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REVOLUTION: TESHUMARA AND TANEKRA 205life is characterised by a number of traits: Salaried employment and unemployment;living in houses; the availability of consumer goods (not per se to theimpoverished newcomers); and a multilingual and multicultural environment.For those who are used to living in a tent, living in a house is a constrictingexperience. A Tamasheq tent is open at least to one side, often more, giving aview over the vast plains or mountains. Tamasheq camps are often small, consistingof about five tents, spaced about 50 metres apart. The next camp can bekilometres away. Urban space is thus a stark contrast to nomad space. Housesare walled and roofed on all sides, situated at smaller intervals and only lookingout on the court walls or on other houses. Houses are square, small wattle-anddaubconstructions with a flat roof. The house is surrounded by a large walledcourt with a toilet in one of the corners. In the middle of the court a tent canoften be found where people live and sleep. The house is used to store householditems but it is not a living space. In the early days of Tahaggart-shumarathe court walls and houses were lacking. It was a ramshackle town ofimprovised tents. Although at present many Kel Tamasheq are city-born, theunease about living indoors is still prevalent.Even if I wanted to live in a housealways locked with a keywhere there is no cooling breezeThe body does not benefit from its shadeIt has no use but for resignation .33The ishumar looked for employment in sectors that were at first totally aliento them, such as salaried herding; agriculture in the oasis towns of the Sahara;the guarding of villas (notably those of expatriates); construction work andmasonry; car mechanics; and, in coastal West Africa, even fishery. Most jobswere temporary, and many moved from town to town, from job to job. ManyKel Tamasheq still believed that hard manual labour was unbefitting for a freeperson. A free man should occupy himself only with pastoral affairs, trade, religion,or warfare. Depending on region and caste, free women should not workat all or engage only in pastoral activities, religion, or the household. Due to thedroughts, pastoralism became regarded as a hazardous and even impossibleoccupation. The preferred professions, however, were derived from this labourethic. 34 Being a car driver or mechanic is seen as a modern equivalent to beinginvolved in pastoral affairs. Commerce, especially transnational smuggling, isseen as a logical follow-up to the caravan trade. However, these occupationsand jobs were scarce, which left many men of free origins with no other choice3334Part of a song by Mohamed ag Itlal, ‘Japonais’, 1994. In: Klute (2001), op. cit.,Annex rebel songs, 39.Klute, G. 1992.