seven years old, to walk with me out of Saudi Arabia. I find them at a cattle souk close to my starting line in the Arabian Peninsula, the coastal city of Jeddah. Or rather: Fares and Seema have found them for me. Dust. Dung. Wranglers hooting in rickety corrals. I am transported instantly back to Africa. I am back in my element. The sellers are bemused Sudanese. We haggle inside a canvas tent. It requires 14 glasses of tea to seal the deal. (My purchase has saved these two beasts, I suspect, from a fate worse than carrying my spare socks through the Nefud desert: Their fur is clotted with yellow paint applied by the meat graders at the port’s stockyard.) The next day, to celebrate my success, I ride a gyrocopter over Jeddah. What is a gyrocopter? This is a natural question. A gyrocopter is a cross between an airplane and a helicopter. I did not realize such machines still exist. (A snapshot from the basement of my memory: Amelia Earhart standing beside a gyrocopter.) There is a gyrocopter club in Jeddah. It flies the latest aircraft manufactured in Germany. It is managed by another Saudi friend, Colonel Doctor Mubarak Swilim Al Swilim. Mubarak is the Vice President of the Arab Air Sports Federation and the Parachuting Champion for Islamic Countries. He is one of two Saudis who have parachuted over the North Pole. (Wasn’t it very cold? I ask. No, no, he replies: He wore a special thermal suit that actually made him sweat.)
seven years old, to walk with me out of Saudi Arabia. I find them at a cattle souk close to my starting line in the Arabian Peninsula, the coastal city of Jeddah. Or rather: Fares and Seema have found them for me. Dust. Dung. Wranglers hooting in rickety corrals. I am transported instantly back to Africa. I am back in my element. The sellers are bemused Sudanese. We haggle inside a canvas tent. It requires 14 glasses of tea to seal the deal. (My purchase has saved these two beasts, I suspect, from a fate worse than carrying my spare socks through the Nefud desert: Their fur is clotted with yellow paint applied by the meat graders at the port’s stockyard.) The next day, to celebrate my success, I ride a gyrocopter over Jeddah. What is a gyrocopter? This is a natural question. A gyrocopter is a cross between an airplane and a helicopter. I did not realize such machines still exist. (A snapshot from the basement of my memory: Amelia Earhart standing beside a gyrocopter.) There is a gyrocopter club in Jeddah. It flies the latest aircraft manufactured in Germany. It is managed by another Saudi friend, Colonel Doctor Mubarak Swilim Al Swilim. Mubarak is the Vice President of the Arab Air Sports Federation and the Parachuting Champion for Islamic Countries. He is one of two Saudis who have parachuted over the North Pole. (Wasn’t it very cold? I ask. No, no, he replies: He wore a special thermal suit that actually made him sweat.)
camel-and-gyrocopter.docx