NOT ALL EXPERIENCES ARE USEFUL 213 



Massawa with his leg. Cecco, Giorgio and Priscilla had gone 

 off to Massawa, leaving me with Folco and the other volunt- 

 ary Robinson Crusoe, Tesfankièl. Folco did not know a thing 

 about camping and trusted blindly in me. And as I had 

 several other jobs to attend to I entrusted Tesfankièl with 

 the provisioning. When the Formica told Tesfankièl that they 

 would be back in a week, for some unknown reason he 

 understood them to say 'within three days at the most' and 

 so took stocks for 'three days at the most'. The Formica 

 calmly came back in a week. 



But that is not all. When we were completely without food 

 (except for a box of spaghetti, which was useless anyway 

 because we had to keep all the water for drinking purposes) 

 a storm arose at sea, for the first time since we had come to 

 these waters. We had to drag the boat up to the level of the 

 trees so that the white horses would not carry it off, and we 

 could not fish for food in any other way. Dur Ghella is so 

 small that it was hit by the waves from both sides. 



On the fourth day, under a choking, saline wind, we 

 imagined that the Formica had been held up by the storm. 

 On the fifth, peace reigned again and we began to have 

 doubts. (The temperature was over ioo° in the shade and 

 we were on a ration of a pint of warm water per head.) On 

 the sixth day we began to stare at each other: 'Perhaps the 

 Formica has gone down. Nobody knows we're here. We'll end 

 our days here.' We ate lobster and then nothing else so as 

 not to encourage our thirst. On the seventh day the saline 

 wind blew up again. Folco got some sand blown in his eye 

 and developed a thoroughgoing conjunctivitis. At this stage 

 we had not a drop of drinking water, no bread, no fruit, 

 sugar, cigarettes — nothing. I thought of catching a fish just 

 for the juice . . . but the monsoon returned bringing with it 

 the storm at sea. 'If the Formica does not come tomorrow 



