Some places feed your soul. Others drain it dry.
And then there are places like this — where the land whispers stories older than your blood, and the silence holds more weight than noise ever could.
It is a land of sand dunes — endless, shining under the harsh sun like gold that forgot how to be precious. The dunes rise and fall like sleeping beasts, shaped by winds that never sleep. Scattered across them are stubborn bushes, the kind that refuse to die. They hide small, watchful reptiles that belong to this place more than I ever could.
Trees grow here too — not in rows or forests, but alone, twisted by time, their roots gripping the dunes like they made a pact with the sand long ago. Camels move slowly across the land, as if they've memorized every dip in the terrain. Goats and sheep graze on almost nothing, and yet they survive. Birds come and go. You don’t always see them — but sometimes, in the quietest hour, a feather floats down like a gift from the sky.
It is hot here. Not just in summer — always. The kind of heat that steals your energy and thoughts by midday. But at night, it flips — bitterly cold, like the sun’s revenge for setting. Rain is a stranger here, rare and almost mythical. When it comes, it’s more like a rumour — brief, confusing, and gone before you know what to feel.
Sandstorms, though — they’re like old friends who visit uninvited. They come often, howling through the land, throwing themselves against homes, windows, your skin. You learn to live with the grit between your teeth. The wind talks here. Sometimes it screams.
People live far apart — not behind fences or walls, but behind dunes. A neighbour could live a kilometre away, but you’ll hear them laugh, shout, or cry on a still night. The silence carries everything. There are no cars, no city hum — just the occasional sound of a tractor, the slow shuffle of animals, and the grinding breath of the wind.
Farming is life here — and the only way to live. There’s one small shop. One bus. The market is thirty kilometres away, and a matchbox can take hours to fetch. There’s no electricity. Entertainment, if you can call it that, comes from a shared black-and-white TV and an old DVD player that runs on borrowed solar power and fading batteries.
The school stands with two classrooms, no lights, no library, and no books worth calling that. One teacher. No one knows if he'll show up — he told the children, "Wait till one, and if I’m not here, go home." So they wait. Because their parents say they should. That’s enough. Learning isn’t the point. Most kids will work in the fields by the time their handwriting takes shape. They’ll be married off before they even learn what they could have become.
Still, there is laughter here. There are festivals, colours, and songs that echo off the dunes. There is kindness, yes — and cruelty. People are helpful because they must be. There are no machines to ease the work. But they are also fragile with pride, and that pride can snap into hostility like a dry twig underfoot.
And yet... despite everything — or maybe because of it — the place holds a strange peace.
At sunset, the whole desert turns to fire and gold. The dunes glow as if lit from inside. Shadows stretch long and graceful across the sand. There’s no sound, no traffic, no buzz — just stillness. The kind of stillness that feels like a secret. Like the world has stopped spinning just long enough to breathe.
I have a place near the top of one dune — not the peak, but close — under a bush that’s grown strong against the wind. I sit there often, knees to chest, watching the sky burn down into night. It is the place I feel most at peace. And yet, it’s where I ask the loudest questions:
What if I was never meant to stay here? What if life had something else for me? Somewhere else?
That’s the irony of home — it can hold you while making you feel utterly lost.