Lessons in choosing the right camel

Anna Zacharias

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AL AIN // The first encounter between Adrian Hayes and Saddam the camel did not go well.

"That one, Saddam, just hisses and spouts and spits and growls," says Mr Hayes. "Mine's OK, he knows me."

The complexity of camel relationships is just one part of training for Mr Hayes, the explorer who leaves for the Empty Quarter next week on a 1,500-kilometre recreation of Sir Wilfred Thesiger's desert crossings.

Mr Hayes has trekked to both poles and across Greenland, but when it comes to the sands he will rely on the wisdom of Saeed Al Masafri and Ghalfan Al Jabri, army officers and Bedu camel herders.

Mr Al Masafri, 26, and Mr Al Jabri, 27, were selected from a group of 20 officers for their camel know-how.

They are full of good advice: hiss to make the camel stand, click to make the camel sit, call him with a cry of "hay hay oooay". If you want him to slow down, pull the rope.

Never confuse your camel with a horse and say, "whoa". This will make him speed up and running without stirrups puts weight on the rider's spine.

Mr Al Jabri's advice is important: sing to your camel to make it forget its thirst, and don't beat him. He will remember it for 10 or 12 years and bite you in your sleep.

After a period of "agony", Mr Hayes now rides Hamlool, a retired racer, with poise and can mount a standing camel, no matter how tall.

"He can ride the camel walking or running," says Mr Al Masafri. "Do you know why? Because he loves the desert, he loves this nature. He is good because he's very happy and if he is happy all things come easily."

Camel boot camp consists of sessions lasting two and a half hours at Mr Al Jabri's farm in the Al Ain desert, where Mr Hayes applies the basic knowledge he acquired with the British army in Oman in the 1990s.

"But I don't use camels that much on the way to work so it's been a relearning," he says. "It's different muscles. Your legs are spread quite a bit so you're stretching things more. It's the same as sitting crossed legged. It's not a natural thing so you have to get used to it."

On the 40-day trek, the men will do between three and four hours on foot and camel each morning and afternoon, at an average speed of 6-7kph.

They will take basic provisions, goatskin canteens for water and wear sandals, khanjar daggers and brown kanduras in the style of Thesiger and his companions. Or, as Mr Al Masafri puts it: "My water, my kandura and my underwear. No BlackBerry."

"We'll all training, walking on sand, hiking on sand, the general fitness stuff," says Mr Hayes. "We're not on a race. Part of the thing is to experience the landscape. You can always train more but I'm relying on natural versatility and ability to adapt."

Each session presents a new lesson. On Thursday, his first practice while wearing a kandura, he learnt the importance of the traditional wrap worn as undergarments. It gives riders added modesty and flexibility.

The men will have two kanduras each. The camels will be fed dates and barley and the men will rely on basic provisions and traditional hospitality, just as Thesiger did. Mr Hayes hopes to stay as true as possible to the original crossings.

"You can do classic re-enactments on ice caps, on oceans and on mountains where you go back to completely traditional gear," he says.

"On land you can't because there are people living, there are villages, so when it's not classic we'll go with the times as it is."

The seven camels picked for the trek by Mr Al Masafri and Mr Al Jabri are young males of the soughan breed. There are in peak condition, and run of up to 30km each morning and 12km in the afternoon. Dhofari camels will be used for the rugged mountains of southern Oman. Next page

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Spain misses out on most lessons of Arab spring

Ferry Biedermann

MADRID // A single misspelled sign in Arabic proclaiming revolution flutters amid all the others in Spanish demanding everything from world peace to social justice on a large wall in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square.

It neatly sums up the relationship between the ragtag band of protesters who have kept the square occupied for the past two weeks and the uprisings in the Arab world: slight and a bit uninformed.

"Of course many of us had a lot of sympathy with the Arab revolutions and it is close in time," said Ivan Martinoz, a spokesman for the protesters, who say that they have no clearly-defined leadership. But mention of the Arab uprisings as often as not draws a blank stare, and Mr Martinoz said that there were many different inspirations. "We looked at Iceland, for example. That was a great inspiration, how the people in such a small country rose up twice and threw out the government because they did not want to pay for the debt of the banks," said Mr Martinoz, a 37-year old audio-visual producer.

Europeans, the young in particular, are just now waking up to the jarring consequences of years of austerity after the 2008 financial crisis. In Spain, unemployment has rocketed to some 21 per cent of the population overall and more than 30 per cent among the under-30s.

Add to that dissatisfaction with what is seen as an ossified and unresponsive political class in many countries, a housing crisis as people lose homes they can no longer afford, and a growing gap between rich and poor and there lies a recipe for a hot European summer.

Yesterday the protests in Spain spread to more localities. And last Wednesday, the Spanish-style protests spread to Greece, one of the countries hardest hit by the crisis. Groups from Italy to northern Europe's more economically stable outposts such as the Netherlands, have announced "take the square" actions that echo the spirit of Tahrir square.

But many observers doubt that this will translate into a truly revolutionary movement. Simon Tucker, involved in social innovation at the Young Foundation in the UK, said at a recent gathering of social and new media activists that, "there will not be an explosion in the UK for now, there is not the same anger as in Greece and Spain. People are still relatively comfortable". But he does credit the Arab uprisings with helping young Europeans to overcome "a sense of boredom and alienation".

The protesters in Spain like to fashion themselves as revolutionaries and employ the language of the international antiglobalisation movement as well as left-wing and environmental groups. But there is no hard-core, militant youth in evidence in the Puerta del Sol and non-violence is emphasised at every turn.

The highly organised encampment resembles nothing as much as an easy-going, European summer pop music festival. It is a seemingly happy mix of guitar playing, travelling hippies and young to middle-aged professionals who provide the intellectual backbone.

While they acknowledge the differences with the Arab revolutions, such as the fact they have more freedom and are better off than the people in Egypt and Tunisia, some feel that they are also involved in a real uprising. "We are facing two dictators, not one. The two parties that always govern here are both controlled by the bankers," says Pepe Mora, a 31-year old cinema special-effects artist who lives in London because he cannot find work in Spain. He returned to Madrid and went to Puerta del Sol the day after the demonstrations started.

Such sentiments do not translate easily into a political programme and the protesters are struggling to come up with one. Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, who heads the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations says that this is a main difference from the Arab uprisings, where the initial goal was clear.

"Probably in Spain they have underestimated the extent to which Arab revolutions were more than getting together through Facebook. Because the experience here in Madrid is that these people are finding enormous problems to move beyond just gathering together," said Mr Torreblanca. Next page

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