Arriving at the date orchard, I was back in my home village, Chisu, after an absence of years. The dates were ripening. The orchard, stretching for miles around, reminded me of a bride in her wedding clothes smiling bashfully as she waited to be fetched to her husband’s home. The interlaced boughs, just beginning to lose their green leaves, were bent under thick clusters of fruit. Under the afternoon sun the dates glowed with colour: agate-red, jade-green or a mottled green and russet. The whole orchard was as pretty as a picture.