Eight days and not a soul in sight. But it wasn't unusual. A young driver was catching some sleep in his broken down truck, stranded in the middle of the Sahara desert. Luckily, eight days ago another vehicle had passed by, in which his companion had hitched a ride back to Algiers to get spare parts for the truck. Now all he could do was to somehow push the days, eagerly waiting, and eagerly hoping, for the return of his companion. For several days, a sandstorm was raging outside. So, he was forced to snug in his truck's cabin. Even if there was no sandstorm, all he could have done is to take a walk in a sea of sand, laid out in all directions. One would wish only to keep his sanity amidst such gigantic silence and boredom.
As a Land Rover pulls up in front of him, he rubs the sleep from his eyes and climbs out of his truck. He was happy to see a human being after that long wait. In fact there were two people. He went up to them and briefed them of his situation. They asked him if he has enough water to continue his wait. No doubt, this would be the most logical question one could ask in a desert. Because once the last drop of water is spent here, one gets less than ten hours before life is sucked out of the body. But the young man assured them that he has plenty of it. And plenty of food as well. They asked again if there is anything they could do for him. The young man's eyes shone with hope. He had food for his belly, but nothing for his brain. So he asked if they have got any newspaper! Luckily they had, except for the fact that it was a two weeks old newspaper. But that could in no way dampen his joy. He accepted the newspaper with much gratitude and those two strangers in that Land Rover waved him a good bye.
***
Her head ached and her nerves were on edge as early in the morning they were preparing for their journey towards El Golea. She had struggled to sleep the previous night. She was worried that she might have caught some strange disease and asks her husband about it with evident anxiety. But George seemed amused for some reason. He was studying the weather outside. He turns to her and asks her to watch him. Then as he barely touches her hand, she jumps high in the air in shock. Static electricity!
Due to extreme dryness in the weather, static electricity gets accumulated in the air. It also gets accumulated in human bodies, causing fever, headache, nausea, and nervousness. In such times, if someone touches the affected person, both of them experience an electric shock, and one can see noisy sparks flying from the finger of the person who touches. Once a sandstorm breaks out, most of the symptoms disappear. And it did.
As Jinx and George were standing outside the hotel preparing for the journey, a sandstorm broke out all of a sudden, and they had to rush back to their room. They waited for the sandstorm to wither away, and they waited as minutes turned to hours, and hours turned to days. It was fourth day, but the sandstorm still raged around. They could wait no more, and decided to take a risk and drive ahead.
As they drove towards El Golea, 400 kilometers away from In Salah, the sandstorm followed them. They were again forced to wait for four more days at El Golea, before the skies cleared up and let them continue. Towards Ghardaia, somewhere in between, they were engulfed by a tornado like wind. They drove Mzuri, as they affectionately called their Land Rover, behind some rocks for shelter. Even with the windows closed, they were already soaked in dust. They sat inside, listening to the howling of the wind. Several hours passed by and there were no signs of the sandstorm coming to a halt. It seemed that they would have to spend next few days in the cabin, just like the young truck driver they had met earlier. Despair was sinking deep, when all of a sudden a car appeared out of the dusty wind.
It was a Dodge Power Wagon belonging to a military road engineer. He had spent a year in a remote desert and now he was on leave. He was heading towards home when the sandstorm started. But he had decided not to stop, no matter what. He wanted to spend whatever precious little time he had with his family. Jinx and George decided to join him. It was risky but waiting for days in the sandstorm was not a great option either. There was another truck which was following him. Mzuri was put in between and they went ahead, as the engineer cautioned them to keep their eyes glued to his car's tail light.
For the next three hours, all they saw was the dim rear light. Neither the ground was visible, not the surroundings. It was just one big mess of dust. How did the engineer found his way? They could never find out. But when they reached Ouargla, they were just happy to be alive.
(Note: This is a third person narrative of some of the passages from Jinx Rodger's travelogue, 'Sand In My Eyes')
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