Kindlingers, this week’s is a gentle issue.

I’m pondering making this a monthly newsletter instead of fortnightly so I can write other things as well as this… well more other-things than I am currently.

It’s well and truly the busy end of the year and my birthday month, no less, so these may slow down for a bit, if that’s okay.

Enjoy this story, I feel like it could be an even longer short story with a romance or a murder in it?

Everything was covered in sand. Her eyes, her scalp, her tongue. It had been a long day driving past oases, and Paulina wanted nothing more than a shower and a sleep. She didn’t mind the bumpy road, or the driver’s frugal use of the air conditioning – what bothered her most was the sand.

In the whorls of her ears and the folds of her underwear. Between her fingers and crunched between her teeth. No matter how often she brushed and wiped at herself, there was no ridding herself of it. Where she came from, the worst she had to suffer was polluted air or the suffocating humidity of the underground.

When they arrived at the camp, the sun was sitting on the dunes that made up the horizon. Squinting against the low sun, she stepped out onto a carpet laid flat on the sand. Two rows of tents faced each other ahead of her.

‘Your bags,’ the driver said.

‘Shukran.’ Her smile was wasted as the driver turned to hop back in the driver’s seat. She heard him speaking Moroccan Arabic to someone she couldn’t see. He tooted and waved as he U-turned back the way they came. Paulina watched the car dissolve into the landscape.

‘Salam alaikum – welcome to the Sahara! I am Amira. You can take your bags to your tent and have a look around. Dinner is in two hours, you can meet the others in your group then. You’re Paulina, yes?’

Amira was beautiful in the way anyone with confidence was beautiful. She was about her height and wore blue, traditional garments.

‘Yes, I’m Paulina.’

Amira nodded and crossed something off on her clipboard. ‘Marhba Paulina, your room is this way.’ She gestured with one hand towards the line of tents.

‘Shukran,’ Paulina said again inclining her head.

They’d laid carpets from the drop-off point all the way to the door of her tent, so she was able to roll her suitcase with relative ease. She chided herself for bringing a suitcase with wheels to the Sahara.

In her tent, she put on a fresh set of clothes and shook the sand out of her travel fit. She supposed everything would be seasoned with Moroccan sand soon enough.

Your Revitalising Moroccan Retreat – a copy of the brochure she’d read the contents of online had been left on her pillow. During her flight to Fes, she’d tried to picture herself standing in the place pictured in the brochure. Looking at the brochure again, she recognised the location immediately. It was the carpet her driver had left her standing on.

At dinner she met the five others in her group – three other Brits, a Kiwi and a Frenchman. Amira gave them a brief outline of what the retreat would entail. There’d be Moroccan whiskey (tea), meditation, and sunrise and sunset camel rides. For five days the six of them would use the backdrop of the Sahara to look inwards. The official schedule started tomorrow. Amira would be their main guide while her brother, Ismail, would take them out on the camels.

They explained that they were Tuareg – Amazigh. Nomadic, indigenous people of Northern Africa. Their brilliant blue robes were what most foreigners knew them for. Paulina tried to picture the nomadic life of a Tuareg person. She hadn’t thought people were nomadic anymore.

The Frenchman, who introduced himself as Noah, asked if Amria and Ismail wouldn’t rather be travelling with their family than here with us.

‘Our family has been in their current location for two months. After this group has left we will join them for a time.’ Amria spoke as if she had to field this question often.

One of the Brits leaned over to whisper to Paulina. ‘Trust our white guilt to make us feel like we’re forcing them to be here.’ He rolled his eyes. Paulina laughed to cover the fact that she’d been thinking exactly that.

‘I’m Paul,’ he continued, holding out his hand for her to shake.

‘Paulina.’ She took his hand trying to smother a laugh at his expression.

‘Stop it. Twins!’ Paul gave her arm a squeeze and turned his attention back to Amira.

A lot of their time at the retreat was to be spent meditating. Amria and Ismail had established meditation zones at various distances from the camp. After dinner, Paulina walked to the closest one on top of a knoll behind her tent. It was made up of a series of layers: a carpet, a rug, a blanket, a throw, cushions. To the side, there was a small table with its legs dug into the sand.

‘Might have the best meditation of your life here.’

She turned to find Paul behind her. ‘Probably will be. I’ve never meditated before.’

Paul’s mouth fell open.

‘I mean, I tried on the plane for a bit, but I figured if I was going to start meditating, what better place than here… instead of my bedroom.’

Paul held out his hands. ‘Hey, no judgement here,’ he paused. ‘It will definitely be the best meditation of your life.’

‘You think I’m peaking too early in life?’ Paulina glanced sideways at Paul, and he met her eye. Unable to keep a straight face they burst out laughing.

They had a group meditation under the stars that evening followed by a traditional drum performance by Ismail and two other Tuareg men. Paulina went to bed that night thinking about home.

She was used to the sand by the third day – warm and soft beneath her – but a meditative practice eluded her. After the group session on the first night, she’d confessed to Paul that she hadn’t been able to stop her brain from running at a million miles an hour.

‘Just focus on your body and the sounds around you.’ He’d guided.

After their first trip on the camels that were actually dromedaries, they’d meditated at the top of a dune as the sun came up. She’d snuck a glance at the others and found them content in their meditative state.

Back at camp, Amira told her to find a comfortable position and try not to move. But Paulina got restless and itchy.

The second day was worse. She’d wanted to meditate so badly, but the more she wanted to, the harder it was to achieve.

Paul and Amira had checked in with her, and she’d lied. She hadn’t wanted to burden them with her struggles. To feel like her failure was theirs to share.

She spent most of her dedicated meditation time writing in her journal. She wrote about her mum, her job, her dreams. She wrote about the sand and the Sahara, Amira and Ismail. She wrote about how much she liked having her days centred on the sun’s movements. She spent a lot of the time feeling stupid, and she wrote about that, too.

For their sunset meditation on the third day, they rode their dromedaries to a long, tall dune and sat in a line on its crest. Ismail picked a spot in front of them and produced a small wooden rake. Gently, he traced its tines over the sand and made delicate patterns.

‘Breathe and rake,’ he pulled the rake one way as he breathed in. ‘Breathe out and rake,’ he breathed out and changed the rake’s direction. ‘You’ll each get a rake. This is how we’re meditating this evening.’

From a pouch slung around his shoulder, Ismail gave each of them a small rake. It felt kitschy, like Paulina had travelled all this way to make the Sahara her personal zen garden – though, she had to admit she was looking forward to having something to do while the others meditated.

Breathe in rake to the right.

Breathe out rake to the left.

Breathe in rake in a circle.

Breathe out rake in a diagonal.

‘Okay time to go,’ Ismail walked along the line and collected Paulina’s rake.

‘What?’ Paulina looked around and noticed the sun had set without her realising. Had she just meditated? Where had the time gone? She followed the group over to their dromedaries and caught up to Paul. ‘That was amazing.’

He read her face for sarcasm. ‘Really? Wasn’t my cup of tea.’ He screwed up his nose. ‘If I wanted to zen garden, I’d do it at home.’

Ismail lead the caravan back to camp in the fading light and Paulina realised she’d never felt so at peace. She felt as if she should be overwhelmed with emotion, but riding her dromedary in the Saharan dusk whilst covered in sand, all she felt was content.