Accompanied by a caravan of camels, or as she likes to call them the carriers of her dreams, Dutch Arita Baaijens has been roving the deserts of Egypt and Sudan for the past 20 years. In her first English book “Desert Songs, published last year by the American University in Cairo Press, Baaijens has documented her long expeditions through amazing photographs along with her personal thoughts on the desert experience.
Baaijens has written a number of books in German and Dutch portraying the social transformation she witnessed in her two-winters-stay in Al-Farafra Oasis brought by the discovery of underground water nearby. She also wrote a book about the Darfur region.
Baaijens was in Cairo to sign her “Desert Songs at the Cairo International Book Fair. She sat down with Daily News Egypt to discuss her long fascinating journeys and how the desert changed her perspective on life and its meaning.
Daily News Egypt: How did the desert exploration project come about?Arita Baaijens: I have been traveling a lot during my biology studies to different parts of the world, but then with this, it is something else. The desert for me was a place I found very mysterious because normally nobody knows how to survive there, but obviously some people do like the Bedouins in Sinai.
Sinai was a place I really wanted to see because of the history, and the Bedouins there made me curious about their way of life and how it is possible to live in such an environment. So ever since I was in Sinai, I tried to find a way to go to the desert, and not just for a day or two, but to go into it and disappear from civilization for a while.
It took me a while, then I found this German guide who had his own camels here. So I went with him after buying a camel and for me that was it. It was like coming home in a way and it felt really comfortable. Then we had a bit of a problem because he was a very despotic khabeer [expert] and after a while I said I’d like to continue on my own. So I took my camel, a compass, and a map and it was very scary because I’ve never done anything like that before. This was the first time I was alone for such a long time and something happened to my mind. If you don’t talk to people for a while, then you begin to wonder “who am I if there is nobody around to reflect me?
Why the desert?I can only say the desert is a place I wanted to be and it is hard to explain it especially me coming from Holland. You’d think I’d love green places, water, and stuff which is also nice but the desert is a place I had to be. I sacrificed quite a lot to be able to lead this life. I gave up a very well paying job and a comfortable life and what I got back was a lot of insecurity but also this type of life.
Is it a big decision?It is but it’s the best one I took. I think if you are prepared to give up everything for something you really think is important, then you feel very free because nobody can make you afraid. Since I’ve done that I feel very strong and I know I can survive anything.
In your book, you mention how some things you take for granted in society tend to vanish in the desert, the “false certainties. Can you explain?I give a lot of lectures and talks in Holland and people ask me “why did you give up this and that? and I tell them “it looks as if I lead a very insecure life . but look at the current economical crisis, people lose it overnight. This is why I think people like nomads and me are better prepared because we don’t expect security. We are professional survivors but we have a lot of freedom because we don’t expect it to be easy. There is no recipe for life but this fits my character.
Your Bedouin portraits are stunning. How did you manage to get rid of the artificiality usually associated with similar photos?In these photos, the Bedouins are not posing; this is their life and they are very proud people. Life in the desert is tough. You can’t pretend there. There is this honesty that comes with living there.
In your book you quote the British desert explorer Wilfred Thesiger saying “the harder the life, the finer the people… I wouldn’t say they are better people but [with them] a lot of the, excuse my language, BS is gone. They steal and do a lot of things they shouldn’t do but as a woman I am nowhere safer than with them, because they are used to do without many things: food, water, sex. So they are not so frustrated as a lot of people I meet here. In Darfur, they would kill me for my camel but they wouldn’t touch me or rape me. This is a code of honor that took me a while to trust.
How do you compare the way the desert affects the Bedouins spiritually to the way it influenced you? I can’t talk for the Bedouins. For myself the desert changed me 180 degrees. Before going there, I was very career-minded, not wanting to miss out on anything, but being there you realize how small you are. It makes you humble and I found out I am much stronger than I thought. You look death in the eye and it makes you wonder if what you are doing now is the best way to celebrate this precious life.
It shakes me as it is very honest. It doesn’t have any hypocrisy in it. It says “I have no nice trees or rivers or anything. This is me. Take it or leave it.
Are you planning future explorations?I decided after 20 years of desert to switch to Siberia. I went last summer and I will go back there and travel on horseback and on camel through the Siberian landscape because I am curious to know about another culture and history. I need a challenge but for me I am not so nervous anymore. I will keep coming back to Egypt though; I really needed a change so this book is a kind of goodbye to what was very important to me. I will never go back to the desert the way I did when I started. For me it was an obsession but this phase is over and a new chapter is waiting.Caption 10-1: After a long day of walking, Arita Baaijens, Sahara, and Hassan rest. “Soon the golden rays of the sun will set the dunes aflame, and later on the moon will bathe the earth in silvery light.
