So these are increasingly worldly, well-educated people. Women are engaged in skill development at all ages. I visited workshops where knitting and sewing machines battle the all-pervasive dust to produce elaborate garments. In 48 o heat, I marvelled at the woolly garments being made in preparation for winter. It is hard to imagine living for two decades in tents with no running water, little fresh food, dust storms that last for days, relentless heat for months on end and cold winters.
Water is pumped from bores and trucked to small communal tanks each day.
Those camps that have bore water grow vegetables, melons and date palms in community gardens dusty oases in the red sand. These gardens have to be shifted every few years because the salts build up in the soil. Irrigation takes place along crude channels in the sand. Women tend goats and camels, holding them in makeshift enclosures at night. They make structures out of mud bricks and wash them with terracotta, yellow and white render.