25.11.04 - 15:43

today's third entry...

Recently, I watched Yahya give shots to a camel. Yahya is a retired veterinarian, but he still occasionally does injections for a small donation.

A thin, white Moor man, swathed in a black headwrap, brought his camel into Yahya's compound during lunch. Although the conversation was in Hassaniya (not my strong point), I was able to understand that the camel was sick, and that he had brought antibiotics and vitamins to be injected.

Yahya came out to the camel armed with a humongous syringe, which had a trigger like a gun. It was fodder for any child's nightmares.

The camel waited, impossibly huge, with large liquid eyes and a neck to rival a giraffe's. Its face was fixed by Nature in a permanent sneer. Its legs looked so strong (and so incomprehensible, with joints that always seemed to bend in unexpected directions.) I've heard that camels are cranky creatures; that they can also kill with a single kick.

The man bade his camel lie down with a single tap on the camel's nose. The camel - groaned? roared? bleated? Whatever it was, it sounded as though someone were torturing Chewbacca with knives. It was a proud beast; it smelled trouble. But it obeyed. The camel sank to its knees, then, as further commanded, stretched out its loooong neck on the ground, resting its chin on the sand. The man bound it about its knees - thighs to calves - so that it could not rise. He took its reins (which were fitted through a piercing in the camel's nose.) Yahya approached, his instruments gleaming in the sun.

At this point, every child in the compound gathered by the kitchen - a safe place - to watch. Well, all but Simbala, my five year old nephew, who told me gravely that it was "not good. I don't like it" and refused my proffered hand.

Yahya plunged the syringe deep into the side of the camel's hump and it made that dreadful monster sound again. Could the men control him, if he became determined to get away? He was so very big... The children evidently thought the same because although they replicated the groan, they kept a very safe distance.

Yahya then felt the other side of the hump, massaging the fat until he found the spot, then... a swift trigger-pull, another camel protest, and it was over. Yahya retreated to sharpen his needles with a metal file; the camel's knees were unbound and it got up gracelessly. The man led his camel out to the road, but I was left wondering, how does he control that great mass? How does he stand that noise?

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