In the morning, the tranquil Sahara desert welcomed a group of strange guests.
Three Hummers galloped the vast endless expanse of sand, leaving three trails of dust behind the undisturbed desert.
“How much longer?” Jiang Chen asked in boredom while sitting in the back with his arms crossed.
Ayesha, who was sitting beside him, had the same emotionless expression, but from the dark, deep circles under her eyes, it was evident she didn’t get enough sleep.
“It’s just right ahead of us! But first, we need to greet the chiefs of the nearby tribes,” Robert yelled enthusiastically while driving.
“Why do I feel that you get really excited when you’re in the desert?” Jiang Chen glanced at him.
“This feeling of freedom is something that you’ll never understand!”
This guy is crazy.
Jiang Chen mulled things over while looking outside the window.
The other two Hummers sat ten veterans recruited as instructors; compared to the energy here, theirs was much quieter.
Soon the vehicle drove into small sand dunes with a harder surface.
When Jiang Chen’s vision suddenly cleared, he saw rows and rows of small huts.
Primitive, ignorance, poverty.
These three words summed up his first impression.
Yellowish gray house and courtyard piled up from gravel. Withered branches were tied together and used as the gate of the courtyard, and the windows were covered with dyed cloths like an ancient Arabic town in the 12th century. Every household kept a camel. It was said that here a man’s social status was measured by how many camels he possessed.
“I’m a bit confused. Perhaps you can explain to me our purpose of coming here?” Jiang Chen asked helplessly.
“Of course. Er, it might be a tad difficult to understand based from the modern perspective. Afterall, we already paid the money and purchased the land from the government of Niger. A portion of that money was also used to compensate them for taking up their ranch. As far as the contract is concerned, the 20 hectares of land not far from here are ours, but according to the local customs, our identity is still that of a “guest”. So following their tradition, we must obtain their recognition first before we can “settle” here,” Robert explained.
“That troublesome?” Jiang Chen’s mouth twitched.
“In fact, it’s only a formality since they are more or less secularized,” Robert shrugged and slowed down the speed of the car, “Still, there are some benefits from respecting their local tradition. At the very least, we can harmoniously co-exist without worrying about them giving us trouble, and they may even stand by our side during critical moments.”
“I don’t quite understand what you’re saying. So who is the owner of this piece of land? Is it Niger? The Tuareg tribe?”
“Hmm, you can think of it as Niger as the king of the middle age, and Tuareg tribe as the lord of this piece of land.” Robertsrolled his eyes as he gave an unlikely metaphor.
“If we get into a conflict with them, which side would the Niger government be on?” Jiang Chen asked a dangerous question after listening to Robert’s explanation.
A troubled smile appeared on Robert’s face upon hearing Jiang Chen’s question.
“The Niger government will be delighted if we could wipe them out, but that’s kind of impossible. Tuareg men are scattered throughout the desert. And rumor says that they have some unusual relationship with extremist organizations like Al-Qaeda. The Tuareg guerrillas also fought alongside Al-Qaeda during a riot in Mali.”
Robert paused when he noticed Jiang Chen’s unresponsiveness. For fear that Jiang Chen might do something harsh, he immediately added, “Uh, I suggest we better not clash with them. The people here are quite tough, and despite being poor, every household has an AK lying around.”
“Don’t be nervous, I was just asking,” Jiang Chen quipped.
When the car drove into the tribe, all natives cast the vehicles with a curious look. Due to the poor road condition, Robert rolled down the window and signaled the two vehicles behind to stay outside of the tribe.
It was not a big deal, following the local tradition shouldn’t take long to complete.
“That’s the food market over there, but I don’t recommend you trying out the things they sell there.”
“What a coincidence, I’m also not interested.” Jiang Chen looked outside the window. A kid on a camel gave him a curious look, and his father, who was wearing a veil, led the camel out of the tribe.
Ayesha subtly glanced at the window and muttered one phrase: “Heresy.”
The car stopped, following the direction of a black woman, Jiang Chen and Robert walked into the building of the central tribe.
…
Tuareg tribe, a nomadic ethnic confederation mainly distributed in the suburbs of the Sahara Desert in Africa, and a branch of the Berber clan spread throughout the vast region of North Africa. Renowned for their writing, language, and unique nomadic life, which were substantially different from those of their surrounding neighbors. Instead of a matriarchal social organization, Tuareg was a matrilineal society. Although they believe in Islam, women were not required to wear a veil. On the contrary, men 25 and above must wear a veil in the Tuareg clan society.
What was more striking was its open marital values wherein women could have multiple marriage partners, and in case of divorce, all assets would belong to them.
Apart from these strange customs, they were naturally born warriors. There was a notable local motto: “The desert holds no secret to Tuareg people.” In this desert, they knew how to fight better than anyone else. During the Mali civil war, Tuareg guerrillas delivered consecutive losses to the government forces.
Moreover, because of its strong combat ability, there were a lot of Mediterranean dictators and warlords who were interested in their fighting prowess. The most famous one was Gaddafi, who particularly favored Tuareg mercenaries. After the outbreak of the civil war in Libya, Gaddafi even offered the Tuareg tribe a lucrative remuneration of $1000 USD a day to help him quell an anti-government militant. Of course, no one knew if the money had actually been honored or true in the first place.
Robert had, in fact, recommend to Jiang Chen that since they chose Niger as the location for the base, recruiting Tuareg people might not be such a bad idea. However, after some consideration, Jiang Chen still rejected his proposal.
The main reason was Jiang Chen’s lack of trust in their culture and religion and also to avoid potential issues that could arise in the future. At least those refugees who fled their hometown would not suddenly clamor to go home. In any case, the refugees were more reliable.
In the relatively spacious house, Jiang Chen saw the legendary tribal chief.
“Distant visitors, may your wealth be endless like the sands of the Sahara.” The dark-skinned Female chief nodded slightly, her hands clasped together.
Perhaps because she often dealt with French people, her French was rather fluent. But regardless of how fluent she was, Jiang Chen who only knew English could not understand a thing, so he simply stood there and kept mum while waiting for Robert’s next move.
“Thank you for your generosity in sharing your land. May your tribe flourish and your camels grow in flocks,” Robert responded in fluent French. Even now, Jiang Chen could not figure out just how many languages this guy knew.
Upon hearing this, the elderly female chief cracked a smile, her wrinkles scrunching up together.
The following ceremony was quite simple. A man, whose head was wrapped in a frighteningly thick turban, carried two bowls of camel milk and placed them in front of them. According to the local’s custom, the thicker the turban and veil were, the more respect they were showing to their guests.
It was said that in the past whenever a male guest visited here, he was also required to wear a headscarf, or at least his mouth must be covered. But now it appeared that they have made some concessions to foreign cultures in the process of adapting to modern times.
It was unknown whether the female chief was chanting a mantra or praying, but she spoke for a long time before she gestured to the two people with a smile.
Looking at that bowl of cloudy camel milk in front of him, Jiang Chen could not help but wonder if it was just freshly squeezed out. When he looked at Robert, the noticed that this man’s eyebrows were furrowed as well.
“Is this really potable?” Jiang Chen whispered in English.
“Yes, but trust me, you won’t drink it again after you have your first.” Although Robert expression was somewhat bitter as he attempted a herculean feat of downing the camel milk with his eyes closed.
From the looks of it, this was his second time drinking this awful stuff.
Jiang Chen was secretly speechless.
Seeing Robert’s swift action, the smile on the female chief’s face became more brilliant. The faster the guest drank, the more it reflected their respect for the host.
When she looked at Jiang Chen, however, her eyes grew even brighter.
Robert had not even put the bowl down, Jiang Chen had already put the empty bowl on the table.
It took Robert a while before he finally finished and placed the bowl on the table with a quivering hand. Thus when he saw Jiang Chen’s empty bowl, his eyes almost popped out from its sockets.
After coming out from the tribal chief’s house, the two men received a warm farewell.
Back in the car, Robert hummed as he wiped his mouth.
“Sh*t, I feel like I’ve got a layer of grease in my stomach,” Robert complained as he looked at Jiang Chen oddly, “You okay with that strange smell?”
“What strange smell? It was okay.” Jiang Chen laughed loftily as he leaned back and then put his arms behind his head.
Other than the grease that barely touched his mouth, he didn’t drink a single drop and all of it was sent to the storage dimension.
He was getting more adept at using this ability.
After their friendly interaction with the neighbors, the three Hummers returned to the road once again.
Finally, Jiang Chen saw a “castle” in the middle of the desert – Future Security.