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Backgammon is one of the oldest known board games and people use to play it through the centuries. I learned how to play it from my mom and like me, a lot of children in the world. And in the middle of everyone has Beni. Beni and I were in the middle of the Negev desert. I am brazilian, he is israeli. I speak portuguese, he speaks hebrew and we talked in english within a group of Argentines. Beni was our security guard. This is normal in Israel when you are travelling with a large group through the country. We were living a hiking experience, walking and sleeping in the desert for four days. Our routine was: wake up early, prepare our food for the day, clean our camp, walk, climb, take a break to eat some sandwiches, walk more, find a new spot to pitch a tent, prepare dinner, make some fire, sleep and in the next day, all over again. The sun there during the day is insane, even when is winter. Hot during the day, cold at night. In the second day, when we stopped to take a lunch break I was trying to find a place over the shadows to rest a little bit. We found a spot under a tiny tree, between old red mountains. The floor has a lot of little rocks and Beni came bringing a blue mat and I sat with him. We were talking about life while we ate. He was coming to Brazil soon and I was saying about carnaval, food and peculiarities about our culture. As soon as we finished eating, he took out a little game and said "Let me show you a little bit of our culture. This is a board game that we use to play here a lot." When he opened it, I was not believing! "Oh my goodness! Is it a backgammon?" I questioned him. "Do you know this?" Beni looked surprised. I was so happy to see that game that I just said "Let's play it, please!" and he answer "Be careful, I don't usually lose". After that, no more words. Dice rolled once, twice and everytime that I wished a number, I got it. We played three matches, I won all of it. "Wow, you look like a dice witch". When he said that, I laughed like a child. "I look like because I am!" and then, more laugh. "My mom used to call me that when I was a kid. She said 'backgammon witch'." And then we were laughing and saying silly things like two kids. Time to rest is over. We were there, sitting in the middle of years and years of history, sand and sweat. Playing a game that I learned from my mom in Brazil with a guy who learned with his mom in Israel. I was speaking in english, thinking in portuguese and listening others in spanish, between old red mountains and under a small tree shade... ...and I felt at home.