From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

You would think that in the Sahara the nomads would wear short sleeve clothing too keep cool, but they actually wear long clothes (and turbans).  They do this to protect themselves from the sun sand and wind. The cloth they use as clothing is light-weight, so it is not too hot. The clothes also prevent water from evaporating from their skin, so they do not have to drink so much water.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

When we were driving in the Sahara desert we saw peas! In southern Tunisia it does not rain very much so when it does, the rain water rushes off the mesas and it makes small riverbeds. The people here build large, dirt barriers where the rain flows in the dry riverbed to capture the water. They also dig trenches to their wheat fields. The people mostly plant plants such as date palms and olive trees.  The date palms and olive trees can grow in the south unlike many other plants because they can grow with out much water.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

Some Berber farmers make their homes underground (like in Bula Regia) or into hillsides to keep cool. On the outside these houses look like a door put into a hillside . When you go into one of these houses, you usually go into a small, dark corridor then come into an open courtyard with doors all around you leading into small, underground rooms. The underground rooms feel very comfortable and safe. The farmers divert the little rain water they get into large, underground cisterns to use later. They may also have wells.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

When we went to Tozeur we met Yousef’s friend, Souffien.  Souffien owns two hectares of land in a large palmeraie in an oasis. In the shade of his date palms, he also plants grapes, figs, pomegranates, bananas, and in the summer a vegetable garden.  He gets 6 hours of water from the oasis per week per hectare. This seems a like small amount, but when you hear how much water comes out of the pipe it seems like too much. Twenty to thirty liters per second! If the people use 15 minutes over their time they get thrown in jail! The watering times are one after the other, and everyone uses the same pipe. So if someone’s water pressure is too low, they call the police and the police go over to the house of the person before the caller’s and take them to jail. 

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

Souffien hires two people to help him. Their job (when we were there) was to pollinate the dates. Virtually all of the palms in the palmeraie are female because these are the ones that make dates. Farmers like Souffien take the pollen part (the part that creates the dusty pollen) from a male date palm, climb up into a few female trees with the male part of branch and leave it there for the wind to spread the pollen. These few female trees are playing the part of males. The people Souffien hired get 7 dinar (about 5 dollars) per day. When I saw a sixty year old man climb up a twenty foot tall palm tree with his bare hands (and feet) I was amazed!

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

People have been living in Southern Tunisia for over ten thousand years. They are influenced by all of the people that have come there over time, from the Carthaginians to the Arabs. But the most important thing that has influenced the way they live is their climate.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

We started at nine in the morning. My family went with our guide Youssef, and two other guides to guide the camels. My camel was a cute, brown haired, furry baby camel. (Even though it was only three years old, it was taller than me!)  Youssef (our guide) had a camel that had a bubble of cheek at the right side of his mouth that filled up with air and bubbled out every few minutes. It looked like a bubble of blood.  Every times it did it while I was walking it I would say “duck!” or “You have such an ugly tone that sometimes you sound like a pigeon”.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

Papa’s camel was about like Youssef’s camel, except he didn’t have a bubble of blood in his mouth. Mama’s camel was just like that except he was nicer than papa’s camel. He had a big cut on his face and a nose ring on his soft nose. Cy’s camel was not like our camels, but he was goldish brownish and he had a whole lot of rope burns on his face. When we got on the camels, Youssef said, “You guys can choose your camels and I’ll have the one let with Cruz”. I decided to pick out my baby camel and everybody chose their camels that were not babies.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

When we were starting our camel trek, we were on our own camels except for Cruz. Cruz was pretending that the camel was very, very bumpy. He was bouncing up and down and up and down again, like a horse was bucking him up and down. It made him dizzy, so he stopped after some time.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

When we were riding on our camels we passed through some sand dunes! We saw some camel bones and Cruz said. “Did somebody here eat a camel puke the bones out?”

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

I said “No, the camel probably died by natural causes.” I saw some small tracks in the sand, and I thought they were scorpion tracks. I said, “Papa! Look there is a scorpion nearby.”

And he said, “They’re beetle tracks.” I said nothing because I did not believe him.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

As the camels walked I saw more desert creatures. As the camels walked I saw lizards, beetles, and ants stuck in big huge dunes. There were also fox tracks. After awhile of being on the camels, our butts got sore and our camels were not walking on sand. They were walking on dirt and salt!

After four hours of being on the camels, the guides, Papa, Mama, Youssef, Cy, and Cruz got our lunch ready and sat under a tree while I herded the camels. Whenever I wanted to sit on a camel, I made a hissing sound like a wild cat to make the camel kneel. I rode on mine for a few, and then everyone called, “Bella! Where are you?”

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

I said, “I am over here, herding the camels.”

They said, “Come on! We’re going to show you how to make bread.” So I came over and saw a heap of ashes and sand.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

 I said “Where is the bread?”

“Under the heap of ashes and sand,” they said. I said “How can that pile of sand and ashes be bread?”

They said, “First we put the flour and water into a big bowl, next we mixed it around ‘til it turns into dough. Then we put sand and ashes on top of it.”

When I heard that, I was amazed at that activity of making the bread that way. With sand and ashes, I was double amazed. When I ate the bread, I was triple amazed that it did not taste like sand and ashes. It was actually really delicious, and I ate some and gobbled it up.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

When I was done with my lunch, I went back to herding the camels, but the camels were not in sight, so I was so freaked out.  When I looked around for the second time, my camel came to me and sniffed my fingers for leftovers. I asked him where the rest of the camels were, and he moaned and groaned for food, so I gave him some crust and the other camels came sniffed my fingers for food too. I said “Where were you, camels?” And then they moaned and groaned, I said, “I don’t have any more, but I will get some if you let me pull you by your leashes.”

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

I pulled them along until we got back under the tree, and I gave them some crust, including my camel, which already ate a lot of crust. When I brought them back to the group, we rode on them. When my butt got sore, I jumped off and walked. When we were all tired out, we stopped to camp for the night and I had to write in my journal while everyone else played in the Sahara sand (dunes). When I finished my journal we went out to watch the sunset. When we watched the sunset, I fell down a dune by accident, and Cy said, “Cruz, come on! Let’s see what Bella is up to now.”

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

And Cruz said, “OK.” And Cruz and Cy tumbled down after me down the dune.

When we went too far, my parents would say, “Kids, come back, because you went too far!” So we went back and tumbled down a dune closer to Mama and Papa.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

When we had to go, I found a bottle to kick, Mama said I would have to pick it up and put it in a trash can. When I came back to the tent it was all set up. We wanted to make the night like camping in Kansas instead of in the middle of the Sahara Desert, so we made a campfire to heat up our food. When they made the fire, Cy tried to make a small fire, and the other one died out. Cy’s turned out to be the main fire to heat up the couscous. Cy was very proud of himself, but he almost burned his hand on the fire.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

After we ate the couscous, we sang some songs. We sang songs like “On the Road Again” in English, and then Youseff played drums (on the empty water bottles) while the camel guides sang songs in Arabic. I thought the songs were really cool, but they were strange. After eating couscous and singing, we realized that the camels were gone, so we hiked to another person’s camp and they had three camels. We went to talk to them. We sat by their fire, and they gave us some strong mint tea. (The closer we get to the Sahara Desert, the stronger the tea is.) After that I was tired so the camel guide said that I could sleep inside his jacket and I did.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

Sooner or later I fell asleep. When we were walking back to our camp (I was on Papa’s shoulders and Cy was riding bareback on his camel) I thought there were scorpions, and I told Papa that I thought there were scorpions.

He said, “Possible.”

When we went back to the camp to go to sleep for the night I didn’t fuss about going in any certain type of bed. (We actually didn’t have beds; we had mats on the sand to sleep on and, fortunately, blankets.) Papa laid me on a mat and I fell back to sleep.

In the morning we ate sand bread and date jelly for breakfast. After that our guide named Laminne showed us a scorpion, and he was charming it. When he was charming it, it crawled all over his bare hand and it never stinged him. Eventually it jumped off his hand and ran back to his scorpion home. And after that we got back on the camels again. When we stopped for lunch we had macaroni soup and sand bread. The soup was spicy, the macaroni was hot, and the sand bread was just perfect for me. When the camels went too far, I herded them back. Cy and I rolled down the sand dunes again.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

After lunch we got back on our camels and less than ten minutes later we reached an oasis for the camels to drink from. When the oasis overflowed, toads jumped out from under the sand, and I caught two. After that we went on our camels again. When my butt got sore, I walked leading my camel.  I wasn’t looking where I was going and it trampled me. It stepped on my heel and I fell down on the rocks, then it kicked my head. I was really lucky that I wasn’t 100% hurt.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009

Then we came back and returned the camels. That was the end of our two day journey in the Sahara Desert. After my experience in the desert I was really, really good at making the camels do my commands and making them kneel. It was a really fun experience in the desert. I miss my camel.

From The Big Field Trip – Tunisia, April, 2009