Lehmada

Saharawis joke that Allah has endowed them with two things: unlimited sand and sunshine. Enough to share around; too much to bear. With temperatures climbing above thirty degrees Celsius at night, the AC units—for those fortunate enough to have them—begin fanning the heat away. During the day, even they succumb to the heat, leaving the humans to simply tough it out. For that, they have had a solid half-century of practice.

The land that gave them refuge is known in the local Hassaniya dialect as al-ḥamāda—the land that does not support life. Given the binary choice between death at the hands of the invading Moroccan army and this barren desert Mars-scape, the choice was anything but.

After 24 hours of airplanes, airports, and two military escorts, I finally get a full three hours of shut-eye. I step outside for a little tour, and near-panic sets in. My northern lungs, born in the land of rain and well-adjusted to dripping-wet air, struggle to inhale the dusty, parched Saharan air.

Everywhere I look, a near-monochrome expanse of sand and dust stretches for hundreds upon hundreds of kilometres, entirely untroubled by greenery or growth. The guide casually mentions that bandit gangs operate in the desert around us, hunting the white Western flesh that, when kidnapped, might earn them a handsome ransom. Breathing normally becomes more difficult still—I have an entire month ahead of me.

A month of living in and photographing the future: the scenery looks like a carbon copy of a Hollywood dystopia. Discarded car skeletons dot the scorched earth wherever I gaze. Modern technology is intertwined with creatures and methods of the past—a donkey standing beside a Michelin sign, sad-eyed camels staring at the vehicles that replaced them, waiting to be slaughtered and served for dinner. If climate scientists’ predictions are even close to the truth, this is the landscape and lifestyle that we will soon call our own.

On the way back to the so-called First World, I am convinced that the Saharawi joke is far from the truth. For Allah has been far more generous than that: along with the sun and the sand, he blessed them with inexhaustible sumud—Arabic for resilience—larger-than-life humanity, and unbreakable family bonds that bloom with every child born into this unwelcoming land.