Desert Therapy

DESERT THERAPY

Tunisia, 2005

In 2005, my partner and I spent two weeks in Tunisia. I’d traveled for a month in Tunisia over thirty years earlier, and felt confident we could figure out an interesting trip without guides and a planned itinerary. Mary Ann was wonderful with guide books, and I relied on “serendipity,” feeling that the best things came to us if we were open and aware; we didn’t have to plan them in advance. Combining our two methods, we were sure we’d be fine.

Mary Ann had read of a desert oasis, or palmerie, in the west of Tunisia, where we could rent tents and sleep on the sand under thousands of palm trees. It sounded like a place we’d love, and the driver we hired was happy to take us there.

When we arrived the palmerie, we were disappointed. It seemed that hundreds of Germans had the same idea as we did, but they were there to race out onto the desert in their dune buggies. So I invoked my travel motto, "Something is either a stepping stone or a stumbling block, depending on how you put your foot down," and was confident that we'd find something of value in the experience.  

After a raucous night of German revelry, the following morning opened with the bluest of skies, and a warm, fresh breeze. Endless miles of sand stretching out in dune after dune, the sameness broken occasionally by a few palm trees or a long chain of camels led by a herder in a jellaba, its hem drawing patterns in the sand as it trailed behind him.  

While Mary Ann slept, I walked up onto one of the dunes, where a young man, Mustafa, was showing off his herd of camels to some of the German tourists, trying to talk them into a camel ride. Short, he was dressed in a white jellaba, with a broad smile, and dark, curly hair covered in a long red scarf that formed a cape over his shoulders. When he saw me, he approached me and asked my name, speaking to me in French. Although my French was a little rusty, we started a conversation.  

“What do you do?” he asked, more direct than I’d expected.

“Une psychologue,” I replied.

“Oh, a psychologist! Well, come with me. I have something I need to talk to you about,” he said, and, forgetting his potential camel-riding customers, he grabbed my hand and led me out to a distant dune. We sat cross-legged on the sand, the sun beating down on us, in the distance a caravan of camels sauntering with their camel driver, a vision that shimmered through the morning heat. 

Solemnly, he began his story:

“When I was twelve, I fell in love with Zainab, and she, with me. We loved each other so much! We planned to get married, although we didn’t know how we would manage it, as marriages are planned by parents in our village. One day we secretly met and made a vow that, even if our parents wouldn’t allow our marriage, we would refuse to marry anyone else.”

Uh-oh, I thought—I can see I’m in trouble here. I know barely anything about the marriage customs in Tunisia….

The only thing I knew was that, almost 35 years earlier, they were arranged. I was on a train heading for Souss when I met Najia, an energetic woman of 20, with no veil covering her head of curly black hair. She wore a mini-skirt and a revealing blouse and approached me with curiosity--a single blond woman, riding alone on a train. We began talking, and I learned she was a social worker, the change agent in a tiny Bedouin town, El Ala. When she learned I’d also been a social worker, she invited me to visit her in her village. I immediately changed my plans and told her yes. Serendipity, I reveled, a chance to see Tunisia from the inside! 

Two days later I was in El Ala, where I stayed for ten days. While there, Najia told me about one of her informal functions in the village, a “practice” of meeting young couples who came to her. They were in love, and could she help them? She described her method of "help" to me. She would go to visit the girl’s parents and off-handedly say, “You know, that Muhammed has a good head on his shoulders. I’m sure he’ll go far in the world.”  And then she would visit the boy’s parents, and mention, in passing, “Have you seen that Fatima lately? She’s becoming more and more beautiful. And she is such a good cook!” Najia would keep up this subtle campaign until the parents agreed to the couple’s marriage. Everyone was happy--the parents believed they'd arranged the marriage, and the couple married the person they loved.

I wondered if this thimble-full of knowledge would have any bearing on Mustafa’s problem. I decided the best thing was to wait and let him tell me more about the situation.

Mustafa continued. “But Zainab’s parents refused to let me marry her! And they haven’t let me see her since she was 15, five years ago.”

“Oh, that must be terrible for you!” I said, adding absolutely no information but establishing, hopefully, that I was listening well and was on Mustafa’s side in this problem. “Do you know what’s happened to her since then?”

“No! And that’s what drives me crazy!” He was close to tears by now. “I don’t know if she’s broken our vow and has married someone else or if she still dreams of me, as I do of her.”

At this point, I decided that asking more questions was the safest route for me to take. 

“Do you know why her parents wouldn’t allow you to marry her?” I asked.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s because they wanted her to marry one of her cousins, who is rich. But I have been working very hard with my camels, and I am saving money so that I can buy even more camels. Now I am also rich.” His voice rose with pride as he spoke and his spine grew two inches.

“What does your family think about this?” I asked, hoping to buy a little time.

“My father says that he’ll support me if I take her to run away with me. I was so happy when he told me this,” Mustafa reported, a little less distraught. “But I don’t even know where she is, or if she will do it!”

“Is there anyone you know who can find this out?” I asked, trying to bolster my understanding of all the possible elements in the story.

“Well, I have a friend who might be able to see her. He used to live near her. He also supports me and hopes that we can marry.”  

“Do you know anyone else who could help you?”

“No, my friend is the only one I can think of.”

I had run out of questions. What could I tell this poor young man? If Zainab was now 20, it was likely she was already married, and Mustafa was holding on to an empty dream. I didn’t want to be the one who destroyed that dream, but I knew I’d probably have to, in the softest way I could think of. I thought for a moment, searching for something, anything, that might help Mustafa. Then I remembered a Broadway show I’d seen decades earlier, Kismet. I’d learned the Arabic meaning of that word—destiny, or fate. It gave me an idea.

“Do you believe in destiny?” I asked.

“Of course I do. I’m a good Muslim.”

Great! I’d found a way in.

“Then here is what I suggest. You do everything possible to find out if Zainab is still waiting for you. Maybe your friend can help you with that. If she is still unmarried, you find a way to ask her if she is willing to run away with you. If she is willing, you make your plan, and you run away with her. As you said, your father will help with that. But if she is not willing, or if she is already married, you accept that Zainab is not the woman you are destined to marry. It may be very hard to accept this, but destiny is stronger than any man’s or woman’s feelings, and in the end, doing it is what you must do. And, if it is truly destiny that you do not marry Zainab, then there is some woman out there, destined to marry you, who is waiting for you to let go of your wish to marry Zainab. You must find her, and know that in the end, you will be happier with her than you would have been with Zainab.”

“Oh…yes, I see…that is the advice I have needed to hear! Thank you! Thank you!”

Smiling, Mustafa rose and held out his hand to help me up from the cushiony dune. “Now I must get back to my camels! Thank you so much!” He shook my hand, turned, and ran off. I stood, watching him hurry back to his herd, awed by our conversation and how it had ended.

In a daze, I walked back to the campground where Mary Ann was waiting for me. Had that encounter actually happened? Had I actually been able to give advice to a young Tunisian, on a desert sand dune? 

Maybe it was our destiny to meet and to have that serendipitous therapy session on a sand dune in the Tunisian desert. Although I have no idea if there is such a thing as kismet, it makes as much sense as anything.