The living oasis ended below us. Ahead were stone, fallen earth and every story our elders had ever told.
The old ksar had followed us all morning, appearing above the palms and disappearing again when the grove closed around the path. Now it stood directly ahead. The journey through the oasis was over. What remained was the climb.
We led the grey donkey to a tree and tied his rope carefully so that he would not wander away. He had crossed the long road with us, carried us when we were tired and stopped to drink in the oued. The final ascent belonged only to the children.
We climbed on foot over rock and loose stone. Behind us, the oasis remained green and alive. Before us, the abandoned village grew larger, and with every step the stories heard at home returned.
The Silent Ksar
The light remained. The feeling changed.
We Left the Donkey Below
The donkey did not enter the ruins with us. Before climbing, we led him to a tree and tied his rope securely so that he would not wander away. Then we continued on foot.
The final approach was rocky. Stones lay everywhere, not the soft sand imagined by those who have never walked there. We climbed a slope toward the abandoned village, leaving the living green of the oasis below.
This was the moment when my feeling changed. I had not been afraid on the paths, at the river or among the fields. But as the ruins came closer, the stories heard at home began to travel with me.
Aïcha Kandicha
and the Djinn
Our parents and elders had told stories of unseen beings, of djinn and of Aïcha Kandicha. Those stories did not frighten me in the living oasis. They returned inside abandoned places.
No one needed to say that such creatures lived in the old ksar. The emptiness allowed the imagination of a child to place them there.
From far away, the ksar was beautiful. Inside, every silence seemed to be listening.
Beauty on the Outside, Emptiness Within
From the village, the old ksar was fascinating. Its colour belonged to the earth. Its ruined silhouette stood above the palm grove with a beauty unlike anything newly built.
Inside, I felt differently.
There were no inhabited rooms, no ordinary voices, no family life moving behind doors. There was emptiness, fallen earth, broken spaces and debris. The place that appeared complete from a distance revealed its wounds once we entered.
I cannot say whether the silence was truly greater there or whether fear made it seem so. I only remember that I did not feel at ease and never wished to remain for long.
Fortunately, I Was Not Alone
We were several, and that changed everything. Alone, I doubt I would have entered. Together, fear became something we could carry without naming.
We looked, moved through part of the ruins and completed the purpose of our expedition. We had reached the old ksar. That was enough.
We did not stay to prove courage. The return was long, and the destination had already given us what we had come for.
Life Returned Below
As soon as we descended toward the palm grove, I felt better. The paths were alive again. Water moved. People worked. The donkey waited beneath the tree. The oasis returned us to a world we understood.
We untied the rope and began the long walk home. There was no reason to delay. The outward journey had already taken more than an hour, sometimes longer because of the fruit, the water, the farmers, the stones and every game found along the way.
We did not need a clock to tell us that the return mattered. The distance remained, the heat remained, and eventually hunger would begin to speak.
The journey was always longer than the visit. Yet it was the journey that remained with me.
What I Understood Only Later
As children, we believed we were walking toward abandoned ruins. We did not understand that the streets before us had once been filled with families, meals, births, prayers, arguments and ordinary mornings.
My father was born in that old ksar. What I entered as a place of adventure had been part of his real childhood.
That knowledge came later. During those journeys, the ksar belonged to fear and fascination. The deeper history—the departure, the suffering, the graves and memories left behind, the rebuilding of life in the new village—belongs to another chapter.
But one truth now changes every memory of the walk:
Below the ruins, water moved again.
We thought we were crossing the oasis to visit the past.
In reality, we were walking through our fathers’ childhood without yet knowing it.
What the Journey Taught Me
Freedom Was Not the Absence of Others
We were free because the oasis knew us, the villagers knew us, and every salam reminded us that we belonged to a community larger than our house.
We walked far, crossed water, played among stones and entered a place that frightened us. Yet the day remained held by familiar paths, known families and the certainty that home waited at the end.
No telephone followed us.
The village did.