A little lamb, barely more than a few tufts of wool, dodders up to me and nibbles on my trousers as Hamdan al Hathamy, half-deaf, shouts into the wind at the far corner of a dead-end wadi. Welcome to Samiya, a dry, stony valley that hosts one family and an alarming number of goats and sheep.
Hamdan came here a half century ago and has never left. Little has changed since – except the highway that now passes seven kilometres away, past the mouth of the wadi.
That splash of concrete is opening up a landscape for the first time, uncovering stories that have never been told. It is through it that you will find the Ghafari of Khafdi, the Haramali of Khada, the Wehi of Sai. There are entire lives and histories waiting to be told, past all the little signposts no one stops at. And Hamdan has been waiting 50 years to tell you his.

Pinaki Chakravarty
pinaki@apexstuff.com