the time we moved

One day they told me we were moving to a new camp. It was a normal day, except that all the bedding was loaded into the truck. The day was hot, and instead of crossing a particularly big expanse of desert the normal way, we all got in the car, drove a ways, then waited for the sheep to follow.

As were were stopped, a second time, a blue van drove up. It stopped, and a couple got out, after which 4 kids got out of the back. They just sat down in the sand, and then my family started making tea. Eventually the boys (Laith plus three others, aged 6-9ish) ran off to play some game that seemed to involve collecting large piles of galkh (that's a desert shrub). I was off writing when their mom came up and introduced herself to me, explaining that she was Um Laith's sister and Um Salem's daughter. (Later she told me there were 17 kids, I think.) I wish I could remember her name; for some reason her husband's name stuck: Hassan. I joined the circle around the newly built campfire. Their daughter Rimah is 9, I think, and already in school, so eager to talk to me. That's the age. Maybe it's because they know what it's like to learn a new language, but they enunciate clearly for me and pitch the vocab correctly. She was fun to practice with. The herd caught up with us long before we left.

I had shown some interest in riding in the back of the truck with the kids, so when Hassan left with the van and we finally got on the move a bit after, I road in the back. The 6 kids argued over who got to ride there, but I ended up riding with 3-4 other kids (on top of all their stuff, because we were moving camp) and Um Laith's sister hanging onto the back of the truck. She didn't speak English, but we talked anyway. I think she said she was 27, but she looked at least my parent's age to me. We weren't able to communicate all that well.

The new camp was beside a mountain but essentially in the open, unlike our first camp. We could see the village in the distance; the lights were pretty on the horizon at night.