In the deserts of the Al Murrah

The Jafurah is a medium-sized coastal desert. Its sands occupy more than 40,000 km2 and have a low rainfall that does not exceed 100 mm per year. At its edges there are several cities of regular size, Damman, Al Hassa, Al Jubayl, Al Hofuf, Qatif, Dhahran and several smaller towns and oases.
The Al Murrah Bedouin of Saudi Arabia travel the margins of the great deserts Jafurah and Rub'al Khali raising herds of camels and flocks of goats, and trading their by-products.
The Rub'al Khali or "The Empty Quarter" is much larger. It is one of the most extensive sandy deserts in the world (around half a million square kilometers). The rainfall is practically nil and it is totally uninhabited.
If we add to the Rub'al Khali, the dune fields of the Jafurah and other bodies of wind arenas such as the narrow Dahna and the Nordic Great Nafud, the Arab deserts exceed 750,000 km2. The Al Murrah call them simply "al-Rimal" (the sands).
These Bedouins are one of the most traditional tribes of the Arabian peninsula. They move continuously from well to well and from oasis to oasis seeking the necessary water and the best pastures for their flocks. They are famous because they can follow traces at great distances, identifying the traces of a person or animal among many hundreds. Their testimonies experts in that matter are admitted in the Islamic courts of Saudi Arabia as valid probatory elements. The members of this singular Arab lineage move normally in small groups forming camps with 3 or 4 typical black carps. The size of the groups is determined by the extent of grazing areas available. In general, the water stocks in the desert are sufficient for the population of the nomadic herders but an appropriate distribution is required so as not to deplete local forage plants. The Al Murrah were studied by the American anthropologist Donald Cole in his well-known book " The Nomads of the Nomads "(Nomads of the nomads).
I had the opportunity to share a few days with Donald Cole in a motor home that the company we worked in at that time had installed in the middle of the desert about 10 or 15 kilometers from the city of Qal'at Bishah in the valleys of the Arab Assir.
Cole, who until recently (2011) was a professor at the American University in Cairo, Egypt (and still teaches there), told me some of his experiences with the Al Murrah in the tours he had done with them some years before, which I found them of singular interest and they allowed me to understand this Bedouin tribe some years later. During my subsequent stay in the Eastern Province of Arabia I had several opportunities to visit or be with the Al Murrah in their extensive domains.
On one occasion, with my son Diego and some colleagues from the University of Petroleum and Minerals (today called King Fahd University) we traveled to the town of Yabrin, an oasis on the edge of the Jafurah desert with the Rub'al Khali, in full territory of the nomads. We arrived at Yabrin from Al Hofuf in two trucks after crossing about two hundred kilometers of desert with the intention of loading fuel.
Yabrin is a small town of scattered houses and orchards of date palms, which at that time housed some two or three hundred people. It served as a base for the Bedouin Al Murrah when they returned from their exits to the desert.
The gas station, located at the entrance to the town, was a box that was closed, with a gas tank that was at the top of a small rocky mound from which a hose was coming down.
We approached the town and when we saw a man walking we asked him how it was done to load gasoline.
He replied in Arabic: "We have to ask for permission from the Emir" and then he pointed to a building in the distance saying: "That is the Emir's house." When we arrived at the place we were met by a Bedouin wearing the typical tunic, a long beard and a kind of cutlass at the waist.
The man invited us to come and sit on some carpets that covered the floor of a larger construction. He then offered and served us the 'traditional qahwa96. In the same building there were other people in small groups talking, drinking 'qahwa or smoking shisha97 in the water pipes.
We waited a long time drinking the repeated wells of qahwa that man served us. After about two or three hours the emir appeared. He was a young man of no more than 25 years old, who sat down with us and asked us where we were going and warned us about the dangers of traveling in the Rub'al Khali. Finally, he authorized the loading of fuel and we were able to undertake the withdrawal.
On another occasion we went from Dhahran to the plains of Wadi Dawasir on the northern edge of Rub'al Khali where one of the main trade and grazing routes of the Al Murrah is located.
Wadi Dawasir is a gigantic ancient river that still sporadically forms with the flow of Wadis Ranyah, Tathlith and Bishah that descend from the mountains of the Hejaz and the Asir in western Arabia. These wadis flow once or twice a year and rarely reach their respective estuaries in the Wadi Dawasir. For that reason, and for all purposes, it can be said that Wadi Dawasir is a dry river. (keep going)
From "Chronicles of Human Peripecy", Danilo Antón Piriguazú Ediciones

New Berber year: reclaiming the native cultures of North Africa

For centuries the Berber culture of North Africa was discriminated against and left aside.

the successive political, economic, cultural and religious imperialisms.

First it was the Phoenicians, then the Romans, then the Arabs, who imposed their language and religion, then the Ottomans and more recently the European colonial powers.

Now the Berber world continues to be colonized by the Arab-speaking majority, but gradually it is recovering the initiative and enthusiastically celebrating its traditional millenary celebrations.

Berbers in North Africa announce the Amazigh New Year, with festivities showcasing traditional food, music and dance planned throughout the region.

Friday marks the first day of the year 2968 for the indigenous inhabitants of North Africa, who are also known as Amazigh.

The Amazigh New Year, or Yennayer, as it is called locally, is the first day of the agricultural calendar used by the Berbers for millennia.

Ahmed Assid, an Amazigh activist, told Al Jazeera that the event has an "important historical connotation" for the Berbers: "It goes back to antiquity when the Amazigh king Shoshenq I was enthroned in Egypt, after defeating Ramses III." .

In Morocco, where Yennayer is celebrated by the Arab and Berber communities, some Arabs refer to the event as "Aam Alfilahi" or "Haguza", which means the "agrarian year".

The Berbers, on the other hand, refer to the event as "Id Suggas", which means "night of the year".

North Africans celebrate the occasion with activities such as Amazigh dance shows called "Ahwach" and "Ahidous".

The celebrations also feature performances by Berber artists, along with educational activities.

To commemorate the occasion, the Berbers prepare traditional dishes, such as the tagola, a meal composed of corn grains mixed with lard, accompanied by ghee and with the seed of a date hidden inside.

"It is believed that the person who finds the seed of the date inside the plate of the tagola is blessed throughout the year," said Hafida Id Abbou, a Moroccan Amazigh who celebrates every year.

Another dish, known as orkimen, is made with wheat and dried beans. It is served as a soup.

As with most meals in North Africa, couscous is also served.

Many Moroccans believe that, given the country's deep Berber roots, Yennayer should be a national holiday.

Neighboring Algeria, which also has a large Berber population, already declared January 12 as a national holiday, and Amazigh activists in Morocco want their government to do the same.

At the end of December, several Amazigh groups signed a memorandum addressed to the Moroccan Prime Minister, Saad Eddine el-Othmani, urging him to declare the national holiday in Morocco.

A Palestinian village was demolished 100 times by the Israelis in the Naqab desert  (Negev in Hebrew).

D.Anton
The Palestinian village of'Araqib is located in Desert Naqab (Negev).
Araqib Lands that belonged to its inhabitants since Ottoman times, were expropriated by Israel under the Law of Land Appropriation of 1952 and the villagers were forced to retreat. However many Araqib residents returned to the village, rebuilt it and over time its population reached 300 people living in a bedouin style of pastoral life.
On July 27, 2010 the buildings of the village were demolished for the first time on July 27, 2010.
A Palestinian from Araqib described the situation before demolition:
"Our life was beautiful. We were using the land. We planted barley or wheat in winter and melons in Summer. We all had tractors and worked. We had 500 olive trees. We were doing oil and sold it. We planted tomatoes, zucchini and fruits. We also had sheep. My wife and I had more than 500 hens. We used to sell everything in Beershelva markets, Rabat and elsewhere ... until that damn day of July 27, 2010".

Since then demolishers have returned to the village once or twice a month to destroy the temporary houses. Araqib Palestinians built it again and again. Besides destroying houses a hundred times the government of Israel also began their legal action to recover the costs of demolition which according to them would amount to 8 million shekels (467,000 dollars).
Araqib Palestinians, who are Israeli citizens, have not allowed to be threatened, they keep coming back and build new houses on the ruins of the ones that were demolished.
Haqmeh Abu Madigem, a villager lady from Araqib said:  "I'm tired of demolitions but I remain here. Even if our houses are destroyed 200 times, I will not move. For me it is the most beautiful place in Earth ."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/israel-destroys-palestinian-village-100th-time-160703091747401.html