Camping after the Bazuft River
Camping after crossing the Bazuft River
Colourful packs are stacked row on row on top of a prepared length of stones. The women go off for water, set up the tripod for dough and get food ready. The men pitch the tents, cut and dig up roots and wood and then attend to the sheep…
Extract from fieldwork diaries
Photos of camping
Extracts from David’s fieldwork diaries
These descriptions come from later in the journey, but they give a flavour of the camping:
“Today we are only travelling a short distance. We didn’t leave till after an early lunch. I went over to help Jangi load and tie up his wild mules… We moved only for an hour. On arrival the mules are unloaded and the colourful packs are stacked row on row on top of a prepared length of stones. The women go off for water, set up the tripod for dough and get food ready. The men pitch the tents, cut and dig up roots and wood and then attend to the sheep”.
“The setting of the camp site seems fairly arbitrary depending on the location, though Hormuz and Jangi always seem to be at either end of the site. We brought the sheep down, lit the lamp and about 10 pm had supper. First tea ritual. The qand [cone sugar] is kept in a little velvet bag. The tea pot and glasses in a special packing case to keep things from breaking. The tea [kettle] is hung from a tripod to boil the water and then further brewed. Glass after glass was drunk. Dinner was excellent – dough, bread, rice and milk pudding with sugar sprinkled in it. Sat around listening to the wireless. Got the BBC!! I screamed with frustration – it was cricket and inevitably the weather had stopped play. Jangi and I kept watch till midnight. Very cold indeed, with the sky blue black and studded with an unbelievable number of stars”.