Adventure Divas

Cud, Sweat and Fears

Tue, September 09, 2008

Since Holly Morris’ GlobeTrekker show about crossing Niger is airing now on PBS, we thought a dispatch about her misguided entry into a camel race (adapted from her book) was in order... - the eds.

A Day at the Races
My thighs grip the ornate tamzak saddle and sweat soaks its brightly colored leather fringe as I line up, atop a fifteen-hundred-pound leggy white camel, with 90 other competitors - men wrapped in indigo-pounded cheches and hollering to one another in Tamachek. We are all aggressively jockeying for an inside position; crops are gripped as tight as the tension in the air. A blacksmith raises his glistening takouba silver sword, poised to begin the race. My armpits tingle and my guts suddenly flood with nausea.
I’m in Niger, West Africa, making a film with the nomadic Tuareg people, a disenfranchised tribe who’ve been the independent warriors of the trans-Saharan highway for a millennium. These camel races, called cavalcades, are part of a centuries old tradition, and my fellow competitors have walked for days or weeks to enter the race in hopes of taking home both status and cash.
I wasn’t supposed to enter the race.

But as an adventure television correspondent and writer, it’s in my job description to steer clear of comfort zones, and participate whenever possible. Problem is, this ethic often smashes into other, higher ideals - or just plain common sense. Too often I am fathoms down, or gripping a dodgy precipice, or face-to-face with a delicate cultural impasse, contemplating a lesson learned too late. In this case, as the sword is about to drop on a blistering 105 degree afternoon, it hits me like a tsunami that the reasons I should not rip through the desert racing against veiled men with sharp swords who have done this drill since the time of Muhammad - are many. Bodily harm and ‘inappropriate cultural interaction’ are two that pop to mind. But these moments, I also know, are grist for our traveler souls. It’s only when we hurl ourselves at the unexpected, engage the experiences and people we meet - on their turf, with integrity - that we see the world with a wider, more original lens.

Lost in Translation
Aaaaaand theyyyyyyre offff…
The sword drops and the next ﬁfteen minutes are a blur of survival tactics, rapid-ﬁre cussing, and wholesale regret. My rusty horseback-riding skills do not translate, and my dream of winning is trampled within moments. I just want to live.
My camel runs at a fast, tenth-gear trot, and I shamefully grip the saddle’s dramatically forked horn; its silver bells and brass ornaments jangle frenetically. I try to do like the rider just ahead of me, contorting my legs around the camel’s long, curvy neck, and thump haphazardly, applying pressure, with my bare feet. The camel responds like Secretariat, lurching us ahead several lengths and passing two contenders.
I whiz past groups of onlookers who’ve come here from villages across the nearby oasis of Timia, and consider the depth of my outsider status - a common conundrum on such far-flung journeys. Should a foreigner be participating in such a local custom ? Am I piggy-backing on colonial privilege? Meddling in a fragile culture? Certainly, the Federation would strip my stripes for playing fast and loose with the Prime Directive. But I wonder, too, if these ideas aren’t a bit patronizing and dated. If we want cross-cultural exchange that means something, (not one in which the developing world is a parts car for the developed world) then shouldn’t we fully engage on all fronts: goods, data, experience and - for the purposes of today’s high-minded justification- the racecourse?

Crossing the Line
But the global village fades into the distance as my steed and I finally achieve perfect sync. With a ﬁnal gasp, we throttle across the ﬁnish line placing second - to last - by a nose.
A dozen women in orange, blue, black veils charge forward, their heavily bangled hands smudging the camel’s head with indigo. We are engulfed in a mele of ululating and smiles and rapping on tinde drums. It’s incredibly exhilarating – tanenmert, I say, thanks - but their enthusiasm is curious. After all, we finished nearly dead last.
The lead blacksmith walks up and, in French, explains the fuss, and the magnitude of my trespass into this ﬁve-thousand-year-old tradition, “You are the ﬁrst woman ever to enter this camel race. They can’t believe you even ﬁnished.”
“This girl over here says she wants to race next year,” he adds, pointing to a young Tuareg woman of about fourteen who shyly smiles from behind her black veil.
“Really?” I smile back, moved and worried. It’s one thing for me to buck mores, and entirely another for a local girl to do so. Who’s to say: traveler inappropriately messes with status quo? Or, a lesson in having to cross the starting line, in order to move it.

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