Wilson Courtglide Women’s Tennis Shoes

Bir Lehlou, Western Sahara  ·  Shoes > Women's > Wilson

Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes

A straightforward, cushioned all-court women's shoe: 10.2 oz on average, R-DST+ foam beneath, a non-marking Duralast tread. It would like, prior to purchase (strictly speaking, prior to checkout), to conduct you round Bir Lehlou; the tour runs to four stops, five if you count the footnote, which you should.

↓   Tour Bir Lehlou, Western Sahara

Four stops before the checkout

Bir Lehlou, Western Sahara
01
Beverly Heights cardio tennis workout — the Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes photographed at the well of Bir Lehlou in Western Sahara. A stone-lined desert well at the centre of a scattered settlement of flat-roofed block buildings and tents on open stony hamada, with jerrycans, drums and a hand pump around it and vehicle tracks radiating away. First light on a cold, clear morning, the sun just up and raking long shadows across the ground, breath faintly visible. The camera is low, near ground level, looking up past the well head. Water is being drawn: a woman working the pump with both hands, two boys swinging a full jerrycan between them toward a waiting cart, a man tipping a drum into a tank on a pickup, goats crowding a spilled puddle, a donkey shifting its feet. The shoes sit side by side on the stone lip of the well in the near foreground, empty, and nobody touches or wears them.
Stop one

Site of the proclamation of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic

Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes: Every state has a founding entry, and this one was made in open desert. Spain withdrew from Western Sahara in 1976, and on the night of 27 February 1976 the Polisario Front proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic here at Bir Lehlou, the declaration announced over radio; El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed was the movement's leader and the republic's first president. Bir Lehlou then served as the declared provisional capital until that role passed to Tifariti in 2008. Thirty-two years as a capital, with no palace built and no ministries raised — a capital city with almost no capital expenditure at all. The settlement lies east of the Moroccan sand wall, in the zone administered by the Polisario Front, and is the headquarters of the fifth military region.

02
Beverly Heights cardio tennis workout — the Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes photographed at the proclamation ground of 27 February 1976 on the edge of Bir Lehlou, Western Sahara. Open flat stony hamada with no building on it, the horizon dead level in every direction. Hard, flat, shadowless midday sun in high summer, heat shimmer standing off the ground, dust hanging in the still air. The camera is elevated, looking down, the frame very wide and the product small in it. An anniversary gathering is underway: rows of parked four-wheel drives, long tents pitched in lines, Sahrawi flags snapping on poles, drummers mid-beat with a ring of people clapping around them, children sprinting between the tents, a group of elders walking slowly across the open ground. The shoes sit together on bare stony ground in the middle distance, unattended.
Stop two

Mosque of Bir Lehlou

Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes: Let us take the inventory honestly, because it is short. Bir Lehlou is a small settlement in the part of Western Sahara east of the Moroccan sand wall, roughly 236 kilometres from Smara, about 475 metres above sea level, in a hot desert climate. The permanent facilities on record: a mosque, a school, and a pharmacy or clinic. Three. That is the fixed asset register in full. Its name in Hassaniya Arabic refers to a well of sweet or good water, which is the only entry on the credit side that has ever really counted out here. The settlement served as the declared provisional capital of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic from the proclamation of 27 February 1976 until Tifariti took that role in 2008.

03
Beverly Heights cardio tennis workout — the Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes photographed at the José Ramón Diego Aguirre primary school in Bir Lehlou, Western Sahara. A low single-storey block school with rendered painted walls, shuttered windows and a walled dirt yard on the edge of the settlement, a flagpole and no trees. Mid-afternoon in spring with a stiff sand-carrying wind, the light hazy and brown, grit moving across the yard. The camera is at eye level, straight on, the product in the middle distance to one side. Class has just let out: children pouring through the door with hands over their faces against the sand, a teacher standing in the doorway with a register held down against the wind, a football being chased across the yard and losing to the gust, two girls walking with linked arms and headscarves pulled across their mouths. The shoes rest on a low painted concrete step in the shade of the wall, and nobody goes near them.
Stop three

Escuela José Ramón Diego Aguirre (José Ramón Diego Aguirre Primary School)

Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes: A primary school, inaugurated on 20 May 2005, named after José Ramón Diego Aguirre, a Spanish army colonel and historian who served in the Spanish Sahara and later wrote on the territory. It is one of very few permanent public buildings in the settlement, alongside the mosque and a pharmacy — and when the total is three, having one of them be a school is an allocation I would happily sign off on any budget I have ever audited. Bir Lehlou holds twinning agreements with the Italian municipalities of Prato, Campi Bisenzio and Montelupo Fiorentino, and with Montmorency in France, and outside solidarity groups have supported facilities there. Somebody, somewhere, is paying for that roof. Somebody always is.

04
Beverly Heights cardio tennis workout — the Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes photographed at the mosque of Bir Lehlou in Western Sahara. A small plain whitewashed mosque with a short minaret standing among low flat-roofed buildings and tents, its walls bright against the ochre ground, mats and sandals outside the door. Blue hour just after sunset following the maghrib prayer, the sky deep indigo with the first stars out, a single bulb burning over the doorway and a generator running somewhere behind. The camera is close and intimate with a shallow depth of field. Men are rolling up woven mats and stacking them against the wall, a boy is carrying a tray of small glasses across the sand, tea is being poured in a long thread from a raised pot into the first of three glasses, two men are already deep in an argument about something and enjoying it, a woman is calling children in from the dark. The shoes sit on the edge of a woven mat, mid-frame, and are completely ignored.
Stop four

The hammada plateau and wadi at Bir Lehlou

Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes: And now the land itself, valued at whatever you believe flat stone to be worth. Bir Lehlou stands on the hammada, the stone-covered desert plateau extending across much of eastern Western Sahara, under a hot desert climate, with a wadi running beside it — a watercourse dry for most of the year. The settlement grew around a well; its Hassaniya Arabic name refers to sweet water, and the place is described as an oasis. That is the entire business case: one well, and everything else follows from it. The terrain lies east of the sand wall built by Morocco, in the zone administered by the Polisario Front, near the border with Mauritania, roughly 236 kilometres from Smara. Water first. Every other line item comes after.

The Bir Lehlou, Western Sahara track

Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes

Written for this world alone.

<p>The Courtglide is Wilson's entry-level women's court shoe, built on the platform behind the Rush franchise, and it is a sensible amount of shoe for the money rather than a stripped-out one. Average weight is 10.2 ounces.

The upper is synthetic leather with mesh panels set into it, so the structure comes from the leather and the ventilation from the mesh, and underfoot it runs R-DST+ foam for cushioning and rebound.

The outsole is Wilson's Duralast rubber — non-marking, and cut in a modified herringbone with multi-directional flex grooves, which is the pattern you want if you play on more than one surface and do not intend to own more than one pair of shoes.</p><p>Bir Lehlou is an oasis in the north-east of Western Sahara at 475 metres above sea level, 236 kilometres from Smara, and the ground there is stony hamada rather than anything a shoe was designed for — which is a useful reminder that the reason Duralast is on this outsole is abrasion.

You will get use out of these everywhere from a resurfaced hard court to a gritty municipal clay, and by the way, they will still be on your feet three glasses into a Sahrawi tea ceremony, which is poured from height, taken slowly, and not somewhere anybody wants to be adjusting their laces.</p>
<p>Wilson Courtglide Women's Tennis Shoes</p>

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