My kingdom for a camel !
This week I escaped from Monaghan’s 4th largest workwear store to travel to London with my daughter Robyn and her friend Tristan to see Billie Eilish play in the Shepherds Bush Empire. We stayed with my old school friend Ronan and his family in Teddington. We explored London , visited Westminster , Buckingham Palace, Covent Garden, Neal St., Trafalgar Square, travelled on double decker buses, black cabs, the Tube and ate Five Guys, falafel, roast chestnuts, drank bubble tea, freshly squeezed orange juice, Lost Lager, no bubble 7 Up and lots of coffee.
So obviously today’s blog is about camels.
It was on our way home from Billie Eilish that our Uber driver, Ahmed, introduced the topic of camels. Ronan and I had had a few Lost Lagers by this stage so Ronan was having a lively conversation with Ahmed about his family history, working for Uber and at one point asked if he could be Ahmed’s brother.
“Do you like camels ? “ Ahmed asked.
Ronan looked at Ahmed, turned and looked at us in the back seat, then back to Ahmed and said yes.
“Then you can be my brother.” And they shook hands.
In the back I was sitting beside Robyn and as Ronan and Ahmed continued their loud discussion on the similarities between Irish and Somalian families, I said to Robyn “Did you know that there are more camels in Australia than there are in Africa ?”. Robyn looked at me and whispered “Please don’t say that to Ahmed.”
So I immediately turned to Ahmed and said “Ahmed ,did you know that there are more camels in Australia than there are in Africa ?”.
“NO ! No there are not ! That is a Western myth. There are 17.5 million camels in the world and most of them are in Somalia. Australia ?!?” Ahmed said the word ‘Australia’ with a spitting sound, and not a good spitting sound.
“Are you sure Ahmed ?” I asked.
“Yeah Ahmed, are you sure, I heard that too.” Ronan added. In the back of the taxi amidst the dark of a London midnight you could see the bright pink of embarrassed shame from Tristan and Robyn light up the dark.
This pink sub-light was quickly overshadowed by the burning redness of Ahmed’s indignation.
“Have you been to Somalia ? Have you ever seen a herd of camels ? I own a herd of camels ! I tell you that there are more camels in Somalia !” Ahmed was slightly vexed now.
“Can I have one ?” Ronan asked.
“Yes.” Ahmed replied. “Leave me a good review and you can have one of my camels.”
Again the two men shook hands and our conversation wandered through other highlights such as Ahmed’s lovely assertion that you should never trust and Irishman who has lost his accent.
When we returned home I looked up my Australian camel theory and discovered that Ahmed was correct but that the largest single herd of camels in the world is indeed in Australia. The wild herd in Australia now exceeds 700,000.
This in turn led me to discover that between 1856 and 1866 there was a Camel Corps in the US Army which was the brainchild of a Monaghan man called Kit Carson. Carson’s family had left Shanroe in Monaghan for America in the late 18th century. Kit was a frontiersman, explorer, mountain man , Indian agent, soldier and trapper. It was during his explorations of Death Valley that he hit upon the idea of a camel corps for transportation in hostile environments and his friend Jefferson Davis, Secretary for War, agreed. A US navy ship, the USS Supply set sail for the Mediterranean in 1855 to procure camels and their first port of call was La Goulette in Tunisia where they bumped into King Ahmed I bin Mustafa who agreed to sell them several camels.
The circle of life.
Toodles,
Paul
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