She takes me to a workshop in a collection of mud buildings called the 27th February Village, which cumbersome title commemorates the day on which the landless Saharawi Democratic Republic was founded, in 1976.
Thirty women are weaving brightly patterned rugs and carpets on the simplest of hand-looms. The carpets are made of thick, coarse sheep’s wool, in bright, strong colours and improvised designs, and I’d buy a couple if we weren’t on our way to Timbuktu.
The women run the camps, says Metou. They cook, build, administrate and raise the children. The young men leave at eighteen for military training.
I ask her if keeping a conscripted army isn’t just a romantic gesture, bearing in mind there has been no fighting for years. Her response is quick and unapologetic.
‘My people are tired of being ignored. If force has to be used to gain our birthright of independence, then that’s the way it must be.’
Smara camp is so well run that it really doesn’t resemble a camp at all. As I look out from a low hill, which is now the cemetery, the pale brown mud houses blending in with the desert around them could have been there for ever. The considerable size of the cemetery, a scattering of rocks and boulders just outside the town, suggests that life expectancy is low. Bachir shakes his head vigorously.
‘It is seventy, eighty years.’
Sanitation is basic, he concedes, but the air is dry and there have been no epidemics here.
He smiles at my nannyish concern. ‘People don’t die in the desert, you know.’
In that case, the size of the cemetery merely emphasises how long the Saharawis have been away from home.
That night in the camp we tuck into camel kebab and pasta cooked with carrots and turnips, served, as ever, with tea. Tea is central to the nomadic life. In a land where alcohol is forbidden and most bottled drinks are beyond people’s means, it offers welcome, gives comfort, stimulates conversation and provides a focus for social intercourse. Being a rare indulgence in a land of extreme scarcity, its preparation is taken very seriously. The water we splash on our faces in the morning is not good enough for the tea.
‘Too salty,’ says Bachir. ‘The best water for tea comes from 50 miles away.’
Water this prized should not be heated on a gas ring, but on a brazier with charcoal from acacia wood, which heats the water more slowly and provides better flavour. Once heated, the tea is poured from one vessel to another before being tipped into small glass tumblers from ever-increasing height. Then it’s tipped from tumbler to tumbler, until the required alchemy is deemed to have taken place, whereupon it is poured with one last grand flourish that leaves a foaming head on each individual glass. These are offered around on a tray and drunk swiftly. Then the glasses are washed and a second serving is prepared, tasting delicately different as the sharpness of leaf and sweetness of sugar continue to blend. The process is repeated a third time and that’s it. I’m told that if you’re offered a fourth glass it’s a polite way of saying you’ve overstayed your welcome.
Tonight Bachir’s brother-in-law and two other men are sat around the brazier taking tea with us. Their eyes sparkle and their faces crease easily into laughter. It seems a good time to ask Bachir about the future for the Polisario.
He plays down the military solution.
‘We still have many friends,’ he argues, reminding me that only a year ago the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and US Secretary of State, James Baker, had been staying in this same camp. The Moroccans might be supported by other Arab monarchies, like Saudi Arabia and Jordan, but the Polisario have powerful European allies, especially the Spanish, their old colonial masters, who now seem to be falling over themselves to help. Assuaging guilt? Annoying the French? Whatever the reason, Bachir is a grateful man.
‘Five … six thousand Saharawi children go to stay with Spanish families every summer, and the families come back to see us.’ His eyes shine in the lamplight. ‘Two thousand came last year to the camps - doctors, nurses, teachers.’
He pauses as if aware I’m not convinced.
‘We are small, but sometimes the small guys win. Look at Kuwait …’
But he and I both know that the Saharawis are, in world terms, much smaller small guys than the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf.
Day Seventeen
SMARA CAMP
My request for a bin for the rubbish rapidly accumulating in our cramped quarters is met with a blank stare. Rubbish is a Western concept. What I wanted to throw away - paper, a spent packet of film, a mineral-water bottle - certainly wasn’t rubbish to them, and as Krikiba and the children rifled through my pile of rejects, I felt embarrassingly over-stocked. What we see as basic necessities they see as complicated over-indulgences. Take toothpaste, for instance. Sidi and Khalia, the terrible twins, are fascinated by our teeth-cleaning rituals. Not just that we prefer to foam at the mouth rather than use acacia sticks like everyone else, but that once we’ve foamed we seem to have such trouble getting rid of it. At first light the streets of Smara are dotted with frothing Westerners looking for somewhere to spit out and little heads peering out of doorways to observe this quaint ritual.
Nor is toothpaste the only problem. There’s a toilet paper crisis looming. All of us, family and crew, evacuate into the same hole in the ground. It’s situated in a mud enclosure in the corner of the yard and is about the size and shape of a small slice of Hovis. There is a plastic jug of water beside it, which is considered sufficient for washing and cleaning. Those of us brought up to regard toilet paper as one of the essentials of civilised society are rapidly bunging up this delicate system and waste levels are rising alarmingly. There are reports that Krikiba has been seen coming out of the hut with a rubber glove on up to her elbow. I’m sure it’s as well for everybody that we are moving on tomorrow.
Day Eighteen
SMARA CAMP TO TFARITI
The wind is rising. As it gusts it hisses against the tent and there’s a grittier than usual texture to the freshly-baked bread this morning. We’ve eaten most of the camel by now, but it appears at breakfast today in one last manifestation. Along with the usual offering of tea, coffee, bread and oranges is a dish of beans and diced camel liver. Out of a confusion of politeness, greed and a misplaced desire to experience all life has to offer, I pop a couple of cubes into my mouth. I know immediately that this is a mistake. The liver has a high, slightly gamey piquancy. But it’s too late. One has already gone before I can retrieve it. I put up my hand to palm the other, only to meet Krikiba’s eye. She beams at me expectantly. What can I do but grin and swallow.
In bright sun, sharp shadow and a cold wind the drivers Bachir has organised to take us several hundred miles down the West Saharan borderlands to the Mauritanian frontier are loading up. Our overnight bags are being squeezed into any available space left around the 200-litre fuel drums, which weigh down two small pick-up trucks. Ourselves and the rest of the baggage, as well as a cook, food and cooking materials, are divided between three four-wheel drive vehicles, which stand as tall as the house we’re about to leave.
The children are going to miss us. We’ve been like a travelling funfair for them, and the extended family presses things upon us at the last moment, including a cassette of Saharawi music and a near-impregnable can of Spanish ham, which none of them is allowed to eat. As a parting gesture, eighteen-year-old Hadi, Bachir’s pretty, coy niece, introduces me to her boyfriend. He’s a young soldier and doesn’t smile. The long-suffering Krikiba is persuaded into a hug and even, for Vanessa, a kiss.