journal

Al Qasab & Ushaiquer أشيقر وَ القصب

- camel is just another word for perfection. It's true, here there are camel beauty competitions.

That Q gestures towards the loop symbol with the two dots above it, diaeresis, with which the same symbol with one dot, F, makes a glottal stop-like caught-in-your-throat hard K, with which the ك is not to be confused, the soft k; German friends joked only English would have a sound where you poke your tongue between your teeth and blow a raspberry, Thhh, Arabic has three Thhh's, a soft th as in thin, a vocalised Th as in the, and an emphatic open TH, I'm not joking. This وَ although here, wa, meaning and, is pronounced wow, yes. Wow.

That day was spent explaining my circumstance in the desert, the historic town of Ushaiquer, the chance stop in at Al Qasab, on its way to being equally historic, that is being done up to be so, with breeze blocks and renders, and, in fact offering more for being on its way and not finished being done up, with a charming host, Muhammad, inviting us in for coffee, an irrefusable invitation; but meanwhile, travelling:

find the ginger cat, recent scientific investigation into whom having found the ginger cat genetically to be unlike any other mammal insofar as 80% of males wear the all-over ginger coat to 20% of females (see what Dr. Kaelin says here), in the photos below:

music break

- in the interval, explaining the elevation from which shots 2–6 were taken, coffee at Muhammad's son-in-law's house, the roof, the workmen you see in shot 3 in one of his grandfather's four houses in Al Qassad; he was very proud of the first girl's school in Saudi being in the near vicinity. That's Miles with Jo, from Broken Hill.

. . . now leaving for Ushaiquer, over the red sandhill. . .

(Muhammad had recommended Al-Soubaie Palace . . . we didn't get there. And the salt flats, we did, but not quite as we should have.)

Look! an outside light:

and a place of ablution by the mosque where the tall man from Würzburg and the short woman from Würzburg had somehow squeezed up the muezzin's tower, a picture below, from the entrance into which I squeezed and then luckily retreated, not knowing the top was plugged by the German couple . . . they had driven and were on their way to Riyadh, asked about . . . and we recommended Al Qasab and passed on Muhammad's recommendation of the salt flats, little knowing . . .

The town may have lacked charm but the museum made up for it, the elderly proprietor, and collector of everything in it, and his Yemeni sidekick did a double act, the old one saying something like, Have you told them about the Prince's gift?! And the younger man having to shout in his ear, OF COURSE I HAVE . . . AND ABOUT THE . . . but what about the Princess's shower?! . . . NOT YET . . . what?! . . . I SAID . . . what did you say?! . . . NOT. . . it cost a lot . . . I KNOW . . . of money to collect all these . . . I'VE TOLD THEM . . .what's that?! . . . and many years! . . . a whole life! . . . have you told them that?! . . . I KNOW, I TOLD THEM . . . you should have invited them for coffee! . . . IT'S TIME FOR PRAYER . . . what?! . . . PRAYER!!! . . . [to us:] excuse me for a minute for prayer . . . the younger man leading his elder into an adjacent room. It seemed to be the one with the stereo equipment in it and the King's serving platter, which in the tour which followed coffee being pressed upon us, and dates, with a water bowl for to rinse the dates obligatory (allegedly to rinse off the pesticides), our young impatient guide told us the weight of . . . he was full of facts and would stop beside an object and, before answering and moving swiftly on, What is this? . . . It's a mousetrap. . . What is this? . . . It's a baby carrier for a camel. . . . Can you open the cabinet? . . . You have one minute. And when he tried himself it took him at least 3, but it was clever.

. . . and the road was long and dusty, but as directed by maps, we turned off to find the salt. It's Necessary, Muhammad had said. . . .and the side road was unsealed, a further road off that, potholed, taking us into dry piles of dirt and rocks and the dry drying flats, at first free of salt, into the wasteland. . . remonstrating, This can't be right. . . Should I turn back? . . .Was it the other road? . . .Surely this isn't the way! . . .And, as we approached some heavy machinery, we stopped, turned the car around, climbed over the mound separating us from the flats and found. . .