On the Oasis of Douz: Tunisia’s International Sahara Festival

Photos and Article by Michael J. Keating


Tunisia’s International Sahara Festival annually celebrates desert cultures of North Africa (photos and article by Michael J. Keating).

THE OASIS of Douz in southern Tunisia lies in an uneasy balance with nature. This fall and winter Douz’s many palms yielded the largest date harvest in years. A short nighttime walk over the gently undulating dunes outside town reveals a sky cluttered with the glitter of thousands—maybe millions—of stars.

And yet those same dunes gently but relentlessly push against the town, silently covering the streets. The oasis of Douz is just that: an oasis in the Sahara. The northernmost part of the Sahara, perhaps, but the dunes of the Oriental Erg nevertheless encircle the town. Where the pavement ends, the sand begins. But it’s the Sahara that determines the border.

The Sahara defines the area. Its talc-fine sand has sculpted its people, shaped its culture, and dictated its crops. Once a year, the people of southern Tunisia are joined by the desert people of Libya, Algeria and the other Sahara nations to pay homage to that bondage and to celebrate that great but narrow heritage at the International Sahara Festival.

This year’s 37th annual festival began on Dec. 26. The three-day event is not pegged to the same dates each year, but generally takes place in November or December.

The Sahara Festival is a celebration of the very recent past. Although most southern Tunisians have abandoned the nomadic life, those memories are still fresh and the desire to celebrate them is real. Besides, except for limited agricultural pursuits, the area is now dependent on tourism. The festival is well-attended by tourists, but even better attended by locals.

During the opening ceremonies, after the official municipal greetings, the festival participants parade before the viewing stands. Their saddle blankets a riotous blaze of Berber and Bedouin weaving, regal white camels in a slow-motion cascade of muscle and bone transport elegantly tailored riders across the sands. Horsemen from a dozen nations display their finery and their fine horsemanship; gilded in metallic-cloth blinders and draped in a prideful display of local fabrics, their horses twist and cavort and shake their manes in the wind.

One following another, groups of musicians and dancers from all over the Sahara take their turn before the spectators to show off their indigenous traditional culture. Groups of men in chicory blue and lemon yellow play horns and bang drums as they weave among themselves in a carefully choreographed dance. A group of women in long dark dresses kneel in the sand and dance with their hair: their long, dark, shiny tresses are thrown back and forth in the wind, rhythmically accentuating the maidens’ kneeling dance.

The local descendants of salukis and the visiting Italian greyhounds pull impatiently on their leashes, anxious to chase hares.

The crowd is on its feet for the camel races. Camels and riders loop far into the distance, then return to the finish line in front of the cheering spectators.

The grand finale of the opening day is a torrent of horsemanship, all at full gallop. Some slash the air with sabers. Others ride hanging off the side of their saddles. Some even ride upside down—their legs and feet straight up in the air—all at full speed. Others charge down the course together, men arm in arm, mounted on different horses.

On and on they come, the daring and athleticism of the horses and their riders matched by the beauty of the textiles that adorn them both. So fast and spectacular are the riders that it becomes impossible to concentrate upon any single one; the athletic pyrotechnics so grand one fears to linger because the next showman may be missed. Then a single horse in the cavalcade missteps. And falls. Throwing its rider. Breaking its leg.

Inconsolable, the rider is led away. The crowd, moments before cheering and shouting its delight, now falls silent in sorrow. The horse rises to its feet and so does the applauding audience.

The day’s events are over. The camels glide over the dunes, over the horizon, and out of sight. The spectators climb into their cars or donkey carts.

Tunisian flags snap smartly. The wind blows the powdery sand over the departing crowd and spreads a fine cover over the roads they travel on.

Michael J. Keating is a free-lance photographer and managing editor of The Veteran, the bi-monthly publication of Vietnam Veterans of America.