It was 4 May 2015; his name was Mathieu, and he was 15 years old.
In the spring of 2015, as we did every Easter holiday, we were spending some time in Tunisia, in the desert – Mathieu’s ‘sandpit’.
Ever since he was five, he’d criss-crossed the desert in every direction. Our little prince of the desert gradually came to share our passion. But the holiday took a tragic turn. The unthinkable happened at the top of a dune in Jbil Nature Reserve, during a quad bike ride in the desert.
Mathieu would never get back up.
The little prince has gone.
Despite the pain and grief, I refused to let everything come to an end on that terrible day. I had made a promise; I had to honour one of my promises. We will continue to talk about Mathieu Sanchez and his story.
The book is not finished.
The idea for the well came to me the very next day. To keep Mathieu’s memory alive through water, the ‘source of life’. A powerful symbol to honour his memory. ‘Bir Mathieu’ was inaugurated on 12 April 2016, less than a year after Mathieu’s passing. Today, just as he would have wanted, it is a place of sharing and camaraderie.
For the past few years, ‘Bir Mathieu’ has been writing a new chapter in the story of the ‘Little Prince of the Desert’. Every year in October, a half-marathon called ‘21 Km Pour Mathieu’ is organised, bringing together hundreds of people.
All these runners are there to take on the desert; they are there for Mathieu.