Home from scratch

The fact was; I was the one who insisted that I wanted to go to the Sahara desert in the beginning not Jose, but we ended up staying there for a long time because of Jose not me. 

Looking back in time at the last half of my life I had wandered around in many countries and I had been living in countries which had a highly civilised society. I saw right through them and tasted enough of them too, it was not that I wasn’t touched and impressed by all those cities I had stayed in; in a way my lifestyle had more or less been influenced by them; but I still couldn’t find a city or place where I could settle my heart in and live.

I can’t quite remember in which year I chanced to read ‘The National Geographic Magazine’ and coincidently was introduced the Sahara desert in that issue. I only read it once but I felt something I could not put into words, it was something like a nostalgic homesick feeling that belonged from a previous life, something rather baffling and made me unreservedly want to give myself to this strange piece of land.

At the time I was back and had settled down in Spain, there was still over 280,000 square kilometres of the Sahara desert that was Spanish territory.

A pained feeling of longing and desire awoke and made me want to embrace it with open arms.

It became a standing joke amongst the people I knew that I wanted to visit the dessert desperately but no one took me seriously.

Some friends who knew me better would explain my desire for the desert as if I had been through enough of life and wanted to be self exiled without returning back; all these sorts of explanations weren’t the correct reasons for me.

Fortunately, however people tried to analysis me, It didn’t bother me at all.

As I made plans to go to the dessert apart from my father who accepted and encouraged me, there was only one friend who didn’t make fun of me or try to stop me or burden me. He just silently packed his bag, went to the desert alone and got himself a job in a Phosphate company there. Then he settled down and was waiting for me to visit Africa myself so that he could look after me. He knew I was a stubborn woman, I wouldn’t change my mind once I had set plans.

What this man must have suffered in the desert because of love. However my heart had already decided that I would wander the ends of the world with him for life.

This man is now my husband Jose.

This tale all happened two years ago.  

After Jose had gone to the desert, I ended all my trivialities and didn’t even say goodbye to anyone. Before I departed to the airport, I left a letter together with the rent for my  three Spanish girl roommates. When I closed the door, it also closed the life I was once familiar with and I headed over to the unfamiliarity of the desert.

When the aeroplane landed at the airport in Laayoune, I saw Jose after we had been parted for three months.

He wore an earthy khaki shirt in military style with a pair of very long jeans; he hugged me with his strong arms, both his hands were very rough, yellow dust all over his hair and beard; his lids were dry and cracked, his face had been blown by the wind and had became burning red; the frustrations he had suffered were revealed by his eyes.

When I looked at him, he had actually changed his appearance so much in such a short space of time, it made my heart jump with a painful shock. 

The thought also crossed my mind of what kind of life that I was going to face shortly. It was in fact a big challenge for me to take and not a naive and romantic idealised lifestyle in my mind anymore.

When we came out of the airport, my heart was beating so fast and I could hardly contain my emotion. I felt so deeply lost in my own sentimentality having arrived eventually to this piece of land from which had half of my lifetime of homesickness.

The Sahara desert, it was my dream of love for many years at the bottom of my heart!

I took a good look around it with my own eyes, the infinitive yellow sand was constantly blowing by the lonely whimpered wind; the sky was high and the ground was majestic calmness.

It was about evening, the sunset had coloured the desert turning it scarlet red becoming horrifyingly beautiful. 

It was close to the beginning of winter. In my state of mind the earth was transformed into a piece of poetry under the strong heat and desolation.

Jose was calmly waiting for me and I looked at him into my eyes.

He said: “Your desert is in your arms now.”

I nodded my head with my throat stuck.

“Lets go, outsider!” He said

Jose had been calling me by this name for many years; it wasn’t because of Albert Camus’s novel was just popular at the time, it was because ‘Outsider’ was a very appropriate name for my myself.

I was the one never felt included in the part of this world, I was also the one often deal things out of the book and did things could never explained it normally.

The airport was now empty, few people had got off and the plane had already gone.

Jose put my big suitcase on his shoulders, I had a rucksack on my back and one hand carried a pillowcase as I followed him out.

There was a distance between the airport and the house which Jose had rented two weeks ago, on the way there, we walked very slowly because the books and magazines in my suitcase were very heavy; occasionally a car drove passed and we waved our hands for a ride but no one stopped for us. We walked for over forty minutes and turned up a steep slope, reached a straight road, we finally saw other people and smoke from chimneys far away.

Jose said to me through the wind: “Look, this is the outskirts of the town of Laayoune and our home is there.”

As we passed through at the side of the road there were over ten of shabby big tents with many holes in them, some houses made out of sheets of thin iron; also herds of goats and camels with single humps standing around on the sandy ground.

This was the first time I had seen the nation who loved to wear their traditional deep blue clothing, I felt like I had walked myself into another world of fantasy.

The wind blew along the sound of laughter from the girls who were playing games.

It was a place living with people, it seemed full of unspeakable life and joy.

Life in this poor and far away backward region was still thriving and it was not a struggle to live there; in the desert, life and death seemed a natural process for the people who were living here. I stared at the smoke rising up, I felt for their peaceful life and it seemed very elegant to me.

In my explanation, living with the free spirit was a civilisation.

We had finally walked into a long street; this side road was scattered around with the square brick houses under the sunset.

I was especially drawn to the last small house among the row of houses; it had a long round arch and my intuition told me that this must our home.

Jose actually went toward that little house, he was sweating away, lifted the big suitcase down from his shoulders and said: “Here we are, this is our home.”

Opposite our home was a rubbish tip, in front of it was a wave of sand forming a valley, further from there was a vast empty of sky.

A high slope without any sand was behind our home, it was composed of big hard rock and dry earth. No one could be seen at our next door neighbours. There was only the strong wind constantly blowing my long hair and my long dress. 

When Jose opened the door, I took my heavy rucksack off from my shoulders.

A dim and short corridor appeared in front of me.

Jose behind me lifted me up and he said: “Our first home, I will carry inside and after that you are my wife.”

This was an ordinary match, I had never passionately in love with him but I still felt very much happiness and comfort with it. 

Jose stepped took four big steps and reached to the end of the corridor, I saw a big square hole in the middle of the room, outside the hole was the pigeon grey coloured sky. 

I let go of Jose and touched the ground, threw the pillowcase from my hand and rushed off to see the rooms.

This room there was actually no need to walk around, you would see everything when stood under the big hole.

One bigger room faced the street, I walked around it, the size of the rectangular room was four by five big straight steps.

Another room was tiny, with only space to allow one big bed and nothing more; when you entered the room, there was only an arm long horizontal gap between it and the wall. The size of the kitchen was four newspapers spread together big. It had a dirty yellow sink and also had a table that made of concrete.

It had a surprising shock, a white bath tub, it really was an art piece in Dadaism, it could be a sculpture if we didn’t need to use it.

It crossed my mind to check where the steps lead to from outside the kitchen and bathroom. Jose said: “No need to look, up there is a public rooftop, better to check it out tomorrow. I bought a mother goat and she has been feeding with the landlord’s goat. We can have some fresh milk to drink after all.”

When I heard we actually owned a goat, I was surprised for a while. Jose desperately asked me about my first impression of our home.

I could hear my voice replying nervously and awkwardly to him with: “Very fine, I like it, really, we can slowly make some changes to it.”

Easier said then done, I was still desperately measuring everything with my eyes when I answered him; the ground was an uneven concrete floor, the walls was a dark grey brick wall and needed painting over, some dry concrete was nakedly sticking out from the gaps between the bricks.

When I looked up, a little light bulb was hanging from the bare ceiling, the wire cramped with flies; the left hand corner of the wall had a crack and the wind continually blew inside the house. When I turned on the tap, it only dripped with some drops of thick green liquid, not a single drop of water came out. I was looking up the almost falling down roof and asked Jose: “How much does it costs a month to rent?”

“Ten thousand excluding water and electricity.” 

“Is water expensive here?”

“A full petrol can of water costs ninety, tomorrow I need to apply to the town hall to have water sent here.” I sat lifeless on the big suitcase and had nothing to say.

“Okay, now we are going straight away to the town to do some grocery shopping and buy a refrigerator, some essential problems need to be solved basically.”

I quickly picked up my pillowcase and followed him out again.

On the way there we saw people, sandy ground, a cemetery and gas stations; finally we saw the light from the town, we were now walking almost in the dark.

“This is the bank and there is the city hall, the court is on the right, post office is under the court, there are several shops around here, our company head office is in front of the row with hotel with green lighting, the cinema is the one which painted a dark yellow colour outside ……”

“Those row of apartments are really tidy and well built, who’s living there? You look, there is a big white house and it has a swimming pool and some trees.”

“I heard some music coming out from the mansion with the white curtains in the window, is it a hotel too?” 

“Those apartments are executive staff quarters, the white house is the Governor’s home, it has a garden of course and the music you heard is from the Military Officers club….”

“Oh wow, there is a Muslim castle there, Jose, just look…..”

“It is a National hotel ‘Hotel Parador’, four stars, the hotel is not a palace, it’s usually where the government officers stay.”

“Where are the Sahara people live? I have seen so many of them.”

“They live in the town as well as out of the town, the area where we live is called the cemetery area, when you call a taxi home you only need to say that to the driver.”

“There is a taxi service here?”

“Yes, they are called Benz , we will take one home after we have done the shopping.”

At the same store, we bought a tiny refrigerator, a frozen chicken, a gas stove and a blanket.

“It is not that I didn’t want to purchase them before you come, I was afraid you wouldn’t like it if I bought them beforehand; now you can pick them yourself.” Jose subserviently explained.

What could I picky of? There was only one shop selling refrigerators and same as the gas stove, when I thought of the dark dim home we had just rented, I actually lost all my interest. As we were going to pay, I opened my pillowcase and said: “We are not married yet, let me share the bill.”

This was our habit to share bills when I was going out with Jose. 

Jose didn’t know what was I holding in my hand, he looked and saw what inside it with a big shock, he pulled the pillowcase to his chest and put his hand down inside and then he settled the bill at the shop.

When we were outside, he asked me in a lower voice: “Where did you get that much of money? Why do you put it inside the pillowcase without telling me first? “

“It’s my father who gave it to me, I have brought it all with me.”

Jose was in silence with a hard face and I was looking at him with the wind blowing around.

“I think…..I think, it is not possible for you to get use to living for long in the desert; when you finish your trip, I will quit my job and can we go back together!”

“Why? Did I complain about anything? Why you have to quit your job?” Jose patted the pillowcase and patiently smiled at me.

“Your visit to Sahara is based on romanticism in your heart and with a stubbornness of mind, you will get tired with it quickly. Now you have that much of money, you won’t be willing to live the way of the normal people who live here.”

“It’s my father’s money not mine, I won’t use it.”

“If that so, tomorrow morning we deposit it all to the bank, and you——will use the wages I earn to stay here, no matter what we go through with life.”

I got furious when I heard what he said to me. We had known each other for many years and I had wandered in many countries alone, it was because of this little amount of money, I was still a vain woman in his eyes at the end. I wanted to argue with him but I didn’t, I would prove my great potential in my life in the near future here. It was a waste of my breath to talk about it right now.

The first Friday night, I actually sat inside a big Benz as it took me to the cemetery district and home.

The first night in the desert, I cuddled up in a sleeping bag and Jose wrapped up in a thin blanket; it was almost under below zero, we had only spread a piece of canvas on the concrete floor and we felt freezing until the dawn.

On Saturday morning, we went to the town to apply for marriage at the court, we also bought an extremely expensive mattress; bedstead was a luxurious delusion which we wouldn’t dream to have.

While Jose went to the town hall to apply water, I had bought five big rough mats which the Sahara people use daily, I also bought a pot, four plates, two sets of fork and spoon, Jose and me two added together had eleven knives, so we didn’t need to buy any and it could also use it as chopping knife too; I also bought a bucket, dustpan and brush, clothes peg, soap, condiments and other essentials..................

Things were so expensive it made me lose heart, I held on the thin stack of money that Jose had given me and I didn’t dare to buy anymore. 

My father’s money we deposited in a fixed account for six months at the rate of 0.64 %.

We came home at the afternoon and eventually met the landlord and his whole family, he was a generous Sahara person, at least that was the first impression he gave to us.

We borrowed half a bucket of water from the landlord and Jose was on the rooftop washing away the dirt from the big wooden bucket; I cooked some rice, when it was done, I poured it out and used the same pot to cook half of the chicken we had bought.

We sat on the rough mats and Jose said: “Did you put some salt in the rice?”

“No, the water I cooked the rice with was borrowed from our landlord.”

The water from the well in Laayoune was salty and it wasn’t fresh water. We had actually aware it after all.

Jose normally dinned at the company, he wouldn’t think of it naturally.

This was a home, although we had bought many things for the house only the rough mats on the floor could be seen. We had spent the whole weekend cleaning. Some Sahara children started making some giggling noises and their heads could be seen looking down at the hole in the other room.

Sunday night, Jose had to leave home and go back to work at the Phosphate works, I asked him if he would come back tomorrow afternoon, he said he would, the place he worked was almost a hundred mile return journey from our rented home.

It’s a home that only had a man at the weekend, on the weekdays Jose got off from work and didn’t arrive back here until late at night, then he went back to the dorm room by public transport. During the daytime, I went to the town by myself, and the neighbours would visit me in the late afternoon when it was not too hot.

Meanwhile, the process of dealing with the documents for our marriage was very slow.

After I was introduced to a retired foreign military commander, I was given the opportunity to travel with the big water trucks wandering travelling around the desert up to few hundreds miles away; at night I slept my own tent nearby the Nomads, it was because the military looked after me, so no one would dare to touch me. I also brought along some sugar, nylon fishing wire, medicine and cigarettes, etc to give to the residents of the area who were so poor that they had nothing in their lives.

It was only when I was deep inside the heart of the great desert and looking at the running herds of wild antelopes at sunset, that my heart would finally forget about reality of the dull and hard life. I always travelled alone and was out of the town for about two months.

When the marriage was announced at our original district in Madrid, I knew I was about to settle down here for real.

Home, suddenly became a place that I could not leave anymore.

When I milked our goat, she always jumped up and used her horns to push against me; I needed to buy a lot of fresh grass and wheat to feed her and our landlord wasn’t happy we were using his enclosure.

Sometimes, when I went there a little late, the milk had been squeezed out by the wife of our landlord. I wanted to love this goat but she wasn’t willing to recognise me and Jose, we didn’t want to force her, in the end we gave her away to the landlord.

During the time before our marriage, Jose wanted earn as much money as he could, he even took the night shift; he worked days and nights and we couldn’t see much of each other. At home without him, I had to do some physical labour myself.

Apart from our Sahara people neighbours there was a family from Spain who also lived nearby us, The lady was a strong and healthy woman from the Canaria Islands.

Every time she went out to buy some fresh water, she would ask me to come along too.

I could follow her on the way there when my bucket was empty, but when my bucket was filled up with almost ten litres of fresh water, I would ask her to go first.

“How come you are so useless? Didn’t you ever fetch water in your life before?” She mocked me loudly.

“I….this is very heavy, you go first…..don’t wait for me.”

Under the extreme hot sun, both my hands held tight on the handle of the bucket, I had to stop walking every four or five steps; and my home, it was like a little black spot far away and it seemed I would never reach there.

When the water finally reached home, I immediately lied flat on the mat, that way I would release some of the pain in my back.

Some other time, when the gas had run out, I hadn’t had the strength to take the empty one to the town to exchange it for a new one, if I called a taxi, I needed to go to the town first, for that reason, I wasn’t bothered to go.

Therefore, I always borrowed the iron charcoal stove from my neighbour and crouched down to fan the flame from outside the door, the smoke went straight to my eyes and made me have no stop running tears.

In that sort of the moment, I felt it was lucky my mother hadn’t had a pair of supernatural eyes that could see thousands of miles away; If so, her beautiful cheeks would be soaked wet because she would certainly burst into tears when she saw me like this, as I was her daughter who she had brought up like a precious peal by her own hands.

I wasn’t frustrated; being a human, it was such a treasure to experience a few different kinds of life.

Before I married, if Jose was doing an extra shift at work, I would sit on the mat and listen to the singing of the weepy wind passing by the window.

We didn’t have any newspapers and books, no television as well or radio at home. Dining was on the floor and when the time came to sleep, just went to other room and lay on the mat over the floor.

The walls were boiling hot in the afternoon but freezing at night; electricity came if you were lucky, most the time the electricity didn’t come. When the evening arrived, I stared at the big square hole quietly looking at the dust and sand slowly scattering down like powder to the floor.

When the night slipped in, I would light a candle and look at it and guessing what sort of shape would form from the tears of the candle.

This home had no drawers and no wardrobe, our clothes were left in a suitcase, shoes and some odds and ends I had put inside a big cardboard box; if I wanted to do some writing, then I had to find a piece of wood and put it over my kneel to write; the dark grey wall at night made me feel gloomily cold.

Sometimes at night, when Jose had to rush to take the public transport back to work, after he closed the door with a kick which sounded out, then my tears would run down my face without making any sense; I would run up to the rooftop and looked if I still see him, even a shadow, I would rush down and out on the street to chase him.

I was running out of breath when I finally caught him up, my head was down while gasping for air and just followed him behind.

“Could you please stay, couldn’t you? I am begging you, there was no electricity again today, I am feeling so lonely.” I inserted my both hands inside my pockets and against the wind to beg him sadly.

Jose eventually felt very sad especially if I chased him after he had left; the area around his eyes become red.

“Echo, I have to be at work for the early morning shift at six o’clock, if I stayed how could I get to work on time from that far away? On top of that I don’t have the boarding pass for the morning.”

“We don’t need the extra money, we have money in the bank, there is no need to overwork so desperately.”

“That money in the bank, we may need to ask father in law to lend us some, for buying a little house in the near future. I will earn as much extra as I can for the living expenses for you, please be patient; after we are married, I won’t take the extra shifts anymore.”

“Are you coming tomorrow?”

“I will certainly come. Tomorrow morning, can you go to the hardware shop to ask the cost of the wood we need? When I come back from work, I will quickly make a table for you.”

He gave me a strong hug in his arms and turned me back to face the way home. I slowly ran back home while I kept looking back at him; Jose was waving his hand at me under the stars in the sky from the far distance.

Sometimes, some of the families of Jose’s colleagues who had cars asked me out at night. “Echo, come over to our home for dinner and watch telly, we can drive you back home, don’t be stay bored alone at home.” 

I knew their good intentions were out of compassion, but because of my pride I refused them all. For a period of time, I was like an injured animal, any tiny little thing would drive me angry and even made me cry weakly.

The Sahara dessert was a real beautiful but it took a tremendous effort on my behalf to live in such an environment. I wasn’t tired with the desert, I was just feeling a little frustrated with the process of get myself used to it.

The next day, I took the list that Jose had written down before he left and went to the hardware shop to obtain a quote for the material he needed.

I had to wait a long for my turn and the member of staff took a long while to calculate the costs, he told me it would be over five thousand and the wood were also out of stock.

I thanked him and went out of the shop, I recognised my money wasn’t enough to buy the amount of the wood needed for making furniture. I wanted to go to the post office to check my post box next.

When I passed by outside of a shop in the plaza, I suddenly saw the shop had thrown out a lot long wooden packing chests, they were large pieces of wood with thin iron and nails attached and they looked like nobody wanted them. 

I ran back to the shop and asked, “Outside the empty wooden chests, could you give them to me?” 

After the words had spilt out of my mouth, my face blushed; I had never asked people in my life just for few pieces of wooden chests.

The boss in the shop gently asked me: “It’s alright, you could have them, take as many as you like.”

“I would like about five of them, would that be too much?”

The boss asked me: “How many people in your family?”

I replied but felt like what he had asked wasn’t a relevant question.

After I got the consent from the boss I immediately went to the square where the Sahara people normally gathered and called two donkey carts to transport the five empty wooden chests.

At the same time I recognised I needed extra tools, therefore I went and bought a saw, hammer, two kilograms of various nails also some rough rope and sand paper.

I was following behind the donkey carts and walked along whilst whistling. I had changed just as Jose had; after three months living in the desert, my past self had disappeared without me realising it. I was actually full of joy with myself because of these empty wooden chests.

When I reached home, the wooden chests wouldn’t fit through the door; I felt worried about leaving them outside my door afraid the neighbours would pick up my treasure.

That whole day, every five minutes I opened my door and checked my wooden chests were still outside. I made myself nervous just like that until the evening came and then finally I saw the shadow of Jose appear on the horizon.

I quickly went up to the rooftop and waved my hand to make our flag signal, he understood and ran back straight away. 

When he arrived at the door, he saw the wooden chests staked up covering the whole window, his eyes opened wide and quickly went to touch and inspect the chests.

“Where did all this good wood come from?”

I was leaning over the short wall on the rooftop and told him: “I asked for it, we better be quick to make a pulley to haul all of them up here before as the sky has not turned dark yet.”

That night, we ate four boiled eggs and made the pulley in the extreme chilly wind; the wooden chests were dragged to the rooftop and we took off the iron strips that wrapped around the wood, we had hit them real hard to undo the wooden chests. Jose’s hand was running with blood when he caught it on the nail; I held the big wooden chest and used my leg against the wall to help Jose separate the thick wooden panels from each of them.

“I was thinking, why do we have to make furniture? Why can’t we just act like the Sahara people who just sit on the mats for life?”

“It’s because we are not them.”

“Why can’t we change, I ask you.” I was holding three of the wooden panels and thinking this matter again.

“Why they don’t eat pork then?” Jose was laughing.

“It is a matter of religion and not a question of lifestyle.”

“Then why don’t you like eating camel meat? Is it because Christians can’t eat camel?”

“In my religion, camel is used for travelling and not for anything else.”

“That is why we are still relying on furniture to make us not feeling sad for living.”

This was a very bad explanation but I wanted the furniture for sure and it made me feel ashamed.

The second day Jose couldn’t come home and we had used up all his wages already, he worked hard to take on more overwork shifts and hoped we would live a stable life in the future.

On the third day Jose had still not made it here; one his colleagues drove over to tell me.

The wood on the roof top was fully two people high when I went to town early one morning.

However when I returned home it was only one and a half people tall. Some of the wood had been taken by our neighbours to make fences for their goats.

I could not just sit on the rooftop to guard it, instead I went to the rubbish tip opposite home and picked up some empty tins; I made a hole in them and hung them around the wood; if someone wanted to steal my treasure, the tins would make a sound and that make it easy for me to catch them.

I was deceived by the wind over ten times, when the wind blew, the tins rang like a bell too.

That afternoon, I tidied up some books in the cardboard boxes which had been sent from air mail, I unintentionally looked at few pictures of myself.

I was in a long formal dress and had a fur coat on over my shoulders, my hair I wore up with a pair of long earrings to match; I was on the way out from the opera ‘Rigoletto’ at the Berlin theatre; another photo of me was taken on a winters night in Madrid where I was out with a group of girls drinking red wine, singing and dancing at the small hotel in the old town. In that photo I looked very pretty, the long shiny hair slipped out on my shoulders while I was smiling away…..

I looked at the past pictures of me one by one, at the end I threw the pile of the photographs down and sank myself to the floor. I had the sort of feeling as if I was a single soul who was leaving the dead body and went up on high and was helplessly looking down at the family.

I couldn’t look back, the tins at the rooftop were calling me again, I needed to guard my wood; at that moment, nothing was more important than my wooden chests.

The process of life, no matter it was spring sun or winter snow or with only plain vegetables to eat, I wanted to experience all of it so that it would make the trip of this life worthwhile. (The fact being that was not even the plain vegetables that I could have here.)

Nothing seemed a big deal in this life.

I was reminded of some old Chinese poetry.

How many were as lucky as me to see ‘The long river and round sunset with smoke rising up straight’ - no long river here and the smoke certainly didn’t rise up straight.

Thinking it over again.........’A thin horse travelling on an ancient road, with the westerly wind and the sun setting on a heartbroken people walking at the end of the world.’

This sorts of scenario matched me better - but no skinny horses here only camels.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Friday was the day I was looking forward to the most, because Jose would be back home and staying until Sunday night.

Jose wasn’t a romantic type of person and I couldn’t get myself into it either.

All our considerations here were to improve the home’s environment and to overcome material difficulties and improve our spirits here.

I was stupid and had only one pot to cook dinner and so would have had to separate the food to make the second cooking; I had by now figured out an efficient way by mixing the uncooked rice with vegetables and meat and cooking all together, that way was much simpler and the cooking was all done in one go.

Friday night, under the candle light, Jose had drawn a lot of small drawings with different kinds of furniture and asked me to pick, I picked the simplest one.

Saturday, early in the morning, we wore thick jumpers and started working.

“Firstly we cut the wood to the sizes we need, you come and sit on the wood, that way I will saw it better.” Jose said.

Jose was non-stopping working, I wrote down a number on the wood that had been cut.

Hours and hours passed, the sun had risen high, I covered Jose’s head with a wet cloth and rubbed some protection oil on his bare shoulders. Jose got blisters on his hands, I couldn’t do much but I could press down on the wood and I fetched some iced water for him to drink, I also drove away the goats and children when they came barging in to see what was happening.

The sun was like a shone on us like molten iron sprinkles, I felt my head was slowly spinning under the sun.

Jose hadn’t spoken a word as if he was one of the gods who was pushing his gigantic rock as in Greek mythology.

I was very proud of myself that I had such a husband as that. 

In the past, I had only seen his tidy typed documents and love letters produced on the typewriter; but today I actually discovered a new him that I had never seen before.

After dinner, Jose was lying on the floor, when I came out from the kitchen, he had already gone to sleep.

I couldn’t bear to wake him up so I went up lightly to the rooftop and categorised the piles of already cut wood such as the ones for the table, the bookcase, the wardrobe and the little coffee table. It was evening when Jose woke up, he jumped up and angrily reproached me: “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

I headed down with no word, silence was the best virtue in women and there was no need to distinguish whether he was fit for work or not. The brain of Jose was made up of advanced cement.

About eleven at night, we actually had a table.

The next day was the Sabbath, and we should had stopped working and rested but Jose couldn’t rest in his heart if he hadn’t finished his task, so he continued non stop hammering on the rooftop.

“Top me up with more food now and I won’t need to stop to eat later in the evening. The shelving has to be shaped to the wall and that needs more time to do so.”

Jose suddenly looked up as he was eating, he was smiling away to me as if something had came up in his mind.

“You know what was these wooden chests were originally storing?  Martin’s driver told me about it the other day.”

“They were so big, probably they were used for transporting big refrigerators?”

Jose couldn’t stop laughing.

“Should I tell you, right?”

“Are they eventually for packing some kind of machinery?”

“They are for——coffins. The hardware shop has ordered fifteen coffins from Spain.”

I finally understood and also it reminded me why the boss of the hardware shop had asked me so gently about how many people I had at home. It turned out to be this reason.

“Are you saying, we are two alive people living close to the cemetery and using the packaging of coffins to make furniture…..”

“What do you think?” I asked him.

“I think it’s no different.” Jose wiped off his mouth while standing up, he went back to the rooftop and started working again.

This coincidence made me feel excited for a while but later thought it wasn’t the same and I was especially very fond of this new table.

A few days afterward, the court informed us we could finally get married.

We got married and rushed to Jose’s main office requesting an early morning transport pass, wedding allowance, housing allowance, tax deduction and my National Health insurance.

When we actually got married, this home had a bookshelf, a table, there was a long wardrobe that was already fixed in the bedroom, the kitchen had a little coffee table under the cooking area, a shelf for the sugar bowl and oil bottle; on top of that we a had new colourful strip curtain made of desert linen.

Guests had to sit on the mats if they came; we didn’t have a box spring bed frame either. The walls were made of hollow brick, it was crushed sand and hadn’t been plastered so it couldn’t have any paint on it at all.

After we were officially married, Jose’s company agreed to give us a 20,000 allowance for household items and a salary increase of seven thousand.

Also a housing allowance of six thousand five hundred each month plus they gave Jose half a month off for our honey moon. Tax had also been reduced,

This effected a big improvement on us economically just because we signed our names on the wedding certificate. Because of this I didn’t reject the tradition anymore, as marriage had it’s own advantages.

Our friends willingly covered for Jose’s shift, enabling us to have a whole month off which absolutely belonged to ourselves.

“Firstly, I want to take you to see the Phosphate Company.”

We sat in the jeep and followed the conveyor belt along from the mine. Afterwards we drove about a hundred miles until we reached the shore where the ships were loaded with materials which were exported from the mine. This was the place Jose worked.

“Oh god! This is like James bond movie! You are the 007 and I am the oriental bad woman in the film.”

“Isn’t it spectacular!” Jose said it in the car.

“Who is the contractor for this great project?”

“’Krupp’ the German company.” Jose seemed a little dejected.

“I could see the Spanish can’t complete a huge thing like this.”

“Echo, please do me a favour and shut up.”

During our honeymoon, we hired a guide, rented a jeep and headed west, we went through ‘El Mahbas’ to ‘Algeria’, then turned back to Western Sahara, from ‘Smara’ went into ‘Mauritanie’ until reached the border of ‘Senegal’, continued to drive along another road and went into the Western desert down to ‘Nouadhibou’; from there back to ‘El Aiun’.

From the first time we crossed the Sahara, we both immediately fell in love with her and couldn’t leave this bare land without any flowers on it.

When we arrived back to our sweet home, we had only one week left of our holiday; we started to work crazily hard to decorate our bare simple house.

We asked our landlord to plaster the walls but he refused; we went to the town and asked about the rent over there, all of them were above three hundred US dollars and so that situation wasn’t ideal neither. 

At night, Jose made a calculation and the next day he went to the town bought some plaster and cement, he borrowed a ladder and some tools for the work of DIY (do it yourself).

We worked days and nights, ate only white bread, milk and various Vitamins to contain our strength, but after coming back from our long travels without any rest, we quickly became skinny with bright big goggle eyes and unsteady on our legs.

“Jose, I can have some rest soon but you have to get back to work next week, couldn’t you make yourself rest for a day or two?”

Jose was on the ladder and not even looking at me.

“We don’t have to save money so hard and….I….I have money in the bank.”

“You know how much the builders hourly charge is here? I am doing the work not any worse than them.”

“You silly fool, you want to save all the money till our old age and then give it to our children in future and to let them throw it away in a bad way?”

“If we have children in the future, he has got to study and when he is twelve he starts working part time too, we won’t give him money.”

“Who is going to spend your money?” I lightly asked him under the ladder.

“It is to provide for the parents retirement, it’s for your parents, when we leave the desert and settle down ourselves, we can ask them to come to live with us.”

When I heard him mention about my far away parents, my eyes began to moisten. 

“Father and Mother are both considerate of us and have their pride, especially father he won’t be living aboard….”

“No matter he is willing or not, you go back to pull him here with your both hands, if they want to escape back to Taiwan, it will be a long while after that.”

Because of this castle in the sky idea from this super son in law, all I could do was to merely work hard to mix up the cement; the wet paste kept dropping down from the ladder, all over my head as well as my nose.

“Jose, you must learn Chinese quickly.”

“I can’t, this is the one thing I refuse.”

Jose was good for anything but just lacked much ability in languages, his French had taken almost ten years to learn, I could see he still couldn’t say much in French, not to mention about Chinese, I would not force him into this.

On the last day we painted the house inside and out with spotless white paint; it stood out from the crowd in the cemetery area, therefore there was no need for us to apply for a house number to the city council after all.

In July, we received an extra one months salary. (The work contract was for working eleven months but being paid fourteen months salary) Also the wedding subsidy and house rental allowance all came to us together at the same time.

When Jose came home from work, he ran up the short cut by the slope and once he stepped foot in the house, he pulled out all the money from every single pocket and threw it all on the floor, a big pile of green colour covered everywhere.

In my eyes, it may not be a big deal but for Jose, who had just started his working life, it meant something to him, especially as it was the first time in his life had earned that much money.

“Look, you look, now we can afford to buy a sponge mattress plus blankets, we can also have bed sheets and pillows, we can eat out and buy an extra big water storage tank, we can have new pots and pans, new tent…..”

Two money worshipping people were kneeling down to worship their money….

After we finished counting the money, I put eight thousand aside with a smile.

“What’s that for?”

“For buying some new clothes for you, you see, your long trousers have been burnished with shine, the collar of your shirts are also torn apart and holes all over your socks, as for a pair of shoes, you should have at least one pair of good decent ones. “ 

“I don’t want it, put the money towards our home improvements first then come back to decorate me later, good clothes are no use in desert.” He still wore to work a pair of old leather shoes that had a hole on the sole.

At home, I put some hollow bricks in the right hand corner of the room and placed a wooden panel from the coffin cases on the top; I had bought two thick sponge cushions, I put one against the wall, another I laid flat over the panel and covered it with a strip of linen the same colour as the curtains; I also sewed them all up with thread.

After all the work had been done, it became practically a real sofa and with the strong colour matching the stone wash white wall, it looked spectacularly bright and pretty.

As for the table, I covered it with a white tablecloth and put on it the small bamboo roll that mother sent me. My beloved dear mother, she even sent me the Chinese paper lampshade that I asked for.

I had received a ceramic tea set, my lovely friend Lin Funan had sent me a big roll of contemporary printed pictures and Mr Ping airmailed me a big box of books by the Crown culture corporation; when my father was travelling home from work on the way if he saw some weird posters, he would buy them and send them to me. My sister offered a tribute of clothing to me, as well as my brothers. They were most creative, somehow they found a Japanese Yukata for Jose which was like some sort of kimono bathrobe, when Jose put it on, he looked like the Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune who was one of the few male actors I admired most.

By the time, my mother’s Chinese paper lampshade was hanging up and the black calligraphy writing on the white paper of ‘Cloud Gate Dance’ by Lin hwai min was attached at the wall; there was an unspoken ambiance and mood being generated in our home.

With a home liked that a state of mind to purse continuous improvement towards reaching perfection was generated.

When Jose had gone to work, I painted the bookcase a darker wooden colour, it wasn’t the paint we normally used, it was a sort of brown dye which stained the wood, just not sure what it was called in Chinese. However it made the bookcase feel much substantially more solid.

I was so often self analysing myself; when humans were born they were put into different concept of social classes that were difficult to break free from in the beginning.

Things at my home were of a different level of Sahara people living standard, none of them was essential; as for myself, I couldn’t get rid of the chains and made the environment that surrounded me as complicated as the one before. I slowly felt myself slipping back to the ways of my past self. In other words, a position of sensual Romanism.

Jose went to work and I went to the rubbish tip opposite our home to pick up some old broken treasure.

I picked up a used old tire, cleaned it up and put it on the mat, I filled it up inside with a red cotton cushion that looked like a birds nest; whoever came to our home would grab this seat first and sat on it.

I also took home some big dark green big empty water bottles and arranged some wild brambles and thorns on the top, it was transformed into a strong sense of poetic suffering. As for different soft drink bottles, I bought some small tins of paint and coloured the bottles heavily in an Indian pattern. The camel skull was already displayed on the bookshelf. I also pressured Jose into make a wind lantern for me using some pieces of thin iron.

The nearly rotten goat skin I picked up and took home I dealt with using a method I learnt from the Sahara people, firstly using salt and then painting over with potassium alum, after that it became another mat for sitting on.

Christmas was coming; we left the desert for Madrid to visit my father and mother in law.

When we came home again, we brought with us the books that belonged to Jose from his childhood up to college; after that, we had the smell of books and culture at our little house in desert.

Poor civilised people could not chuck away these useless things.

I looked at the desert in a charmed way but the desert didn’t look back at me the same way I did. 

This home was lacking of any green in it because we hadn’t had any plants.

One night I talked to Jose.

“There are many things we don’t have, we will never satisfy all of our wants.”

“No, maybe that is so but we have to pick some up from somewhere.” 

That night, we climbed over the low wall at the Government House and used our four hands to desperately dig out plants and flowers.

“Quick, dug them in the plastic bag, quickly, I still need a big climbing vine.”

“Gosh, why this bloody root growing so deep!”

“Soil too, quick to throw some in.”

“Isn’t that enough! We have three plants.” Jose lowered his voice and asked.

“One more, just one more and that will be enough.” I was still pulling.

All of sudden, I saw the guard who stood in front of the Government House slowly came forward to us, I was scared to death, quickly stuffed the big plastic bag on Jose’s chest and called him hurriedly to me.

“Hug me, hug me tightly, kiss me with all your strength, the wolf is coming, be quick!” 

Jose held me in his arms at last; my poor flowers were squeezed between the middle of us.

The guard was actually rushing towards us with his rifle and we heard the sound of bullets being loaded. 

“What are you doing? Why are you two sneaking in here?” 

“I…..We are…..”

“Get out of here quickly, this is not a place for you to have love talks.”

We were holding tight with each other’s hands and heading to the low wall. God, I hoped the plants wouldn’t fall out when we climbed over the wall.

“Hey! Go out through the front gate, quick!” The guard was shouting again.

We were slowly running away while hugging each other, I even bowed lower than fifteen degrees to show respect for the guard.

A long time later, I told this adventure to the old Foreign Commander and he was laughing about it for a very long time.

I still wasn’t satisfied with our home as there was no music around, it was just like a waterfall was missing in a landscape painting. 

To be able to save money for a cassette player, I went on foot to the far away cafeteria at the ‘Foreign Corps’ to do the grocery shopping.

The first time I went there, I didn’t feel comfortable; I couldn’t bring myself to be like the other women messily grabbing anything in the crowd, I was queuing in line; after waiting in the queue for four hours, I had got a basket of groceries, the price was actually one-third cheaper than buying at the normal store. 

I went back there quite often and after all and the soldiers there observed that I was a woman who had been brought up with civilised manners, they actually stepped up to help me.

They even showed a bit of partiality towards me, when I had almost reached to the counter and not even squeezed myself in yet, they publicly bypassed the group of big fat rude women and asked me loudly: “What would you like today?” I gave my shopping list to them and not long after, they came back through the backdoor with my shopping in a tidy package; I paid the bill and ran out to call a taxi, when the taxi had not even stopped yet, the big military guys rushed over from some distance to help put my shopping inside the car. I was back home within just thirty minutes. 

There was several different kinds of soldiers stationed here, I was fond on the Foreign Corps especially. (That was the Desert Corps, I mentioned them before.)

They were manly and hard working, they valued the women who they thought should be respected; they fought the war but also they were elegant, every Sunday evening, the Foreign Corps own Symphony Orchestra played music at the City Hall Square, a variety of classical music such as ‘Die Zauberflote’, ‘A Night on Bear Mountain,’ ‘Bolero’ and often ending with ‘The Merry Widow Waltz’.

The money I was saving for the cassette player came from using  the ‘Foreign Corps cafeteria’. 

Televisions and washing machines were not attractive to me at all.

We had begun to save money again and the next target was a white horse (car), a modern horse could paid by instalments but Jose didn’t want to be a modern person, he insisted on paying it all in one go. Because of that, I could only walk by foot again and would wait between three and five months for it depending on our financial situation.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The only short cut to the town was by walking through the two big Sahara cemeteries. The way they buried people here was use cotton linen to wrap up the body and put it inside the hole in the sand, randomly covering it with rocks on the top.

One day I was routinely walking past the rocks and stepping carefully so as not to step on the sleeping people in order to avoid any disturbance. This time, I saw a very old Sahara man sat by the cemetery, I was curious and went up to see what he was up to, when I walked nearby him I discovered that he was carving stones.

Oh dear! There was almost over twenty stone figurines lying under by his feet, some of them had a three dimensional raised face, some of them were birds, another a posture of a child standing, a nude woman lying down with spread out legs and the private parts actually had a shape of half new born baby, many animals stone carvings, antelope, camel etc.......I was shocked and almost fainted, I bent down and asked him: “My great artist, are those for sale?

I reached out to pick up a face of stone, I couldn’t believe my eyes; what a creative form of rough and tactile of natural art, I had to grab it no matter what.

The old man lifted his head up and looked at me with a lost expression as if he was crazy. I took three of his statues and put a thousand note on his hand; I totally forgot the business in town and wanted to escape home straight away.

All a sudden, the old man made a hoarse noise from his mouth and chased me with a stumble; I held my stones tight and not willing to let them go.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me back, I asked him desperately: “Is it not enough? I have no more money right now, I will pay more for you, pay more ….”

He couldn’t speak, he just knelt down, picked up another two of his stone birds and put them into my arms; he let go of me after that.

That day I didn’t bother with supper I was just lying on the floor and toying with those great work of art from an unknown great artist, there were no words which could describe how touched I felt in my heart.

When my Saharan neighbours knew that I had spent a thousand for those stones, they were almost laughed themselves to death; they thought I was a completely idiot. In my mind, it was only a matter of different levels of culture which I was unable to communicate in the same language with them.

To me, it was a priceless treasure.

The next day, Jose gave me two thousand and I went back to the cemetery again but there was no trace of the old man.

Under the intense sun shining on the empty cemetery, there was no one around only sand and piles of rock. The five stone statues I got were liked a souvenir sent by a spirit, I was very much in appreciated having got them.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Not long after, the big square hole in our rooftop was finally covered by Jose.

Our home had a goatskin drum, water pouch also made out of goatskin, leather blow bellows, hookah, a big handmade colourful bed cover and some odd shaped stones that were formed by the blowing wind, the locals called it ‘Desert roses’.

Of all the magazines we subscribed to and had sent here such as Spanish and Chinese magazines, we made sure we had ‘The National Geographic Magazine’.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

After a year, our home became a real art palace.

When Jose’s single colleagues had time off from work, they never tired of coming to visit our home for a day, no matter how far away their homes were.

When the ones without a home came to visit us, I would do my best to give them supper or fresh fruit and vegetables to eat, I made sweet and sour ribs too.

Just liked that, Jose had made some real lovely close friends.

The friends who came to our home wouldn’t just arrive with empty hands, when their mothers from far away Spain sent them some ham or sausages, they never forgot to ask Jose to give some of them to me, they were people of conscience.

One weekend, Jose suddenly brought home a big bunch of expensive ‘Bird of paradise’ flowers, I slowly and carefully took them in my hands and was afraid once I took them in, the scarlet red bird would fly back to paradise. 

“It’s for you from Manolin.”

I felt I had received a present that was more valuable than gold.

After that, every weekend there was the ‘Bird of paradise’ burning itself in the corner by the wall. They were passed to Jose to bring home.

Jose’s books had always included subjects such as, prairie, wild life, deep ocean and how the night sky was established; he was never interested in exploring the inner self of human beings. He did read about it but he said the inner self of the human life shouldn’t be analysed in that way.

Therefore, although he would put fresh water, with an aspirin in it and cut the rotten stem of the ‘Bird of paradise’, the intention of Manolin, he didn’t notice at all. Manolin hadn’t come to visit us since the burning ‘Bird of paradise’ came to our home.

One day when Jose had gone to work, I went to the office and made an internal phone call to Manolin and said I wanted to see him alone.

He came to my home, I gave him a glass of cold soft drink and looked at him seriously.

“Please speak it out! Your heart will feel better.”

“I…..I…..do you still not understand?” He held his head with both hands, looking as if he was suffering in pain.

I thought back to the past and now I understood. Manolin, my good friend, please lift your head up!”

“I didn’t have any bad intention, I didn’t even hold on to any hope, please don’t blame me.”

“Please don’t send me flower again, alright? I can’t accept them.”

“Alright, I am going, please forgive me, I am so sorry for you and Jose, I……”

“Buggot, (I called his surname) you didn’t infringe me, you have given a big compliment and flattery to a woman, you don’t need to ask me for your forgiveness.” 

“I won’t trouble you again, goodbye…” he voice as low as if he was crying in silence.

Jose didn’t know Manolin had come here alone.

Another week had passed, Jose came home from work with a big cardboard box of books, he said: “Manolin is so strange, he suddenly quit his job, the company wanted him to stay till the end of the week but he wasn’t willing; these books have been given to us from him.”

I randomly took a book from the box, it was a book actually called ‘The Starry sky under Asia’.

My heart passed through a string of sadness.

After that, when any of our single friends came to visit, I actually paid little attention to them myself, I stayed inside the kitchen instead of putting myself in the middle and becoming the main core of the chatting and argument in any of their topics.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Our home had been arranged and decorated and was very clean, comfortable and pretty.

The free woman’s school I had opened from home was now on a long vacation.

I had taught the women who were my neighbours for almost a year but they were less enthusiastic about counting numbers, neither did they care about hygiene lessons, they didn’t even care about recognising money.

The reason they came everyday was to borrow my cloths, shoes, lipstick, eyebrow pen and hand cream; if not for that they liked lying on my bed in group because I had bought a bed frame, it was an exciting thing for them because at home they all slept on grass mats.

When they arrived, my home became chaos.

The books they wouldn’t read but in subjects such as celebrities like Jacqueline Kennedy, Aristotle Onassis etc they knew more than me; also they knew about Bruce Lee and some sexy Spanish actors and actress, the way they talked about them was as if they were counting treasures at home. 

When they had seen some pictures they liked, they tore the page out from the magazine; some of my clothes they also hid under their outer cotton garments and left without saying goodbye or asking to borrow them but would return them a few days later, dirty and with cut off buttons.

If they came to visit my home, there was no need for a script for any scenarios, they were self directed and watching their performance was like watching a thrilling breathless disaster movie.

When Jose bought a television home, no matter how hard they knocked on my door and scold me, I would not open the door anymore.

Although when the electricity came and television was the only medium to connect the outside dazzling world for us, I still didn’t like to watch it.

The countless amounts of washing clothes and sheets by hand was interrupted one day by a small tiny washing machine which arrived brought by Jose.

I was still not satisfied, I wanted a white horse, just like the one shown on the colour advertisements I had seen.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At that time, I had met many European women in the town.

I never had a habit of going around from door to door and dropping in to neighbours, but there was a middle age women who I got along well with and she was the wife of Jose’s boss; she had initially taught me how to make some alterations to clothes, reluctantly, just occasionally I visited her at the company executive staff quarters. 

One day, I went to her home for an advice on a western style dress that had a problem with the sleeves, coincidentally she had a big group of women at her home.

At first, she was very sociable with me because my background and level of education was higher than hers. (How vulgar, how could education judge people? What was the use of this education?)  Shortly after that I didn’t know who the fool was asking me: “Which staff quarters are you living in? We will visit you next time.”

I naturally replied them: “Jose is a Chief Officer, not a Manager, we haven’t been allocated a place in the staff quarters.”

“Surely we can still visit you! You can teach us English, what is the street you live on in the town?”

I said: “I live outside the town near the cemetery.”

The room suddenly went awkwardly silent.

The kind wife of the Boss immediately said to them as if she was protecting and defending me: “Her home has been refurbished very stylishly, I would never have thought that a rented house from the Sahara people could be so transformed and she did it by herself, it looks as beautiful as in the photos in magazines.”

“That sort of place I have never been to Ha ha! I am scared of infectious disease.” Another lady said.

I was not the type of person who had a low self-esteem but their words still hurt me.

“I think, coming to the desert, it would be a loss for anyone if they can’t have the experience of living a hard life with material difficulty.” I said it slowly.

“What desert? Forget it! We are living in these kinds of quarters, it doesn’t feel like living in the desert at all. As for you! It’s a pity, how come you are not moving to the town? Mixing with and living with the Sahara people—umphh—.” 

When it came time to say goodbye, Mrs Boos rushed out and said to me lightly: “You come again! You have to come again!”

I nodded my head with smiled, went down from stairs and ran back to my sweet little white house. I made a decision to myself, definitely not to move to the town.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

At the time, the desert ownership became a grey area because Morocco and Mauritania wanted to divide up the Western Sahara; journalists came here from many different countries with a large amount of camera equipment with them.

They stayed in the ‘Hotel Parador’, we naturally wouldn’t go to that sort of place; meanwhile, we had bought a car (my white horse), so we wouldn’t want to necessarily have stayed in the town at weekends.

One day we drove over fifty miles away from the town and we saw someone was waving hands, we stopped our car at once and went to find out what was happening to that person.

It turned out, his car was stuck inside in the soft sand and he needed someone to help.

We had experienced that before so immediately fetched out an old blanket, but firstly used our hands to dig out four shallow trenches under the wheels, then we placed the blanket behind the front wheels and asked that foreign fellow to start the engine; we pushed the car from the back.

Even the softest sand, if covered with a blanket, the wheels wouldn’t get stuck in it.

It took almost an hour before his car could be dragged onto the hard road.

This person was a journalist sent from the Associated Press, he insisted on inviting us for dinner at the Hotel Parador.

We were actually exhausted at the time, so had to decline his kind invitation and headed home. This sort of thing we forgot about completely by the next day.

Almost two weeks had passed and I was alone at home, under the window I heard someone said: “It won’t be wrong, this is the one, let us try this one.”

I opened the door and in front of me was the man we helped to push his car the other day.

In his hand he was holding a large bundle of ‘the bird of Paradise’ wrapped in glass paper. Another person with was introduced as his friend and colleague.

“Can we come in?” He asked very politely.

“Please come on in.”

I took his flowers to the kitchen first and came out with some soft drinks for them, slowly because I had a tray in my hands.

I heard this foreigner lightly speaking in English to the other one: “My gosh! Are we really in the Sahara? Oh Gosh! My goodness”

I went into the little room and they stood up and rushed to fetch the tray.

“Don’t be troubled with that, please do sit down.”

They looked around and couldn’t help but touch a stone statue that I had bought from the cemetery; they didn’t look at me just praised and marvelled.

Another one lightly pushed around and around in a circle with his hand a small bicycle wheel I had fixed on the wall inside. 

“Life in the desert, I merely like to play around with a little bit of Pop art.” I caught the wheel and smiled at him.

“Gosh! This is the most beautiful house I have ever seen in the desert.”

“Just recycling.” I proudly smiled.

They sat down on the sofa.

“Watch out! You are sitting on a coffin’s panel.”

They jumped up in surprise and lightly lifted the cotton linen to check out what was underneath.

“It doesn’t have a mummy inside, don’t be scared.”

After they had been for a while and they wanted to buy a stone statue from me.

I thought about it for a moment, took a stone bird and handed it to them; the bird had a touch of natural light red on the body.

“How much is it?”

“Free. It is priceless for someone who knows how to appreciate it; but for someone who doesn’t know it’s beauty, it was not worth anything.”

“We are….we mean we would like to pay for you.”

“Haven’t you just brought me some the bird of Paradise flowers? Let’s make it a trade and that’s alright with me.” They left with many thanks and appreciation.

A few weeks had gone, we were waiting in the town to watch a movie; suddenly a foreigner came over to us, he stretched his hand out and we shook his hand once while wondering.

“I heard another journalist from Associated Press said you guys have the most beautiful home in the desert, I thought I haven’t mistaken you for someone else?”

“You are not wrong, I am the only Chinese here.”

“I hope—if——if I am not being too intrusive, I hope I can visit your home and would like to make some references to it.

“May I ask you, who you are….” Jose asked him.

“I am a Dutch, I am delegated by the Spanish government to build some houses for the Sahara people; it is for the dormitory area, can I…..”

“You can, you are welcome anytime you want to visit us.” Jose said.

“Take photographs?”

“Yes, no need to worry about this little thing.”

“Can I also take photograph of your wife?”

“We are just ordinary people, don’t make that much trouble for you.” I immediately said.

The next day, that fellow came and he took a lot of photos, he asked me what did it look like when we first rented this house.

I showed him the photographs of when we moved in the first month.

He told me just before he left: “Please tell your husband, you have built a beautiful Rome.”

“I replied him: “Rome wasn’t built in one day.”

Humans are strange, you would never consider your own value if nobody told you.

That was the time, I was fully appreciated myself for living in a castle in the desert.

One day the landlord came and usually he rarely came inside our house. He came inside this time and he sat down, he was swaggeringly going inside and looked around everywhere in the house; he then said: “I already told you that you have rented the best house in Sahara, I think you have figured it out now!”

“May I ask on what business you have come today?” I asked him directly.

“This sort of standard of house, you won’t get it for the old rent you are paying now, I want….increase your rent.”

I wanted to tell him——”You are a pig.”

But I didn’t, not even one word; I pulled out a contract, threw it in front of him coldly and said to him: “You raise our rent, I will sue you tomorrow.”

“You——You——You Spanish bully our Sahara people.” He was actually more angrier than I was.

“You are not a good Muslim, even you pray everyday, your God won’t look after you, now you get out of here.”

“Just raise a little bit of rent and you insult my religion…” He shouted it loud.

“It’s you insult your religion, please get out of here.”

“I….I….You damn xxxxxxx…..”

I shut my castle and folded up my drawbridge, I refused to listen any scolding words from him outside my door on the street.

I filled up the room with the music on by Antonin Leopold Dvorak ‘The New world’.

As for myself, I slowly went and sat down on the round cushion over the tyre and felt like a Monarch.