Indigenous peoples amount to just 350 million of the 6.8 billion people on the planet. The number of languages has gone from 15,000 in 1492 to 5,900 today. The ancient bloodlines are almost gone. Soon only the vampires will be left.
J M Ledgard, Exodus, Intelligent Life, Summer 2009

But Majamma is raw in a way that can only be seen when you inject a bit of the urban in what should really be a purely rural setting. Even though there is no house in Slooh, the half-hearted tangle of a shelter there has a softness about it, in that it blends in perfectly with its surrounding landscape.

Why huddle under a thatch in a dead-end wadi when you can have a concrete house at the end of a concrete road? Because Slooh is where Majamma has always got its water from, and, although that source has mainly been replaced by municipal tankers, it still obviously has enough emotional appeal to stick to. So over the years the people have moved to Majamma, while they still keep their exceptional goats at Slooh, looked after by women.

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