Living together with the two most beautiful girls on earth

Or:

Life has changed completely, for the better!

by Mikael Strandberg

I still get a stream of emails every week from especially readers in the US and the UK asking me, is the Arabian Expedition Still On?

Well, the answer is yes. And no to a certain degree. Things have changed dramatically.

A year ago, at this exact time, I came back from Yemen getting ready to go to Oman and set off from there to Mauritania on a camel. For two years at least. The main idea was to build a bridge of understanding between the Christian West and the Muslim East. A minor reason, on the personal side, was to do some kind of a pilgrimage. I was in a limbo in life, it had very little joy and not a lot of structure. I wanted to get out there, pretty much by myself, into the silent, sandy, empty, frugal and demanding deserts, and hopefully, at the end, have found the meaning of life. I have spent most of my exploring life, well, long before that, trying to understand this issue that nobody really seems to fully understand – the meaning of life. I was ready to face whatever difficulties to find some calmness.

However, in Yemen, where I went to study Arabic to be able to communicate during my Expedition, I immediately met another student whom charmed me beyond recognition. I fell in love with her. Even though it was almost to good to be true, finally I had met somebody who had the same interests in life like me. Travel, literature, people, other cultures and who nurtured big visions about the future. She was a tad younger than me, with a razor sharp intelligence and so full of life! We pretty much spent every second together exploring this amazing country. She also managed to get me to see how extremely vital it would be for the Expedition to have a female member who spoke Arabic and who was well versed in this part of the world.  I agreed happily. So for this reason we ended up in Oman together. In October2009 we realized that the love of my life was pregnant!

I have long ago realized that a major part of the meaning of life is parenthood, having children. A family. No matter how we look at life, it is the base of our existence in every way and I have, far too many times, understood how impossible it has been for me to get close to -and understand- this important part of the existence while documenting the lives of people I met. It has been a long life dream for me to have my own family! But so many things over the last years, nasty events, plus I had an empty and meaningless life internally, has happened, so I thought my chance was gone. And it felt like a utterly useless life lay ahead. My old becoming-a-monk ideas came back to mind. But, someone up there gave me a second chance!

My daughters mother, my partner of life, my fantastic inspiration doesn´t want to be part of my public life...

Anyway, when we found out that we were pregnant, we immediately took the decision, which was easy because nothing was happening on the main funding scene, (still hasn´t happened…..), to leave Oman and set up a life back outside the Arab World. We didn´t tell anyone outside our family and friends, since one never knows what will happen. We kept it a secret. For many reasons. We eventually ended up in Sweden. Which is truly a great country to have a family. I love it more than ever!

Our daughter was born at the end of July. One of the most beautiful beings I have ever seen! There´s no doubt, it is by ease the most emotional and happiest day of my life!!! Nothing will ever be the same after this! Since then life has changed dramatically. Every day I wake up early with joy in my heart and realize that I am sharing my life with the two most beautiful and utterly kind women on earth! What a privilege! I am really incredibly fortunate! I just love changing diapers, seeing the little one develop every single second (today she had her first genuine smile!), admiring her mother for getting up 2-3 times a night to breastfeed and I can spend hours just admiring my daughter! And my partner of life!

My first feeling once my daughter arrived after such a struggle, was that I loved these two humans more than anything on earth and that I will spend the rest of my life trying to make them happy, create opportunities and always be there for them. Than a great worry arrived, how in earth am I going to support all of us!!! And that is a new worry I have never really had, but now, it, on and off, dominates my life. Therefore, I will have to, to continue the only life I know – exploring. But, I won´t be away for two years! (Well, as it feels like now, not even 36 hours….)

My answer is therefore: The Arabian expedition is still on, but it will, if it happens, be run differently…..

Every day I wake up early with joy in my heart and realize that I am sharing my life with the two most beautiful and utterly kind women on earth! What a privilege! I am really incredibly fortunate! I just love changing diapers, seeing the little one develop every single second (today she had her first genuine smile!), admiring her mother for getting up 2-3 times a night to breastfeed and I can spend hours just admiring my daughter!

My friend Ripley wrote this article about being a parent and an adventurer. This is what his wife Laura thought whilst he was on expedition.

Female leadership in the desert!

Venus and Mars in the desert

During the past twenty years I’ve spend most winter seasons exploring the desert of Egypt and Sudan on camel. Sometimes friends kept me company during a leg of the journey, which was great. Camels are wonderful animals, but a conversation with them can be boring because they are only interested in food. So it was fun to have a friend around, although, to be honest, with some of them the fun didn’t last very long. A week at the most. After that the top-dog type of guys – never seen a desert, let alone knew a thing about camels – would point out how I could and should organize my caravan in a much better and more efficient way.

“This is the limit,” one of them shouted with a face turned purple. I was repairing a broken saddle without consulting him. A terrible insult, according to him. “Well, do you know how to do it?” I asked genuinely surprised. “No, but you don’t have to rub into my face.”

Another friend was annoyed because I made him feel insecure whenever he walked with the camels. Why? Picture the following scene: my friend climbs steep hill after steep hill with heavily laden camels and after two hills I, of course, tell him to circumnavigate those hills. Something he would have done automatically if he would have been the one to carry the load. Anyway, my friend was not amused and our never ending arguments threatened the relationship. So in the end I decided to give it a try and shut up in order to let him learn from mistakes. It worked. Until one of the camels seriously injured herself because of a stupid and unnecessary mistake my friend make. ‘No more soft approach,’ I decided there and then.
My top-dogs friends had a problem with female leadership, I decided. But as the list of incidents grew doubt crept in. ’Maybe it is me,’ I thought. After all, I was the only constant factor in all those stories. A man in my position would never question his leadership style, but being a female, I wondered what I could do to avoid future fights. I searched for female role models in the desert and hoped they could teach me a few tricks. But alas, female caravaners were hard to come by. All the local desert guides where male and they couldn’t care less about the feelings of their staff. On the contrary. A guide, or chabir, does not accept any criticism during a dangerous desert crossing. Which makes perfect sense. A guide is responsible for the lives of people and animals in the caravan and conflicts create tension and confusion, which in turn may affect his judgement.
Imagine my joy and disbelief when about five years ago I came across a thesis about trade in west Africa. The historian who wrote it claimed and proved that women in the region played an active role in caravan trade. As a merchant, investor and even as a caravaner.

Recently I travelled to Mauritania and met two female caravaners, both well into their seventies now. I also met the sons and daughters of a locally well known woman who had worked as a trader and a caravaner. One of her sons, now a grandfather, rubbed his knees and shins with a painful grimace when he talked about the long journeys with his mother. The whole family went together, parents and children, and they were on the road for several months. The children walked or sat on top of salt loads, hour after painful hour. The caravan would only come to a stop after sunset. And after such an exhausting day the mother still had to cook. Women were also responsible for selling goods at foreign markets. The profit was used to buy local products they could sell back home.

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When I asked men and women about the daily routine in a trade caravan, nothing indicated that women had an inferior position. “Men and women worked together,” an old man commented. Many others confirmed this. In I learned that in Mauritania women have always had a very strong position in society and within the family. Women are also well educated. When I explained to a few young women that their Dutch sisters, in order to keep their marriage intact, pretend that their husband is the boss, the girls laughed and laughed. They just couldn’t believe what I said. In Mauritania, they giggled, it is the other way around. Men like strong women. Indeed, if a spouse bosses his wife around she knows something is wrong. Very wrong. When a husband acts out of character he usually fancies another woman.

Needless to say that I had the time of my life in Mauritania, where I met a lot of bold, bright and strong women. The Mauritanian caravan model functions, these role models taught me, because next to every strong woman stands a gentle man.

You can read more about the fantastic personality at http://www.aritabaaijens.nl and http://www.linkedin.com/in/aritabaaijens