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somali illegals, underexposed

When life itself seems lunatic who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is ...and not as it should be
Cervantes

Somali illegals I stumbled upon, on their way to secret hiding places in the Jebel Samhan. I must have been scared and excited, because I mucked up the exposure with this one shot they allowed me to take, for a price.

My new-found friends at Hasik had told me about them over dinner, but it sounded so unbelevable I thought they were just trying to impress me. But it's all true: bands of Somali refugees, perhaps hundreds, hide in these furthest reaches of southern Arabia. They have fled civil war in Africa, crossing over to Yemen by boat, and then making their way across countries by back roads and on foot through the mountains.There are only grown men among them ~ the rest of the family remains in Somalia, perhaps surviving on what these bands can send back by smuggling frankincense.

The villagers had warned me of running into them. They were dangerous, they said, perhaps armed, and most certainly wary of any contact. I had ventured out at the crack of dawn, driving out of Hasik to the end of the road, where I turned into one of the wadis that lead into the Jebel Samhan, hoping to shoot the mountains. But my path was blocked a curve ahead by the rocks, stream and undergrowth you see here. And that's when, from the corner of my eye, I saw the first figure silhouetted against the sky, walking into the wadi from the entrance I had just taken.

As I turned to face the figure ~ now three of them ~ they froze, and we stared at each other, not knowing what to do next. They were perhaps 20ft above the wadi floor, and I would have to pass under them on my way out. The most obvious thing to do would be to get back in the Land Cruiser, lock the doors, and roar out. But that would have also made me look the silliest, so, instead, I closed the door and walked away, around a bend, where we couldn't see each other. If they came over it meant they were fine with contact, if not it meant that they had reason to avoid me. But after a few minutes sitting blind it didn't seem such a good idea: right at that very minute they could be doubling back behind me, or somewhere on the mountain above me, on trails I didn't know about.

So I walked back to the 4WD, and found them sitting down where I first saw them, looking at me. I locked the car and started walking straight towards them, in plain sight, with hands to my sides. They didn't move, and when I got under them I shouted a greeting in Arabic, asking them to come down. They seemed immediately friendly, walking down, shaking hands and sitting around me. They lived in caves in the mountains, perhaps a day's hike from where we were, and snuck into villages like Hasik at night, for provisions. They must be doing black market business with the locals around, going deep into the mountains to harvest frankincense. And they all carried cellphones, which they would hook up to car batteries in the mountains for charging.

It was a mistake agreeing to pay them for the photograph. The atmosphere changed immediately once money entered the conversation. They had been joined by another, and were four: easily capable of taking my money, car and equipment. But I knew their existance here depended on them staying away from trouble, and the police. That didn't prevent them from starting to ask for my watch, or anything else they fancied. I didn't quite know how to get out untill a local drove up in a pickup, someone they obviously knew and were doing business with. That's when I got out, while they milled around him.