Ourtook \ i r / \


B E R B E R Add i who guided us


RICHARD EARLE, who lives in Burnley and is now training to be a journalist, looks back a year to a dramatic lew days in Morocco where he was working leading treks for adventurous holidaymakers.


Drama in the


I MAI) a l re a d y been leading walking expedi­ t io n s in Morocco for two months when my third group of the sea­ son arrived from Lon­ don for their Christmas trek through the .Jebel Sahro mountains.


p But nothing could have repared me for what hap­


pened during those two weeks of December, 1989. Everything had gone so


smoothly. I had met the group at Marrakesh airport and the following morning. 17 of us travelled south by minibus to N’kob, a remote village perched on the edge of the Sahara Desert. The contrasts between


new and old in this area are always striking. It is not uncommon to see TV aerials sprouting from the tops of mud houses, for example, and our translator for the trek, Mohammed, liked to start the walk wearing his traditional Djellaba costume — but he also liked to wear his Sony head-set and listen to Joe Jackson! We were accompanied


through these dry, desolate mountains by eight Ber­ bers, whose job it was to transport all our gear and equipment on the mules from camp to camp. Living outdoors is a great


equalizer, and there was a good rapport within the group ami with our mule­ teers, who only spoke their


own Berber language. b All was going too well to


e true — 'until, that is, we


reached our cam]) at Ber- kou, three days into the trek.


That night, sat around


the campfire, everything suddenly changed.


Carol, a PE teacher and


ex-gymnast from Kent, calmly walked up to me and showed me her hand. She had stumbled over some rocks in the dark and had


_


CAROL, second from right, looking over the Agge val­ ley the day before the accident with her thumb. 1


S a w — _______ ' c le a r ly disloca ted her


thumb. As I was taking her over


to the mess tent someone announced that Hannclore, who was from Switzerland, was a nurse. This was a relief for me and also, I would imagine, for Carol, but Hannelore had never had to “re-locate” a thumb


before! I think I was holding


Carol’s wrist as Hannelore successfully pulled her thumb back into place but, later that night, Carol suf­ fered some severe muscle spasms in her arm which caused her thumb to disco-


late again. We then spent over an


hour in Carol’s tent design­ ing and fixing a splint to


keep her thumb in place. It was a cold night and the


only light we had was from


our torches. P ra c t is in g bandaging


mock patients in a warm classroom now seemed like a joke. This was for real and we had to get it right! Finally, a bent spoon han­


dle wrapped in bandages seemed to do the trick. After a lot of thought,


and a long conference with Carol and Hannelore the following day, I decided that, if she wanted to, she could continue with the trek. It was not an easy decision to make in the


Rocky scenes typical of the trek.


what she had done to her thumb, or even where we were. I knew l had get her to a hospital. Seven hours on a mule,


knowledge that, just possi­ bly, the muscle spasms could return. Meanwhile, all this fuss


had somewhat bemused the Berbers, who were quite used to dealing with similar injuries — and worse. In fact, their homespun reme­ dies were reputed to be more successful than some treatments in city hospitals! For the next few days,


Carol’s thumb seemed fine. We all welcomed the respite and the black cloud that had so suddenly dropped over the trip began to disappear.


a The. jokes returned and, t night, after a tiring walk


over mountain passes or along dry river beds, we would exchange songs with the Berbers. The Berbers favourite was “Old MacDon­ ald Had a Farm.” and it did not take them long to learn the “Hokey Cokey.” They found it equally


hilarious to see us mimick­ ing their songs, which we clearly did not understand e i t h e r ! N o t t h a t it


mattered. But five days into the


trip, near Tamouline, Carol, suffered more menacing muscle spasms which finally led to another thumb dis­ placement. It took a mam­ moth effort on her part just to make it back into camp. The fact that she was occa­ sionally fainting was just


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another worry, which we put down to the shock and


pain. But that night Carol’s


health really seemed to deteriorate. She was in a lot of pain and, occasionally, losing consciousness. The painkillers were of no help. To.make matters worse,


the Berbers slaughtered a goat and several people,


even though thev were meat-eaters, refused to eat


it as a “sympathy vote" for


the goat. “Do they not realise that


all the pre-packed meat they usually buy from the supermarket shelf has to be actually slaughtered at some stage?” I thought. What had started as a


seemingly simple thumb injury was now turning into a crisis. Hannelore and I stayed up all night in an attempt to keep Carol con­ sc iou s . She could not remember where she was,


guided by two Berbers, got us to Iknioun by Christmas Eve. Meanwhile, Carol’s thumb had “dislocated” again and, this time, I had had to put it back myself. The mule ride played


he a v i ly on my nerves because, every so often, Carol would lose conscious­ ness and almost fall off, but the next moment she would


be fine. C h r i s tm a s m o rn in g


brought no respite. A souk


(market) being held in another town meant that there was no transport in the village but, finally, a truck arrived from Marra­ kesh and I paid the driver to take us to Boumalne. It was an agonising 1 Vi-hour journey along a dirt road. There was no X - r a y


machine at Boumalne and so on we went, by taxi this time, to the state hospital in Ouazazate. It was 3 p.m. on Christ­


mas Day when we were waiting for the results of the X-ray. I remember the time because we thought


Richard


about everyone at home lis­ ten in g to the Queen’s


Speech, while here W E were, in a Moroccan hospi­ tal, queueing up with injured soldiers who had been fighting against the Polisario in the south!


Finally it was our turn,


but our hearts sank as we watched a doctor begin to create a splint almost iden­ tical to ours. “Torn liga­ ments” was his diagnosis and he said Carol might need an operation but that she should wait until she returned to London.


Carol and I celebrated


Christmas as best we could and rejoined the group a few days later, to return by minibus through both snow and palm trees to Marra­ kesh for the flight home. Thankfully, we finished the t r ip w ith o u t fu r th e r incident.


I arranged to meet Carol


in London a few weeks later and we reflected on a trip that neither of us will ever forget. She said she is now back teaching gymnastics — and already planning her next trip to Egypt!. □


l


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