Free Tears of the Desert by Halima Bashir Page A

could only pick up broadcasts within Sudan. His tiny old thing was a long-wave set, which could pick up programs from all over the world. It made no difference to Grandma: As long as her radio was big and impressive, and noise came booming out of it, then she was happy.
    But however insular Grandma might have wished our life to be, the outside world had a way of affecting us, and often in the most unwelcome of ways. To the east and south of our lands lived several semi-nomadic Arab tribes—the Rizeiqat, the Hamar, the Ta-aisha, and others. We called these people the
Ahrao—
a word that for us signifies “the Arab enemy.” Traditionally, there was little love lost between the
Ahrao
and us black African tribes. If trouble was to come, it came invariably from the
Ahrao.
    My father employed a
hiry carda,
a cowboy, to look after our cows and our goatherd. He was around eight years old, and he came from a neighboring black African tribe called the Birgid. I didn’t look down on him because he was poorer than us, and my father’s worker. In fact, Mo, Omer, and I admired him, because he was older than we and he had a job. We’d always want to help look after the animals, and often he would take us along.
    Each morning he’d fetch the animals from their
gory—
the house of the animals. This was a circular enclosure made of cut thorn trees driven into the ground. He’d gather up the animals and drive them into the bush to find good pasture. While doing so he had to prevent them from eating any farmer’s crops, and he had to chase any wild animals away. The best pasture was in the foothills of the Jebel Marra, and he’d have to make sure that none of the animals wandered off and got lost in the mountains.
    At the end of each day he’d return the cows and goats to the
gory.
It served two purposes: The thick barrier of acacia thorns would keep out wild animals, and it also deterred anyone who might be tempted to steal our livestock. Before leaving for the night, the cowboy would drag across a rough gate made of thorn scrub to seal off the entrance. Finally, he would place one of our dogs at the gateway to warn us of any trouble.
    One afternoon he came running into the yard. His face was bloody, his shirt was torn, and he was terrified. He had been driving the animals to some new pasture when the
Ahrao
had attacked. He was only a small boy, and he had run for his life and hid in the bush. In no time, all our goats were gone. The
Ahrao
had left the cattle and our donkey, but the goats were small and fast and relatively easy to herd eastward into their flat desert lands.
    Just as soon as Grandma heard this she flew into a towering rage. She had branded her goats on the ears with three vertical marks, using a dagger heated over the fire. She tried to raise a war party to go after the
Ahrao
and recover her animals. Omer strutted about with his wooden sword and was all for going with her, but my father told her not to be so hotheaded. The
Ahrao
would be long gone by now, he argued. And even if we did catch them, there would be a big fight and people might get killed.
    My father promised that the very next day he would go and buy Grandma a replacement herd. He would make sure the goats were the finest animals—the strongest, healthiest specimens in the marketplace. He had the money to do so, and that way no one risked getting hurt. In the long run Grandma would end up better off, he argued. Grandma agreed to my father’s suggestion, but still she couldn’t bear it that the
Ahrao
had got one over on her.
    The
Ahrao
were drawn to our lands, and especially the foothills of the Jebel Marra, by the rich grazing. During the dry season they would drive their livestock westward, searching for water and forage. They would travel through our area, herding their animals before them. It was at times like these that most of the rustling would take place. The
Ahrao
men were armed with knives and swords and ancient guns, and it was they who led