I sang The Lion King’s "Circle of Life" on a loop for 40 minutes in my head--
To distract myself from my inner thighs bruising and the unsteady sway of my body as I clung to Eli, my camel, for dear life. Because if I fall, I will not get up. But if I fall, I will fall in the Sahara . . . and that is not so bad.
The sand in the Sahara is like flour, soft and billowy, to fall into it would be like a caress . . . to be surrounded by it was a wonder.
To even get here, to the edge, of what feels like the Earth, is a privilege, a profound privilege that beguiled my mind in the moment and days afterward.
In that moment, I mentally grasped on to every memory, every image, from childhood until now, of things that made me feel just as profound: Flying in a plane for the first time, standing on the top of a tall hill in Grenada, watching Prince of Egypt, listening to gnawa music . . . and singing the Circle of Life.
Our trip to the Sahara desert is the most brilliant, shining, gleaming memory of my time here in Morocco and, at first, I was not sure how to express that sentiment, because I am not even sure that it has a name.
My memories are all snapshots and vague words. So, I have chosen a medium where one can say confusing clauses while still appearing prophetic:
The Haiku.
Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba, Sithi uhm ingonyama! Y'alla.
My feet in cold sand
Wait for the heat of sun rise
Who knew deserts had snow?
Laughter melts the ice
Bright memories flood my mind
Sand, time, music, sand
Voices sing to you
A language your spirit knows
History’s heartbeat
Let’s go and get lost
See where the sand meets the sky?
We’ll find our way back . . .
The camel is not
Beautiful, but I cannot
unSee its beauty
Strange, striking shadows
Emerge from dunes and wind
Don’t let them escape
I feel like a queen
Radiant, out of a dream
. . .My camel just pooped . . .
Heaving and Panting,
We stand, squinting at the sun
This world takes my breath
….away.
Away, we go now
Like jins and genies floating
Into the sunset
We drove to the edge
Windows down, speeding through air
I left my heart there
"From the day we arrived on the planet, and blinking, step into the sun . . ."
Jada Bullen
<p>I am Junior studying in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. As a feminist by thought and a hipster at heart, I seek every opportunity to break the barriers, disprove the labels, and blur the lines.</p>
