Silence in the Sahara

“I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Merzouga Dunes, Morocco

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Inspirational Essay for November 2023.

In the name of peace and love,
freedom and friendliness,
fraternity and respect,
we share the children’s dreams
of education and friends forever
Greetings from Islam
Hello, all the children of the world
from children of Tissardmine
we love you and we love
all children of the world.
In unification of children for peace,

Habib, teacher at village Tissardmine school, Sahara Desert, Morocco

There is silence in the desert, nothing but sand and sky and silence. A clear-cut line separates the sand and the sky, and there you are, suspended between the two and wondering where you fit in. You always thought you were somebody, but now, your insignificance penetrates skin and bones, and the only way forward is to embrace it. During the winter months, the sun shines weakly and when it sets, the cold takes over. There is no internet to connect you to the outside world. There is no news except from the next village. No shower, just a bucket and water that must be heated on a stove. Sand is everywhere, you can never wash it out of your clothes or your hair. It rustles in your bed and chaffs your skin. You still find that sand years later, in a corner of a suitcase, in the pages of a book.

If you stay long enough, the days and the nights run together and you stop thinking about yourself and your troubles; about where you belong or if you belong at all, and all the things that make you uncomfortable. Gone is the pressure to prove you exist in the ether-world that once seemed so important, with its constant input about what you did that day or what some influencer did that day or has to say about shoes or make-up or frightening occurrences in far off lands.

In the desert, possessions are reduced down to necessities, a scarf to ward off the sandstorms and the flies, a jacket to keep you warm. Those far-off lands that people talk about who have never lived there the way you are doing it are where you are now, and the land you came from is far-away. How can you ever explain to people who have never walked here what it is really like, or how the magic of this world has entered your soul?

Gone is the chatter of a billion disembodied voices on social media, all vying for attention, all spending hours upon hours insulting one another or repeating the same propaganda over and over to those who agree with them and regurgitate it all over again, over and over, and all for what? To keep them busy and unable to remember what it is like to actually live, not chatter.

In the desert, there is only silence.

In that silence, you realize how freeing it is to be insignificant. Walking across the dunes, you let loose everything that holds you down and you become light, airy. In that silence and the wonderful freedom that it affords, God is finally able to speak to you and if you are an artist or a writer, creativity flows in ways it never did before.

Blasting off in a rocket ship and breaking through the barrier separating earth and sky is said to be the closest a human being comes to confronting infinity. But I’m willing to bet it can’t do better than the simple act of walking into the desert powered by your own two feet.

Perhaps that’s why deserts are where religions are born.

“Night poured over the desert. It came suddenly, in purple. In the clear air, the stars drilled down out of the sky, reminding any thoughtful watcher that it is in the deserts and high places that religions are generated. When men see nothing but bottomless infinity over their heads, they have always had a driving and desperate urge to find someone to put in the way.” ~ Terry Pratchett, Jingo

It was the desert of YeShimon, or Place of Desolation, where Jesus went to overcome Satan’s greatest temptations. Jesus didn’t go to the gym and bulk up or eat a protein diet. No. He fasted for forty days and forty nights and in denying the flesh, his spirit gained the strength and courage he needed to refuse Satan’s temptations.

My little bit of sand art at the Merzouga Dunes. Transitory, I am sure it was gone by the next day, the wind covering it with a new layer of sand.

I have loved the desert since childhood and my first experience of it, driving from Cairo to Luxor. Since then, I have returned over and over to find inspiration and peace, away from the noise and distractions of the modern world.

I spent Thanksgiving, 2015, in the Sahara Desert, invited to Cafe Tissardmine by its founder, Karen Hadfield, on a writer’s Fellowship.

One month of austere living in a tiny monk’s room with a small window where a dove perched in the mornings while I sat writing.

My vision was to connect children in hard-to-reach areas around the world with each other through their art and writing. I called it My World Project. This project ended up being done in many other locations, but it started here.

I sent a proposal to Karen about my vision. I hoped to connect children at the village school in Tissardmine with children of the Hoopa Tribe in Northern California. The idea was that each group would learn something about the other’s life and culture, and then they would share what was important to them about their world. If kids from faraway places could talk to one another, what would they say?

Karen liked the idea and that’s how I ended up in the middle of the Sahara Desert that winter. I had no idea how to accomplish my goal. I would have to figure it out once I got there.

I landed in Marrakesh and from there took a 21-hour bus ride over the Atlas Mountains to Erfoud.

From there I seem to recall it was close to a four-hour ride in a jeep to Cafe Tissardmine. The village of Tissardmine is near the border with Algeria. The border between the two countries is closed and since my trip, tensions have increased, with Algeria claiming concern over drug trafficking. In Tissardmine, there is constant reminder of these tensions, with military outposts visible and we were warned not to walk in the direction of the border.

There were about eight artists who had come to Cafe Tissardmine to find inspiration. I was the only one on a fellowship, with the task of working with the village children, which meant I didn’t have to pay for my time there.

Over the course of the month, I spent many hours getting to know the children. Even if you don’t speak the same language, there are ways to communicate. In the afternoons, before sunset, they liked to take drums from Cafe Tissardmine and go onto the dunes and make music.

Safi, the dog, was rather too boisterous. I confess to not liking him very much—I captured him in this picture in a rare quiet moment.

I gave the kids art supplies, and we drew together under the bright blue sky.

Lux Eterna, a brilliant artist from Australia, of Palestinian descent, and I were drawn together and quickly became friends. Often, we walked to what we called the “Dune of Reception” where, if we were lucky, we could connect with the outside world. It was there that I was sometimes able to talk to my kids, so far away.

A weekly trip was made to Rissani for supplies, and everyone looked forward to the bumpy ride in the jeep. I was working on finishing my YA fantasy novel Key of Mystery and it was the only way to communicate with my publisher—if I was lucky, because the internet didn’t always behave in Rissani, either.

The man in blue was quite a well-known local figure. He helped my friend Lux Eterna put on her turban. I can only assume he was a Tuareg, often called “Blue Men” because of their attachment to the indigo color. According to local belief, their blue headdress protects against “the evil eye and evil spirits”.

I learned much more about belief in the evil eye when I lived more recently in Luxor, Egypt.

At one point everyone at Cafe Tissardmine got food poisoning or some kind of flu, I am not sure which. Fortunately, I only got a slight stomachache. But the other artists suffered terribly from diarrhea and vomiting. Day after day there was no relief from the brutal illness, and most could not leave their rooms. There we were, with no way out, no doctor, and no choice but to bear the sickness and pray that it would pass, which eventually it did.

After a week or so of spending time with the kids, I visited the village school and talked to the two teachers. Never have I met such kind, caring and dedicated educators. They traveled long distances to teach in the village. The school was the only one in the area and children from other villages walked many miles to and from the cute little building perched on a small rise.

The teachers gave me permission to do My World Project and so it began and lasted over the course of the next few weeks. First, I shared, with the teachers translating, about the Hoopa kids and the world in which they lived. I showed them photos and shared some jewelry I’d brought with me that the Hoopa wear for traditional ceremonies. The children were amazed by it all.

Then, we talked about the world of the Sahara and what made it difficult and what made it wonderful. They didn’t really have anything bad to say about how they lived. Together we worked on a big painting that showed all the important aspects of the desert that they loved. Like camels and water, their flag, date palm trees.

They also worked on individual paintings. At lunch all the kids were given the same savory meal.

When I asked kids what their biggest dream was, most of them said it was to find a meteor rock.

A meteorite found in the Sahara Desert is said to be the oldest magmatic rock analyzed to date—having solidified 4.565 billion years ago. I know that many of my readers have a different view, but putting that aside for a moment, according to what kids learn in school, Earth is believed to be 4.543 billion years old. This means that the rock found in the Sahara Desert predates our planet and came from elsewhere.

For these children, having a new phone or I-pad wasn’t what they wanted. They wanted an ancient stone that had fallen from the sky. I found this to be beautiful and unexpected. Such discoveries are one of the reasons why I love traveling to places where most people do not go—not just traveling there but living for a time. Mostly, I have lived in places like Bolivia, Costa Rica, Egypt, longer than just one month, to really get to know a place as best I can. But even in that month, my time with these kids, their teachers, Lux Eterna, and a few of the local women with whom we had tea, enriched my life more than a million hours of staying safe and comfortable in my home country, interacting on social media.

Lastly, I asked the children to write one or two words that expressed what was most important to them. I don’t know how it is now, but those few years ago, no one was teaching these kids to hate other people who lived differently than they did. The teachers stuck to the basics, like reading and writing and arithmetic.

The words they chose are not a surprise, and yet, they were so deeply meaningful because they were heartfelt. To say you want “peace on earth” has become a cliche. We have forgotten what it actually means. These kids truly wanted it.

We are constantly being told how different we are from one another. The world has grown more filled with hate and we are being distanced from one another in terrible ways that I could not have predicted then. Sadly, my friend Lux Eterna and I now find ourselves on opposite sides of a vast divide because I stand with Israel, and she stands with Palestine, or at least that is how we must express it. Yet, I also stand with the innocent children of Gaza. I also am against the governments and the elites that manipulate people through their emotions, making us forget that it isn’t each other that should be the enemy, it’s those who want us weak and hating and killing one another so that they can build their empires on the backs of our pain and servitude.

Really, we all stand together and hope for the same things. We all fear the same things. We all fight for the same things. Just like the Tissardmine and Hoopa children remind us, we all want to be safe, we all want a home, a family that loves us, we all want peace and security.

No decent person wants innocent children to suffer. Not anywhere or any time.

It is a tragedy that the outward things that are contrived, such as what we wear, the rituals we perform, become more important than the inner truths that unite us.

Here’s some of the words the kids of the Sahara wrote.

And then, the two teachers wanted to write their thoughts for all the children of the world as well.

At the same time, the kids in the Hoopa school were working on the project with their teacher. The contrast between the world of the kids in Tissardmine and the world of the Hoopa kids was immense. The Hoopa kids lived in the wealthiest country in the world, a place where they should have had every opportunity, yet their lives were filled with challenges the kids in the Sahara knew nothing about. Here are a couple of the drawings they did. On one side, most showed their love for the land and nature. On the other side, they showed the evil of drugs and violence.

And here was the message they sent the kids of the world.

Here are some meaningful artworks from kids in Armenia, Colombia. The drawings speak for themselves (notice the focus on the dollar):

It is largely because of the experience doing this project and working with kids in Los Angeles juvenile halls that I get so angry at Americans taking up the cause of children far away. They do it largely because they have been manipulated to, not because they really care that much—not when they have children in their own home country suffering. The media hasn’t told them to fight for these children, so they don’t. The government doesn’t want people putting the blame on them and what they have done to create all the unrest around the world in order to maintain dominance.

It was Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton who described our own inner-city youth as predators and monsters. The United States still incarcerates more young people than any other country. Most states continue to dehumanize children, confining them in remote, prison-like facilities cut off from their families and communities. I experienced those conditions when I co-founded InsideOUT Writers and taught creative writing in all three LA county juvenile halls and many of the other facilities. I visited families of incarcerated children and sat through trials of my students and fought for them. And yet, I now get criticized by “social media justice warriors” that I am spreading hate or am scum and that I want the death of Palestinian children because I support Israel’s right to exist.

My stand does not negate my belief that children everywhere deserve our love and care. I have demonstrated this by the way I have lived my life, not by words I spout on social media. Because of this, I feel I have the right to say, practice what you preach at home before you take up far-off causes.

It was sad saying goodbye to the children of Tissardmine, but the time came to leave. Lux Eterna and I took the jeep back to Erfoud. Along the way, I saw in the distance what looked like strange and beautiful rock formations. As we grew closer, I realized with a sickening feeling that it was thousands upon thousands of plastic bottles that the desert wind had pushed up against the dunes. More evidence of the modern world that promised to make everything more “convenient”.

From Erfoud, we took the night bus over the Atlas Mountains to Fes. Another marvelous adventure. Our bus driver was germaphobic. He would suddenly stop the bus on some dark winding road and pace back and forth in the aisle demanding to know who was smelling so bad. A man sleeping had taken off his shoes, a terrible offense on buses in Morocco, and the driver slapped him a wake, demanding he put his shoes back on. Lux Eterna and the other passengers could hardly keep from laughing at the constant rants of the driver, even as he returned to the steering wheel and took off again. But they did their best to suppress their feelings since it wouldn’t be wise to anger the driver on such a desolate road and perhaps get thrown off the bus. He was continually spraying sanitizer in the air, making us all sneeze. I can’t help but wonder how he fared once Covid hit. I bet it became a real nightmare being a passenger on his bus.

Once we reached Fes and had checked into our Riad in the medina, we took off to find the nicest hotel we could and treat ourselves to one of those famous Moroccan baths.

We were determined to navigate our way through the maze of streets without relying on any of obnoxious men who accosted us with promises of help. This we managed to do, thanks mostly to Lux Eterna’s skills.

The lady who luffa sponged away the grit from my body clucked in disapproval at the state of my skin and somehow, I explained with sign language that I’d been one month in the desert without a real bath. Ah, she said with new understanding, and scrubbed ever more vigorously. The wonderful steam bath and massage made up for it.

Freshly oiled and feeling absolutely wonderful, we headed to the rooftop restaurant where we looked out across the beautiful city to the mountains afar while drinking martinis.

Everywhere we went, unpleasant men grabbed at us, and we were constantly having to yell and tell them to go away. Sometimes, it verged on a dangerous assault. On December 20, 2015, I posted on Facebook: Weird feeling walking through a sea of men, all madly buying and selling piles of shoes and clothes. Made it through the gate unscathed.

Fortunately, they were all too busy checking out the sales to notice us.

Passing the Blue Gate was a highlight, bringing back all the magical memories I had of Fes as a child. In that moment, it was as if time stood still, and nothing had changed in all those years.

I am quite sure I am the most blessed person ever to live, with all the wonderful experiences I have had. I never had a lot of possessions or a lot of money. Nor do such things interest me. What I have had is a lot of living. My hope in sharing this story is that we will all remember the simple basic hopes, dreams and fears that draw us together rather than the extraneous stuff that tears us apart. Going forward, this will become harder and harder to keep in our minds as the hatred and violence intensifies. Don’t let evil overcome you.

God bless you all. Keep your children safe and stay strong!

More of my sand art on Merzouga Dunes

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