TodayI woke up to my first Christmas in the Sahara. I feel strangely close to the Christmas story here. The images of first century Israel are still daily displayed on the unpaved streets of these cities and towns. People riding donkeys and even camels, shepherds herding their sheep, the mud and thatch houses clustered together into the tiny dusty villages that dot the landscape, the dry arid emptiness of the windswept Sahel and the pungent tangy smell of burning garbage wafting above the naked children as they play – as children always have – laughing in the dust.