Mohammed Abdullah has known the trees his whole life. The trunk is thick and gnarled but, when sliced open, it bleeds a resin of deep crimson the blood, perhaps, of the injured dragon. These skyward-facing leaves collect condensation from the mists that roll along the clifftops and high plateaus of the interior. It’s an odd and alien-looking tree, with thick, knotted branches sprawling out to form an umbrella-shaped covering. One version of the local legend surrounding its origin says it grew from the blood of two brothers fighting to the death another that it was created from the blood of a dragon that was injured fighting an elephant. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Īnother popular export was what is now the flagship species of the island: the dragon’s blood tree. Look how beautiful it is, and how much there is to eat. “This place is a paradise,” he says, as if stating a self-evident fact. He spends the daylight hours wandering the shoreline with homemade fishing nets, then drying and organizing-and eating-the wide variety of his catch. “We argue over what to watch on television,” he complains. His wife and six children live there, and he goes back each evening. Now he also has a house in the nearby town. His mother was born in this cave, and he too was raised in it. He calls himself Abdullah the Caveman, and that’s partially true. “I do have a sweater,” he says, “but I don’t like it. Around his waist is a hand-woven orange fouta-the wrap-around male skirt that is traditional for many Yemeni men. Abdullah Aliyu paces slowly up and down along the triangular mouth of the cave.
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