Encampement Dromedaire

“I’m hurting, I’m hurting deep inside,
good God now hear my cry, hear my cry,
my my my my cry,
feel the pain, feel the pain,
happiness come back a while…”

Encampement Dromedaire

Toilet

Dromedaire arcade

Sick room

Dromedaire window

Lump

Image 1: Alien, where those creatures grow inside living human beings until they are mature enough to explode out of their cocoon’s stomach. Only, this would be my neck.

Now, that sounds very melodramatic, but Laurie Newman Osher will attest to a little episode in Peru in which a Bott Fly laid eggs in the pores of her skin, resulting in these large, white worms growing sub-cutaneously to her significant discomfort. They were finally coaxed out by a gentleman who came to our house, smoked possibly two packs of cigarettes in a row, collected all that nicotine from his breathe in a handkerchief and applied it to Laurie’s skin. Denied oxygen, these monstrous worms made their way to the surface, where they were speared and extracted. Yikes.

Image 2: Cancer, the voracious, terminal-within-weeks kind that snatches its helpless victims with barely time to say good-bye. All this radiation: In Ecker, the sun, the satellite phone…the poetry of it is irresistible: hapless victim realizes life-long dream to cross Sahara Desert only to die in the arms of…well, who know? Hollywood would find some beautiful Tuareg who had hoped I would be her ticket to a better life, I’m sure. Wolf Gaudlitz would probably have some thoughts…

OK, cancer just seems a little too awful to consider, and perhaps rather unlikely: this thing has become a raging nightmare in only 4-5 days.

Image 3: Environmental Factors. The glands in my neck are stressed beyond endurance due to all the banned insecticides and herbicides American companies dumped on the African market. Every meal I eat further throws me into the chemical soup, until finally my thyroids swell up like balloons. It isn’t the old lump on my neck but the glands behind it that are the issue…

This one doesn’t sound too bad. I leave Tamanrasset, my kidneys and liver perform some internal clean-up, and within days I’m back to my old self. 50 or 60 years from now I get cancer from all those banned substances, but I’m old and grouchy by then and good riddance.

Image 4: Infection: Virulent and voracious bacterioids rush through my bloodstream, replicating like bunnies. My white blood cells are thoroughly overwhelmed, defenseless against an enemy they have never seen before. On the outside I look normal, but I am only a shell of my former self. Inside, all is putrefaction. Starting at my neck, my cells slowly absorb the monstrous invaders, which then suck at the mitochondria and liquefy the nuclei until my cells shrivel and die. Finally, as I am walking down the street one day, I implode in a rush of liquid. Bystanders find only a puddle amid the clothes, bones and teeth on the sidewalk.

I like this one the best. Some antibiotics are all it takes, the lump disappears in a week and I’m left awed at the sagacity of the local doctor and his healing touch.

The hour isn’t up, but I’m making myself anxious and I call the Paris office again. “Please call back in a half hour, we need to call our Algier office”.

I managed to load some Bob Marley on my video camera/MP3 player in Ghardaia, but that’s all I have. It just isn’t the happiest music…

I call Wolf Gaudlitz to see if he’s any closer to Tamanrasset, and to confirm that he has my bike, but he’s out of cell service range. I play chess for an hour against Boris Spasski, who thrashes me as always. Actually I usually win, but only by taking back all my bad moves.

I call again and get the names of two doctors here in Tamanrasset: a surgeon and a generalist, both of whom I’m told work out of the hospital here. I’m not quite ready for the surgeon’s point of view, so I call the generalist and a nice guy on the phone tells me to grab a taxi and come on by. Dromadaire’s proprietor catches me on the way out, offers me a ride and delivers me to the hospital, where I’m told there’s been a misunderstanding: I need to go to the doctor’s private “cabinet” downtown next to the gynecological clinic. I’m starting to wonder if I misunderstood “gynecologist” for “generalist” on the phone.

Anyway, I get some general directions and guess my way to the office on foot, where I’m greeted by a gentleman of about my age in slacks and a pullover sweater who immediately invites me into his office and puts me at ease. Dr. O asks some general questions and then has me lie down while he looks at the inflamed ping-pong ball on my neck (I told Polly it was the size of a golf ball, but that was just to get some extra sympathy). He takes an ultrasonic device to my neck (he must be a gynecologist!!!), inspects from all angles to my immense discomfort, and decides that it is simply a small infection. No hidden succubus, no cancerous tumor, and who knows about the environmental factors. He asks me if I am allergic to anything (no), whether I mind injections (love ‘em), and whether I can help him find work in the US (NO, NO, NO, I TOTALLY MADE THAT UP), and prescribed me 4 items which I picked up this morning after getting some money out of the bank.

I got back to Dromadaire after the appointment, called Polly with the update, and heard that Dr. L had suggested a similar course of treatment sight unseen, adding hot compresses as an additional measure. I realize suddenly that this was stressful by the immense feeling of relief I feel.

Lakhdar stops in later with his friend Tassa and we tour Tamanrasset together, stopping for tea along the way. Then Faysel says hi after dinner and suddenly I feel like I live here.

written by  roel krabbendam on February 6, 2007 from Tamanrasset, Algeria
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

---

3 comments...

I mention it as a reminder to myself I suppose, of the inevitability and importance of change. I have been thinking about Tamanrasset since I was 20 years old, and even though the Tamanrasset I am visiting now is something entirely different from that Tamanrasset of 28 years ago, coming here has certainly felt like the fulfillment of something important. It is time, however, to leave.

To Faysel Abdelassiz and to Ben Sebgag Lakhdar, both of whom made my stay here so meaningful: my deepest thanks and very best wishes. I cannot currently imagine the circumstances that might allow us to see each other again, but I certainly hope that we may. “It’s a small world”, I hear, but it doesn’t feel that way to me. To both Faysel and Lakhdar I can only say: “You are my friend, and my door stands open for you”. Niger beckons. Benin beckons. I hope both countries will forgive my current sentiment, which is that this was the climax and the rest is dénouement; I may feel otherwise later. I leave here, in any case, with heavy, heavy heart.

written by  roel krabbendam on February 7, 2007 from Tamanrasset, Algeria
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

---

7 comments...

Twin mounds

Late in the first day we encountered a truck mired in sand, a crew of Tuaregs working to clear the tires. Wolf stopped the truck, grabbed his camera and started filming from a distance, but we were quickly discovered. Wolf later said what scared him the most was their eyes: there was no there there.

Truck

The crew came after us with rocks, there was a brief intervention from Ahmed as Wolf, shirtless, stared them down, and we quickly retreated to the truck with the gear. Ahead of them now, we soon realized they had gotten underway, and we spent a tense hour attempting to put some distance between us before finding a campsite well away from the piste. There was no question in our minds that the crew we had encountered with that truck would attack if they ran into us again. We kept our lights off until it seemed impossible that they hadn’t passed on, kept an eye out when later that evening a truck stopped on the piste near us, and finally slept without incident.

Paving Laouni

We reached Laouni the following day. The treacherous Laouni sand flats have ended the trip for hundreds and hundreds of travelers forced to simply abandon their cars to the desert as their engines consumed sand or the sand consumed their tires. Many have died losing the correct piste and driving off into the desert until their gas runs out. I had seen grim pictures and read grim stories and so did not expect to find many of the wrecks removed and a paving crew extending asphalt this far north. Laouni as a significant threat to north-south traffic appears to be no more.

Gas line

Gas line

Rolling gas containers home

Birds over Assamakka

Kung fu kids

Overloaded truck

Most foreigners experience nothing but this clamorous assault in their brief passage through this place, and since I couldn’t even find Assamaka with Google Earth, I wasn’t expecting much either. In our two day stay in Assamaka waiting for a guide to accompany us to Arlit (who knew?), we found however the most wonderful people and unexpectedly had a spectacular time.

Hauling bricks

When it was clear the authorities would hold our papers until a guide arrived, Wolf found the nearest bar, started up some Malian blues on the speakers and started a party. Nine young Frenchmen joined us, then all those kids, then even their parents, and it didn’t take long before we were all dancing and jumping around.

Marie and the kids

I keeled from dizziness swinging kids around in circles, Wolf filmed this and that, the bar owner cooked us a nice dinner of rice and mutton, the French contributed wine in honor of a birthday, Ahmed made tea Algerienne, and we finally pitched our tents at the bar and expired.

Hauling water

A gentleman came up to me the next morning to shake my hand and thank me for playing with his kids: the first white guy to ever do so. Then he asked me for a cadeau.

Contraband diesel

The guides the French had arranged arrived, we were not listed on their manifest, the authorities would not release our papers, Ahmed had a little chat with them in private, and we were on our way. It cost him 2 euro per person.

Kite flying

Desert piste outside Assemakka

In fact, the piste is pretty easy to follow, with few diversions and alternatives. We got bogged in the sand only twice, and though adjusting tire pressure to match the circumstances is a time consuming project, we made reasonable time. We stopped once to greet a couple of trucks we had seen leaving Assamaka and now stopped for lunch, but again the crews had rocks in their hands when we approached and we kept the interaction short (!!!!) The two Toyota Land Cruisers with machine guns mounted on the truck beds filled with soldiers we had seen earlier were long gone and no help.

Uranium Tailings at Arlit

The sun set on the surreal mountains of uranium tailings from the mines at Arlit, and we entered the town in darkness. Low, dark, teeming with people, it is impossible to understand or to convey an image from such a drive-through. We asked for the road to Agadez, rolled up to a police post, and were told that we could go no further. Three policemen and five Tuareg had been killed the night before in a gun Battle either on the road or in Ifraouine along the way.

We camped at the police post, I beat Wolf at chess yet again, and we were allowed to proceed early the next morning after paying 200 euro for road usage in Niger. When we discovered the paved road closed for resurfacing, Wolf ignored the diversion sign and continued on the road bed until a Toyota pickup truck with armed guard and some very upset road engineers accosted us and demanded a fine. Again Ahmed intervened, somehow convincing them that though we had indeed sinned, the exorbitant amount we had paid to drive on that road certainly demanded some consideration. After some heated debate we were allowed to proceed, on the dirt side road this time. Just 2 kilometers further the roadwork ended and we were back on pavement.

We stopped to clean the fuel filters and parked unknowingly on someone’s land. A very dignified older gentleman with very thick Mr. Magoo glasses greeted us and graciously allowed us to stay, presenting us fifteen minutes later with a pot full of rice and goat in a delicious jus. In turn Wolf left them kid’s clothes from Germany.

When 50 kilometers later the truck rolled to a stop of it’s own volition, Wolf looked down at the accelerator and we discovered it broken in two. Only by rigging some wires to a lever under the hood were we able to maintain control of the truck. We entered
Agadez that afternoon with Wolf steering, shifting and braking, me pulling the wires for acceleration from the jump seat, and Ahmed sleeping off lunch.

written by  roel krabbendam on February 9, 2007 from Arlit, Niger
from the travel blog: Harmattan
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Mosque

Tourists, too, are just starting to come back. The civil war in Algeria and the Tuareg revolt here in Niger interrupted the travel business for more than 10 years, though there were some foreigners here even then. I met an American family from United States here 33 years translating the bible into Tamachek, and a French couple organizing “little projects”.

Street Vendor

I met a Dutch industrial designer working with a cooperative of 400 basket weavers, developing a product that would sell better in the European market than the baskets they make now. I thought: here perhaps was a project that could really make a difference. Unicef is here, USAID is here…there are German and French projects as well. I am not here long enough to understand everything that is going on.

School

School

Doing some laundry, taking a shower, dinner and a beer in a restaurant, hours in the Cybercafe: these feel like a welcome respite. I am in the Sahel now and the desert is behind me.

Mosque

Foundry Casting Accelerator Component

Thinking about the Sahara leaves me somewhat conflicted: fighting all that sand would have been a grim affair on a bicycle, though I feel that I was pretty well prepared. I miss the towering satisfaction my original plan would have brought, but know I had a much more enjoyable experience by truck and with friends. Wolf Gaudlitz left this morning for Ouagadougou, however, and Ahmed left yesterday for home in Ghardaia. It all feels like a dream already, I've bought a little satchel of powerful gris-gris to hang around my neck, and after a few days of relaxation I am ready to move south.

Campground