Falcon Hunting

Matthew's students invite him to do things all the time, as is common here. So far he has been to visit one students camel farm (sadly we don't have pictures of this), he's been out to dinner with several families, and he has also been falcon hunting. Having been very interested in learning about this for sometime, Matthew jumped at the chance to go.

After school one day, he and Joseph (Michael was at rugby) got picked up in a Land Cruiser by his student, Mohammed. Expecting elaborate cages for these very expensive birds, it was a bit of a shock to get into the car and find themselves sharing it with the falcons just perched casually on the back seat wearing their little burqas (burqa is Arabic for hood - you might have heard it in other contexts).

Blasting alternately Arabic music and Hip-Hop, they drove out into the desert and along for the ride were twelve to fifteen cousins, uncles, half-brothers etc.- I think everyone is at least distantly related here.

After half an hour or so of dune bashing with the birds bobbing along on the seats, they got out and had coffee (of course) but it was really half coffee, half sand by that point.

And then came their version of 'hunting'. This involved getting a rather dazed pigeon out of a box and then swinging the poor thing around and launching it into the air for the falcons to catch.

Despite being less than animal friendly, it was beautiful to see the birds in the air. But sunset quickly came and with it the temperature dropped rapidly. That was the point in the day where Matthew and Joseph were just starting to be comfortable but his students had chattering teeth from the 'cold' so they had to pack up and come home. Wonder how they would do with a Chicago winter!