and Ahmad tethered the camels to some nearby bushes so that they could eat,
and set about making a fire. Somehow, even in the middle of a desert, these two rogues
could always find enough wood. Soon, sweet chai was simmering over the flames. As
night hardened, Awad and Ahmad settled down to prayer. Like good Muslims, they prayed
five times every day - although, somehow, Awad always seemed to finish his prayers first,
and be back drinking coffee long before Ahmad was done.
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