Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Bedouin - A Missing Woman in Syria

For two years, i didn't know she was missing.

Ironically, i found out by reading Into the Wild - a book about a man missing in the Alaskan wilderness. He took a path through Washington and Oregon states that i had taken with this missing woman.

I wanted to share my discovery with her and email her, only to discover:

www.findnicolevienneau.com

I immediately instead started reading about how Nicole disappeared in Syria...last seen in the Cairo Hotel in Hama.

I bought her Lonely Planet Guide book to see if any page jumped out. I had in 2002 traveled with her for six months and knew what she liked.

A passage about the Bedouin jumped out on page 212. I had written about the Bedouin in 2002 in my journal of poems about our travels. I carried a copy of English Patient in which a pilot is saved by the Bedouin.

If she joined the Bedouin, she would have bumped into them unexpectedly to join them - leaving her belongings, bank account, email account and family contact behind for a prolonged period.

Given two years have passed and there's been no evidence in the cities of Syria surfacing...i think this is a possibility - that she is living in the desert we once discussed.

If anyone knows of Bedouin photographers...contacts would be appreciated.

2 comments:

Eva said...

thinking of you and sharing with you in the hunt to find Nicole ~ "Truth may walk through the world unarmed" Bedouin proverb

X said...

Sadly, as i review more facts of the case, i see that it is far more probable Nicole was either abducted from her Cairo Hotel Room or offered a ride from the hotel and never seen again. Three years have passed and not one person saw Nicole outside the Cairo Hotel on March 31, 2007. People saw her no March 30, 29...and days before. She wore clothes that could be seen a football field away when she disappeared.