Page 69 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition

surprise started to rise higher in the water, probably because their
bases had swollen. HP became optimistic and suggested that we
might end flying across the ocean like a Zeppelin. As the weeks
passed all the reeds in fresh water sank quite insignificantly; those in
salt water not at all.
But as the Aymaras started the ship-building we ran into a no less
dramatic water problem on dry ground.
4Maku mail There is no water!’
This was the first Arabic I learnt. We heard it every day. Then:
1Aku mail There is water!’ This was the standard phrase of our little
Arab engineer, Mr Ramsey, who happily shouted back to us from
the resthouse roof.
Without water the berdi was as brittle as a match and broke if we
bent it. Since green berdi was worse still, the reeds had to be sun-dried
first, but then drenched on their outside to become pliant before they
could be tied into mats and bundles. With Baghdad and other major
cities upstream, the river Tigris was probably so polluted that it
might affect the dried reeds if we daily poured bucket-loads of river
water over them. This we reluctantly did at the beginning. But Mr
Ramsey solved the pollution problem: he had two big tanks brought
from Basra and, after endless problems, installed on the roof. They
were pumped full of filtered drinking water from Qurna, and Sr
Zeballos could spray the reeds and bundles all day long. But the
pipelines of the resthouse passed through the same tanks, and the
busy kitchen department and crowded guest-rooms competed with
Zeballos and his thin rubber hose.
‘Maku mai!’ Zeballos and all the rest of us learnt to yell in despair
as the bone-dry reeds cracked under our feet. ‘Aku mai!1 we heard a
moment later from the little man wielding the big pliers on the roof.
His happy message was not infrequently followed by an angry roar
1
from some soap-covered television man or journalist under a
shower that had run dry. I was so afraid of losing Mr Ramsey that
on one occasion I dragged him out of his car as he tried to escape for
' a day’s visit to Basra.
Before we moved into the Garden of Eden Resthouse, the
Ministry had generously offered to close it to all but men of the
expedition group. This I refused to accept as I knew that the big
restaurant hall and the adjacent riverside terrace were the favourite
meeting places for local people. The Mayor and other officials of
Qurna, as well as the incredibly large number ofschool teachers from
the marsh area, used to come here in the evenings and on Moslem
holidays to enjoy a cup of tea or a cool Iraqi beer, and I knew the
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