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June 2005 Newsletter
Howdy folks, thanks for your patience with the latest restructuring of my email list. The recent computer woes that led to the restructuring is also responsible for the overabundance of information herein; enjoy!
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OK, April was a fairly busy month. Camels Gobi and Richard, my 5-year old son Pecos and I visited Ft. Inge in Uvalde, Texas for their annual Living History Days April 15 and 16. 25 US Army camels visited this 19th century fort in 1857 on the Beale expedition, on their way from San Antonio to California. The modern Camel Corps was well received and the local school children that came to visit might have even learned a thing or two. Pecos was a big helper, organizing each school group and explaining how to pet a camel. To the delight of all, he debuted his new stunt: standing up on the back of a saddled camel and jumping, Superman-style, into my waiting arms. Big thanks to Steven and LaGina Evans for putting the camels and us up for a couple of nights. Great as always to see my buddy Gil from nearby San Antonio who traces his ancestry to some folks who were hired as civilian camel drovers near Camp Verde when the camels were there in the 1850’s and 60’s.
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On the 20th of April I had the pleasure of speaking in Houston, Texas at a diverse and influential women’s business gathering. The Sterling Group invited me to visit with them and share camel lore and I was honored to do so. Understandably, many of the members had no idea what "the camel guy" was going to talk about, but we all had a great time. I focused on the various aspects of my camel business and got to answer a lot of really great questions. How weird it was to have to stand in front of a group with no camels! Big thanks to Frances Moore-Jones for the invite and comfortable accommodations. Bigger thanks to River Oaks Country Club for letting a guy like me in a place like that!
Also, while in Houston, I met with Dick Doughty, managing editor of Saudi Aramco World magazine (www.saudiaramcoworld.com). This award-winning publication’s goal is to "broaden knowledge of the cultures, history and geography of Arab and Muslim worlds and their connections with the West." It is also available by subscription FOR FREE (check website for details)! Dick and I have a mutual friend in Lorraine Chittock, an incredible photographer, who’s shot and written in the past for the magazine. Check out Lorraine’s site: www.cats.camels.com. Lorraine and I have been kicking around a story idea that I’ve had for some time about camel saddles. My concept: this functional and oftentimes exquisitely ornamented apparatus is used by such diverse peoples as Tuareg in the Sahara, nomadic Indians in the Thar desert, Bedouin in Arabia and Mongols in the Gobi desert. It serves the same purpose for each culture, yet comes in so many varied forms, unique to each geographic region and as different as a toothpick is from a wagon wheel. Dick seemed intrigued with the the idea and Lorraine and I are in the pre-planning stages right now, submitting the actual proposal and figuring up preliminary budgets for travel to these regions! To say that I am proud of the possibility of having my research published in such a reputable publication is an understatement.
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The Clifton Lutheran Sunset Home, in Clifton, Texas got a visit from Gobi and Richard (and my son Pecos!) April 22nd. The residents of this facility enjoyed an education presentation during a beautiful afternoon on the front lawn of the Home. Many of the folks walked or wheeled by to pet and even kiss the camels! Pecos performed his soon-to-be-famous stunt (see Uvalde entry above) for the group. If we can get him over his shyness, I think he’ll be fine.
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April 29 and 30 I hosted Missy and Julie from New Orleans on an overnight trek in the Big Bend. What a hoot they were! We discussed everything from properly roasting cashews to skydiving with varying amounts of clothing (and the inherent risks associated with lesser amounts). Somehow we managed to find the time to work with camels! Gobi, Richard and Cinco were along for the trek and performed wonderfully. 11 miles over ranch roads and through creek beds. We saw one rattlesnake, but the mule deer and javelina were shy. We did get to see lots of color in the desert, from yellow blossoms on prickly pear cactus, Opuntia engelmannii var. texana, to vibrant red buds on the ends of ocotillo, Fouqueria splendens. Jimson weed, Datura stramonium, a highly hallucinogenic plant, was in full bloom. If ingested, any miniscule bit, from the roots underground to the tips of its white, trumpet-shaped flowers can get you a free helicopter ride to the nearest hospital. From where we were, that would’ve been 200 miles. Thanks to the ladies for eating only the cous cous, falafel and hummus! Also, thanks to Bo Stokes and Kathy Baum for support, photography and gate opening (and closing).
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The first 10 days of May, I was in Arizona, working for VisionQuest (www.vq.com), a residential treatment facility for at-risk youth. This is something I do each month and have been working with them and their camel herd for 7 ½ years. All of my Arabian camels have come from this herd. The neighboring town of Elfrida was having a rodeo parade and the kids and camels were a huge draw. I had a great time with Joe, Brandon, Eugene, Esteban and Deyoe, all youth in the program. They all listened very well and really bonded with their camels. I look forward to taking these boys out on an overnight CamelQuest in June.
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May 13th, Gobi, Richard and Pecos and I visited Acton Middle School, near Granbury, Texas for a day of education programs. There were approximately 7 other reenactment groups and the 7th graders we met were really receptive and well behaved. Pecos reprised his now famous "flying from the back of a standing camel" act, much to the delight of the school kids. Kudos to Mrs. Lee, science teacher at AMS and to Peg Hainey with Many Hats for organizing such a great event!
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This month takes me to Washington, D.C. for the Smithsonian Institution’s Annual Folklife Festival. This is my second time to be invited, the first being in ’02 to provide Bactrian camels for Kazakh herdsman. This year’s festival features the Sultanate of Oman and camels Richard and Ibrahim will make the 3,000-mile roundtrip journey. For two weeks (June 23-July 4) the camels and I are there to assist an Omani bedu named Mahmoud al Wahibi in demonstrating the role camels play in daily Omani life. If it’s anything like the last time the camels will see over a million people on the National Mall! The Smithsonian is such an unbelievably academic entity to be associated with and they bring experts from all over the world to give folks a total cultural immersion. Makes you wonder why they call me! Alan, Barbara, Jean and Pat- I hope to see you all there.
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Also in June, on Tuesday the 14th, I’ll be visiting First Baptist Woodway in Woodway, Texas for a Vacation Bible School program. Sharing stories with the kids about my own travels to the Holy Lands is one of my favorite things. I’ll also talk with them about the various adaptations that make camels so at home in the deserts of the world as well as the role that camels play in the lives of the people of these regions, both in Biblical and modern times.
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Finally, I thought the ultra-camel geeks among you (myself included) would appreciate the recent spate of wrongly-placed camels, geographically speaking, in a few recent movies. For the uninitiated, generally speaking, Arabian camels (one hump) live in Africa, the Middle East and India while Bactrian camels (two humps) live in Central Asia in countries like Mongolia and Kazakhstan. To show one in the other’s environment is as incongruous as seeing a tiger on the Serengeti Plain. So.... "Flight of the Phoenix" (a remake of a Jimmy Stewart film, starring Dennis Quaid), set in Mongolia, but filmed in Namibia shows hostile natives on Arabian camels. Right for Namibia, wrong for Mongolia. In "Exorcist- the Beginning", a prequel to William Peter Blatty’s "Exorcist", there are both Arabian and Bactrian camels. Set in Kenya and Rome, but shot in North Africa and Italy, the Arabians, some of them rare piebald (mostly white, with black and/or brown spots) camels were more or less at home (most in Kenya are Turkana or Somali breeds, none piebald). However, the beautiful white Bactrian camels were way out of place. Animal wrangler Pasquale Martino of Italy provided the Bactrian camels for this production and should have known better! Incidentally, he did the same thing in "The Passion of the Christ." Shame on him. I bet he loses sleep over this. Great geographically appropriate camel footage can be seen in the original "Exorcist", shot in Iraq, outside Mosul in the early 1970's as well as in Orlando Bloom's new one, "Kingdom of Heaven" about the Crusades-era battles over Jerusalem. By the by, Salah el Din (Saladin) receives the most fair treatment of a Muslim in the history of Hollywood. Bravo!
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Thanks as always for your interest in my camels and I look forward to hearing from you.
Doug
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