The only traffic along the asphalt road, other than rig supplies or roughnecks every two or three days or the plow that cleaned the blowing sand from the road weekly, was an occasional train of Bedouins following their belongings packed in huge bundles on the backs of camels.
I’d start out in the coolness about three in the morning which usually put me back to the compound at the beginning of the heat around seven. Halfway through a run in the last month I was there I noticed a fire in a certain part of the drilling site that usually didn’t burn. It was a small fire and was quickly taken care of after I reported it to the tour. The guys just walked out there with an extinguisher and put it right out; the ordeal was over in a few minutes. We rejoiced at the luck. Then I spent a few more minutes visiting woth the tool pusher on duty that day. I may have delayed my run a total of an hour but it wasn’t any more than that.
Soon after I started back I noticed the heat was as intense when I started as itusually was when I finished. Then after a couple of miles I realized I had forgotten to fill my water bottle at the rig. At first I panicked a little and nearly decided to go back. Then I made up my mind to go on without it. I’d just be real thirsty when I got home.
In the next three miles the sun was beating into my face and caused sweat to pour. It was still another mile and a half before I admitted to myself the magnitude of error in not returning to the rig for water or better still, a ride. After the initial mental panic was over I decided all I could do was tough it out and continue to jog slowly; the heat was already unbearable.
I made it one more mile then saw the Bedouins, burnoosed in heavy black robes carrying bolt action rifles like sickles for so many reapers grim, traveling along the side of the road. My heart jumped at my fortune, I knew they’d give me water enough to make it to the compound. I came up behind them and waved to attract their attention. The very last man leading the very last camel stopped and acknowledged me with a raised palm. In broken arabic mixed with hand-signals I managed to get across to him that I wanted a drink. While I was speaking, the rest of the troop of fifteen men leading ten camels and three women riding camels gathered in a large half circle around us. The man began speaking arabic so rapidly that I couldn’t gather any of it other than that he had repeated “Miya,” the Arabic word for water, about six times. Then he turned to the crowd around us and spewed more arabic even more rapidly still saying “Miya” several more times. This only served to get the crowd murmuring seven arabic conversations all of which convulsed with the word “Miya.”
The sun was getting hotter, my tongue swelling, I had stopped sweating, and my head ached with the first sign of heat exhaustion. I was getting nowhere with the Bedouins. I asked for water again this time being certain I added, “Mumkin shwiyit Miya,” or, “Please give me water.” The stare I recieved told me I was pleading a lost cause. Just as I started to trot away the Bedouin to whom I had been speaking took hold of my arm and pulled me back. He held on to the barrel off his rifle so that the butt nearly touched the ground and guided me behind his camel then he raised the camels tail and pointed to it’s vagina. “A funny Bedouin,” I thought to myself.
He spoke more arabic as I turned to leave again. He stopped me and said something in arabic to his friend whoimmediately came toward us and took the man’s rifle. The first Bedouin then raised the camel’s tail, the camel lowered her her almost to ground level while the one who held the rifle gave some order to the camel and poked at her face with the butt of the gun. The camel began to urinate as the first Bedouin made a cup of his mouth and let the urine fill it. Just as he got a mouthful the second Bedouin gave another order to the camel and brushed at her face with the butt of the rifle. The stream stopped abruptly. The first Bedouin then looked at me with great sincerity as he held the urine in his mouth. He swished it slowly from side to side and grinned a small grin then puckered his dry, cracked lips tightly to hold the liquid in his mouth. While he held it, he started making small gestures with his hands in front of my face. The second Bedouin chanted slowly in the background while the first Bedouin, still holding the camel’s urine in his mouth, gestured and pointed from my chest to my mouth, then back to my chest. Finally while the second Bedouin chanted his barely audible humm the first Bedouin held his hand to his own mouth making the quite symbol with his cracked leathery fingers. He pinched my lips shut then gestured back to my heart. Still holding the urine in his mouth he made a sign with two hands like aligator jaw; he wanted me to open my mouth. I was sickened. When I parted my lips to tell him I wasn’t going to drink the urine he started spurting a small stream from his mouth. It hit my face warm and made me wretch at the stomach and I turned to leave, just as I did he spit what remained in his mouth to the ground as though it were poison.
The entire crowd began to murmur lowly as though surprised by my disgust. As I trotted away I could hear their displeasure. My face was still wet from the camel’s urine. If there had been any moister in my stomach I would have heaved it. I trotted as quickly as my weakened legs could go. I wouldn’t have been surprised had a shot rang out from behind me as the murmuring seemed to get louder as the distance grew greater. Just as the cold chills and aching in my shins reached unbearable heights and my stomach pulled inward and like a dried fig, I made it back to the compound.
When I woke to the humm of air-conditioning from my nap I still felt feverish and took in slow cool drinks of water then spent the late evening relaxing on the balcony of my apartment. From the railing I could see the front gate being opened and the Bedouins coming into the compound. There was great commotion around them and people began helping the women from the backs of the camels while someone else brought water to them. The man who had spit urine in my face fell to his knees and began kissing the hands of everyone who brought water. The other men would rotate between kneeling, bowing at the waist, and drinking. In all it was obviously a big to do. I watched the scene and the Bedouin’s chanting filled my mind then I recalled my own words: “Mumkin shwiyit MIya.”
The thought of the man spitting urine in my face while I sipped at my water sent me heaving on my kness in the cool porcelain bathroom. I rested my feverish head against the coolness of the seat. I was burning while I looked into the bowl and watched the bile from my stomach float on the water.
That evening I heard that the bedouins originally numbered over thirty when they were set upon in North Yemen. Their water was stolen because of their politics and they were chased into the desert to die. They had survived, it was speculated, by some ancient-secret: A Bedouin technique of finding water where there was none.