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Home: Middle East: Oman: Desert: Abu Shenab:
surviving selma
If de greates’ is de servant, den Ah got to say o’ dem,/
Dey’ll be standin’ nex’ to Jesus, sub to no one else but Him;/
If de crown goes to de fait’ful, an’ de palm de victors wear,/
Dey’ll be loaded down wid jewels more dan anybody dere./
James Weldon Johnson, Black Mammies, The Book of American Negro Poetry, 1922
Far away from the romance of the desert and the glory of the Bedu, the legend of the Abu Shenab lives on. In the mountains of the Hajar range, extending from the ends of the sands up towards Oman’s most famous peaks, a network of pickups are delivering water and ferrying school children up and down battered mountain passes.
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