hashman on the horizon

In what’s become this room/ we are hostless/ for the most part./
There is infinite glitter./ There is earth./
An open grave,/ let’s say–not automatically/ horrific–or/ the not saying “raining”/ in what is now this room./
We tune and we fade,/ not undetermined upon bloom./
We shatter that way./ We don’t and then we do.
Graham Foust, The Flooded Grave (after a photograph by Jeff Wall)

Almost 250km from Salalah towards the Empty Quarter, Hashman is a dot on the map, and even smaller in the flesh. Wedged in between the first massive dunes of the Rub al Khali, this settlement of Bedouin – and government assistance – sticks out of the emptiness before Yemeni and Saudi Arabian borders meet Oman a bit northwest of here. It is in such places that the bedu have settled, after centuries of nomadic existence that recognised no boundaries.

Now, after ages of baking in the sun, navigating the dunes and spending hours travelling for water, everything has changed – and yet nothing has. The bedouin receive free housing from the government, a package that includes all essential utilities like water, electricity and schooling – even money itself.

Hashman is barely larger than a government-built complex, with the wali’s office, a school, one foodstuff shop, one restaurant, a mosque and about 20 houses. Giving a nomad a house doesn’t domesticate him, though. The homes I visited had air conditioning and cooking ranges, but the walls were as bare as the sand outside, just white paint, with cushions on the side.

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