Posts tagged: people
A Portrait of Kadugli
Despite being the provincial capital, Kadugli is still rather rustic. Walking down the main-street, a herd of cows lazily plod past the single—or at most, double-storey buildings. Three-or-so concrete roads run through town, the rest are dirt streets. The newspapers here are the previous day’s edition, and sold for 50% more than their cover price; “transport from Khartoum” the vendor tells me.
The Nuba mountains were the scene of intense fighting between the armies of the North and South during the civil war, and Kadugli a major stage for this. “Everybody knew how to use a gun very well” Said tells me as we walk back to his home on the outskirts of town. I had met him an hour previously.
When he was a young boy, the civil war still raging, the road that he would use to go to school—a road we had just taken—was mined. It was not uncommon for him to see fresh bodies along the way, victims of the previous night’s fighting. As we cross some open ground, he points out two schools, one run by the National Congress Party (NCP), the party of President Bashir, the other by the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the ruling party in Southern Sudan. “I hate them both” he says.
For young men like Said, finding a job is difficult. We are talking French, a language he speaks rather fluently, having studied at the University of Omdurman. Despite his university education, he is now working in a photocopy shop, and feels désespéré, “hopeless”. “Unless you are with the NCP, you cannot find a job” he says. He is currently studying English in his spare time, here in Kadugli “it is more important than Arabic” he claims, with many international NGOs being based here.
Investment in the town is now growing, though. Peace was signed here in 2003, two years before the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that officially ended the Second Sudanese Civil War in 2005. Sat in the market drinking coffee talking to a Kadugli veteran, John, who has been working here for the last few years in de-mining, he says that two years ago, there were only two or three shops in town. The now bustling shops that surround us as we drink tea from a street-side tea-lady were just empty shells. Now, in the town centre, there are several restaurants and the foundations for a new bank are being dug, which will give a new face to the place. But I can’t help but think that shining glass will somewhat ruin the town’s humid charm.
But echoes of the fighting are still resonating. Whilst one can now walk safely in the hills immediately surrounding the town—they have all been cleared—many other areas are still littered with mines and unexploded ordinance. And walking through town, many a soldier, dressed in camouflaged fatigues, will cycle past on a decrepit bicycle, a Kalashnikov slung over his soldier.
South Kordofan was the only state not to vote in the recent legislatives as there was disagreement about the recent census. With such a divided population — Northerners, Southerners and native Nuba — having an accurate representation of eligible voters is crucial. A new census is planned soon, although with the onset of the rainy season, which is starting now, many villages will be inaccessible. Voting for the legislatives is scheduled for November, seven months after the rest of the country cast their ballot.
Sitting atop a hill overlooking the town, a tokul and the thick, knotted trunk of a baobab tree beside us, the problems of Kadugli seem far. The mines have gone, and life seems not to have changed since before the colonial era. Walking in the hills, two ladies carry bundles of firewood on their head, their long, slender arms forming an elegant arc. Said explains to me the legends of the mountains in the distance. How one is cursed and in which diamonds are to be found, pointing to the horizon. Another, steep-sided pinnacle has a tree clinging on to its steep side; the alchemic leaf from which gives eternal life and turns anything into gold.
The setting sun silhouettes the mountains and flora as we walk back to town, the muezzin’s call to evening prayer echoing from the rock. It is time for Said’s evening shift, but there is no electricity. Power cuts are common in the rainy season, he says.
Homebrew
“Where are the people?” a staggering man asks, rhetorically, as he walks alongside me. “In the houses. Asleep.” he answers himself, slurring somewhat. Brick and concrete constructions had given way to grass and straw houses in this small village, bordering the hills that surround Kadugli. In a country where alcohol is illegal, it didn’t register at first that this man was blotto, but as the morning drew on, his walking turned to stumbling and the amount of spittle ejected from his mouth made the hot air even more humid.
He led me from hut to hut, perhaps to parade around this khawaaja—they don’t get many here—to other members of his community, but more likely to procure further moonshine en route. We entered one tokul where a lady was crouched over a small wood-fire, making kisra, the sour Sudanese injerra, a sort of galette. One of her children was summoned away from playing in the dirt to fetch a drink. I initially mistook it—rather optimistically—for water. On taking a mouthful it turned out to be ereegi, the locally brewed liquor, an extremely potent gin distilled from dates. It was eleven in the morning and I was already dehydrated; I could have done without that tipple.
Guided to another tokul, a its conical thatched roof providing shelter from the sun, more women were sat around preparing food for a later meal. In a mud-walled adjacent room sat the men-folk, all swigging from wooden bowls as they hunched around a radio from which issued traditional Nuba music. The subject of their thirst-quenching was merissa, a muddy-looking beer brewed from sorghum, a long cry from the stuff of Belgian breweries. Here in Sudan, they take what they can get, and my new “friend” was eager to indulge; when we left, him staggering through the doorway, his movement—and mood—became even more erratic. It was time to slip away, hoping he wouldn’t follow me back to town: being caught drunk in Sudan carries lashes as punishment. “Ma salaama, mon pote.”
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A Sudanese Wedding
It was gone midnight and I had just left the Sudan Boombox party. In a pick-up truck speeding down Mohammed Najib street, tok-toks weaving past, my phone rang. I couldn’t hear the caller very well, but I made out the words “will you be my husband for the day?” from a friend working at Khartoum University. Without really thinking — the evening was treating me well — I agreed. Now was not the time to be asking questions. We carried on to a party.
Several days later, I was at the University of Khartoum, several students dressing me in a djellaba, pinning a traditional hat to my head and a scarf around my chest. What had I let myself in for? I was expecting this piece of theatre—part of the French department’s programme during Khartoum University’s Cultural Week—to be a small event. I was grossly mistaken. Girls dressed in their finest toobs were milling around, their hands covered in the intricate patterns of Sudanese henna. The male students had made an effort, donning djellaba for the day. Outside the sanctuary of this classroom-cum-dressing room, the building was filling up.
I was joined by their teacher, my friend who had asked me to participate, and we stepped out. The corridor was lined, nay, packed, with people. I led out my “bride”, her face completely covered by a golden veil, guiding her down the gauntlet of well-wishers thrusting out mobile phone cameras. As we reached the staircase spiralling down to the area reserved for the ceremony, the size of this event suddenly became evident. There were hundreds of people.
A cortège of girls dressed in white topped with pink veils, formed a corridor as we were seated, incense burning before us. A drum was being beaten with girls singing and ululating. The veil was lifted and draped over our shoulders, bands being tied around our wrists. A giant video-camera, a relic from the eighties, was filming everything. From out of nowhere, a photographer came, snapping away. I’m the one who likes to be behind a lens; I shy from being in front of them.
Unbeknownst to me, part of the Sudanese wedding ceremony involves the bride spitting milk in the face of the groom, its whiteness being a symbol of her purity. As I wiped the liquid from my face, we were urged to rise. An entourage of guys dressed in black shirts acted as security, shepherding us out of the building to parade around the campus. A wooden staff in my hand, I snapped my fingers to shouts of imshi arees!, raising it in celebration. My dressers had briefed me well.
Outside there were hundreds more people. To say I was intimidated was an understatement. As we toured the campus, a procession that seemed to take hours, the yuyuyuyuyu of the girls’ ululating and beating of the drum echoed across the courtyard. Further shouts from the men encouraged my fatigued arm to wave the staff, emulating the father of the bride I had seen some weeks previously at a real wedding.
With the event over, later walking around the campus, this khawaaja was immediately recognisable. Arees, “groom” in Arabic, was called out. I questioned whether people understood that this celebration was staged.
The following day, our photograph was on the front page of one of the Arabic, Khartoum dailies. The accompanying article made no mention of the fact that this was simply a performance. In Islam, I would still have the right to three more wives…
Nuit Blanche au Nil Blanc*
We drove in convoy from Khartoum, heading south. A UN Land-Cruiser, NGO pick-ups and a couple of cars; Italians, French, Germans, a Palestinian, an Egyptian, several Sudanese, and me, an Englishman. The only lights were those of oncoming vehicles, and the bright, full-moon above. After an hour and a half of driving into the desert night, we turned off the road. A dirt-track led through a village and onto our friends’ friend’s farm.
We had to leave a vehicle on the road for some stragglers, and so I jumped in the back of one of the pick-ups. As we sped over the bumpy ground, dust & sand filled the air, an arid fog in the light of the head-lamps. My nose, hair and eyes are filled with it.
Two steel gates were swung open and we drove into the farm, mango trees on one side, citrus groves on the other. Emerging through the trees into a clearing, the White Nile stood like a lake before us, reflecting the moon, its water softly lapping against the shore. Mohammed immediately wades in, catching a fish for the barbecue, leaving it gasping for air as we unload the vehicles.
Shish-kebabs are brought out, followed by the shisha, obligatory for a Sudanese soirée. Cristiano is playing guitar, and a group forms around his feet, still not mastering il gatto e la volpe, his party-piece.
As dawn breaks, acacia trees become visible across the milky water on the opposite bank, and the sun begins to prepare itself for another toiling day of oppressive heat. At this time of the morning, though, the air is pleasant as we breakfast on watermelon.
And then we had to leave. There were fears of the police coming to break up the party.
That was Jebel al-Alwiya.
* “White night (all-nighter) on the White Nile”
Allons en France
Ten Sudanese students compete for the chance to go to France this summer in a competition organised by the Centre Culturel Français.
This is Mohammed and Mohayed, keeping the audience going as the judges make their decision.
