Golden kuffiyehs and mobile phones

On holiday in the Sinai, Jasper Thornton is invited to a Bedouin wedding and witnesses a cultural collision
My backside was feeling tender. Every time the jeep slithered over a hump I felt the road through the hard seat with its malnourished covering of old leather. There were five of us crammed in the back: an Egyptian lady, two German ladies, a German man and myself, an Englishman. One of the German ladies, Janine, was dressed for a Bedouin wedding in a kohl black dress with veil edged in white and silver. That was OK. Her husband, Nasser, sitting up front next to the driver, was Bedouin, and his relatives had made the outfit for her. The other German woman, Ziggy, was not in Bedouin garb. That was OK, too. Her husband, Roland, was a systems analyst from Frankfurt. At that moment he was cheerily recounting his adventures among the mainframes of ICI. Roland was the talkative type, and we were to hear more of those adventures before the evening was done. The Egyptian woman, a blonde, sat quiet and enigmatic. For her, too, it was the first time to a Bedouin wedding. So do cultures collide.
The empty road climbed swiftly from the sea, and we headed into the Sinai massif. Around us reared great jagged escarpments, draped in crumbly ochre scree. By the side of the road, parched grasses waved dryly in the wind, turning to straw in the heat. Our jeep flung sand and pebbles at them with abandon as it roared higher into the mountain range. As we drove, the sun settled and the few cigar smoke clouds in the otherwise unending blue turned purple and brown. The shadows of the great Sinai hulks lengthened and the wind, before so balmy, now faintly discomfiting, stiffened in our hair. Roland kept our spirits up with an endless stream of chatter. "London is voll of rats!" he announced, happily.
Suddenly the jeep veered left, off the road, into the vast silence of the Sinai. My posterior began to suffer again. I clutched the leaping jeep frame and envied the blonde her neat, interested poise as we barrelled downhill, little wraiths of sand chasing our wheels. Now we were hearing about Roland's new gold kuffiyeh and the old one he had worn for 20 days straight until it smelt "real much!" Nasser turned to us and grinned, the wind wrenching his face into a leer.
Then suddenly, we arrived. Our jeep burst through a gap between two clay-coloured bulks honeycombed with gouges. Before us was a gigantic basin among the mountains, surrounded on all sides by huge guardians of unyielding rock. Klaxons and revving 4x4s hustled away the silence and in the distance a small crowd watched as a pair of Bedouin, their robes streaming grey and white, raced camels to a stooped tree and back.
As we neared the action, amidst a fanfare of car horns and engine snarls, we saw about 12 vehicles scattered here and there. All jeeps. Little knots of people gathered at each, sitting on brown and black striped rugs. A distinct hierarchy was in play among the wedding guests. Older men held court under grand awnings and tea, scented with the sweet pungency of habak, flowed copiously. Our small rug was perched at the edge, the odd Bedouin striding over to greet Nasser. An older woman came over to embrace Janine and admire her new look. We were beckoned to stand, then sit and take tea. "You see? You see?" barked Roland with enthusiasm. "You have to stand when an older person comes." The blonde eyed him for a moment, before lighting a cigarette.
Half an hour later and we were off again, up into the massif. Night quickly fell. By some navigational instinct we arrived at last in pitch dark at a little circular stockade of rugs in the lee of a large mountain. Within, dark shapes shifted slowly. One squatted over a small flame holding a pot and a can, the fire lighting little more than hands and arms swathed in black. We came in and sat in shadow, enjoying the stars and the atmosphere. From the pools of darkness behind us a child suddenly coughed with what sounded like a bad case of grippe. There was an awkward silence. "Ding dong! Ding dong!" Roland suggested. The blonde eyed him again and took out her mobile phone. It didn't work. "Is that a real phone?" Roland asked. The blonde's eyes flashed. "As opposed to what?" she asked mildly. Our silent hostess glanced at us from within black robes, and Nasser grinned, the orange light of the fire flaring on his wet teeth.
Moments later we were scraping fuul from the pan with homemade bread that tasted as natural and clean as stone. Still the commentary ran: this time on the bad management of the systems operators at Frankfurt airport. But all around us night heaped itself like black gauze, folding forever past the cold, infinite light of the silent stars. But for the wind and the fire, nothing stirred. We seemed far from Frankfurt and its airports.
At last we bade farewell to our quiet hostess. In all our time as her guests, she had uttered not a word. Roland left an empty cigar box in thanks. Then it was back into the jeep and the empty desert to return to the wedding.
This time the noise as we approached was tremendous. The number of cars had grown, and piercing light from headlamps and mounted beacons cut the darkness. Men glided around in white robes and kuffiyeh, soft grey shapes in the starlight. Children went to and fro, hurrying as children everywhere will, going nowhere. Some of them ran to us and spoke, their accents plumped by soft lisping jiims. Women draped in robes of gorgeous black caparisoned with silvery jewels headed to their stations in the middle of crowds of men. And then the dancing began.
"Aaah, aayaah, aaah, aah, aaaah," sang the men. (There were words, but we couldn't make them out). Again, and again, the volume rose. They clapped until the blood hummed in our ears. The rhythm bounced off the silent, watching rocks, until we stood within crashing waves of sound. The beat quickened. Aah, ayah, aah, ah, aaah. In one group the women leapt forward, lifted their studded gowns high, and spun them around like enchantress matadors in silver and black. Aya, aaaaah. Faster the women whirled, each facing every man in turn, every man clapping and leaning slightly towards her: energy, vigour, intensity. The gowns spun, their jewels mimicking the black sky with its silver stars, the light of one flashing from the other. At another dance, two women marched with stately firmness towards the men. The men retreated. Then the process reversed, each rank bonded by sound and step, like an army pressing then withdrawing. About the dancers, greetings were shouted and confidences swapped. Except with us. A quick glance and then the men moved on like ghosts, their robes flapping in their wake.
The children spoke to us, though. A girl in black edged with purple and aquamarine ran over to Ziggy and startled us with beautiful English. "She used to work on the beach," said Janine. Around us the dancers and their song still rang, each feeding into and competing with each other. Aaah, ayaah, aaah, ah, aaaah. The children grew bolder. "Where are you from?" They asked the Germans. Then the blonde. Their eyes grew wide in astonishment when she told them. One girl turned to me. "Is it true?" she asked. Suddenly a mischievous boy decided to up the stakes. "Sharon, Sharon!" he chanted at me. I raised an enquiring eyebrow. "Sharon!" he shouted again in delight. Then he machine-gunned the night.
So our evening ended. Stars, mountains, Frankfurt, dances and politics, coming together at a Bedouin wedding in Sinai. We dropped Ziggy and Roland off at their hotel. "Keep it up, James Bond!" Roland said to me, as we shook hands. Then he embraced us all with a grin. "Let's see each other again!" he said. I hoped so; I liked him. Behind me, the blonde smiled.
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