Part 2: Morning Tea with the Tuaregs
To this day, I still don’t understand what drives a person to set out on a three-week trek through the desert. Sand. Sand and rocks. An almost lunar landscape. Dry heat. Sweat. Sand between your teeth, and even in bread freshly baked over the embers.
And morning tea.
Back in 2009, I wandered with the Tuaregs through the Algerian Sahara, south of Tamanrasset. In old military Toyotas, with firewood and petrol on the roof. With water and food in the trunk.
The old saying goes, mornings are the most beautiful in the morning. Even in the Sahara. And that’s why I got up early in the morning to catch the first rays of sunlight with my camera. And the long shadows of the rock formations.
Our Tuareg companions were also up before the sun. They were preparing breakfast, packing their equipment, checking the condition of their vehicles. Even in the dark, they made tea and slowly sipped it in a circle around the fire. One morning they invited me to sit with them for tea. It was, of course, a special honour. It rarely happens that they let anyone into their circle. Certainly not to every passing tourist. So I experienced the genuine hospitality of the Tuaregs in the middle of the Sahara, far from the madding crowd as T. Hardy would say. In the middle of the silence in the morning twilight of the eternal desert.
In an old enameled teapot, the youngest of them, Mohamed, boiled water over an open fire. Then he added tea leaves and let them soak. And some sugar. He carried the small tea glasses in an old wooden box, its edges worn smooth by time. Inside, each glass rested in its own fabric-lined compartment, protected from the bumps of countless journeys across the desert. Once the tea was ready, he poured it from a height into these cups. He repeated this so many times that the tea foamed.
And then he made a mistake. According to the Tuareg hierarchy, he first offered the tea to Ramazan, their leader. Ramazan stopped him with a few sharp words. Mohamed flinched, turned towards me and offered me the first glass of tea. Only later did I realise what had just happened. As the honoured guest, I came first. I was also the oldest and already a little grey.
And there’s another story connected with that. After a few days I noticed they had started calling me “Chibani” (or at least that’s how I heard it). Later I learned it was a North African term for an older man, often used respectfully. Since I was easily the oldest person around the campfire—and already quite gray—it seemed to fit.
As Ramazan told me one morning about tea:
“The first sip is bitter as life, the second strong as love, the third sweet as death”
To be continued…