Illumination

The pale orange of the streetlight put into relief the painted wall front-left. A radio aerial stuck up like a cartoon heron. To the right, the fern frond details of a tree layered by the light. An unfinished brown concrete and brick block full of squares and rectangles further round.

And above, the quiet, patient dark blue of an African sky infused with grey. You could pick out stars if you concentrated, one almost flashing red as an aircraft. Down again, along the low wall of the roof terrace were posted decorative squat asparagus heads, butch flames on quadripods as though stolen from a Victorian train station.

On the wall sat a small, untidy old man, hair slightly longer, his loose features illuminated by the black and white from the big screen. He moved back to his plastic chair, discoloured by dust even in the semi-dark. The audience sat still, contrasted to the flowing pictures on the screen. Two birds wheeled in the light of the film before gliding down and away.

A Syrian lament in Arabic to dissidents, driven overseas after seasons in chains and now returning, it moved slowly. The camera rested on the lined face of an old woman, daughter of Armenian genocide survivors and now mother of more suffering. Her eyes huge and expressive, spilling coffee on the stove.

If you tried to concentrate, you would quickly become bored. If you looked for beauty, the ugly shapes around would disenchant any enthusiasm. But there is peace here. The film and the sky, the comforting air, a man in a scruffy shirt sprawled in concentration. This is something that is not England, and that is good.

Supa Juba

Last week I travelled to the southern town of Juba. As I left Khartoum our plane was half empty, yet I noticed many people on a waiting list, desperate to get on it. So I enquired to the pilot who helpfully explained that it was normal, that landing strips are rather short in that part of the country, that the plane would most probably crash if it reached its full capacity. Suddenly, I felt less guilty about the poor guys who were refused boarding that morning.

Juba is a bit of a cowboy town. A wild wild west, only with flip-flops instead of boots, gin & tonic instead of whiskey. As if someone had found gold and rounded up all their friends to join the party. As the new capital of the autonomous region of Southern Sudan, Juba abounds with relief and development workers. This part of the country is one of the most under-developed areas in the world, and as such most NGOs and UN agencies have set up camp there.

The first thing that strikes you as you arrive in Juba, is how different the place is from Khartoum. It literally feels like a different country. No more white turbans and long jallabiyas, no more mosques and calls to prayer, no more dust and desert and overwhelming dry heat. Here people look like NBA players, wear jeans and short sleeves t-shirts and are often spotted reading their Bible. Juba is green, humid, surrounded by swampland, with only two tarmac roads that meet at a central roundabout. The town is built on one side of the river Nile, probably due to the fact that apart from the one bridge that links it to the opposite shore, the next bridge is located further 400 miles north, in the town of Kosti.

Part of my visit brings me to the Bangladeshi Military Demining Company who take me to a nearby minefield they are clearing. Landmines have been laid in Sudan for the past 40 years until the civil war ended in 2002, and people here are accustomed to them.

As I carefully follow my guide through the cleared lanes (gulp!), I marvel at the work of these men who work relentlessly from 7am to 2pm by 40 degrees’ heat, cut and clear the tall grass, scan the ground with their metal detector and prod the earth in search of the lethal device. Since there is so much junk in the ground (broken glass, cans…) the metal detector will signal almost anything irrelevant. However the men still have to remove the soil meticulously around the signal to make sure there isn’t anything dangerous left there. One man clears on average 12m2 a day and it will take them 2 years to complete their work on the minefield.

We drive back to the camp and I enjoy the green scenery while praising the maker of Toyotas, that enable us to make it safely though the mud and ridiculously huge potholes. I go back to my hotel and consider getting a drink. Since I am now “khartoumised”, there is something almost indecent about sitting in a bar with loud music and ordering myself a cold beer. But tonight, I will shove my morality down my throat.

A pain in the bum, Sudan style

All you potential health tourists out there, you are in luck. This week, your intrepid journalist will help you get the bottom of those thorny medical questions you have always wanted to ask. For I have done no less than (courageously) develop an abscess in my bottom last week in order to go infiltrate the Khartoum health system.

It all began with a lump 10 days ago. Holding out with the help of ibuprofen and some stubbornness, until it could only be rectified by a full-scale operation, I made my first move. I turned up realistically white and shaky to the recommended doctor’s surgery to find a young lady in her twenties standing in for the normal doctor. She was clearly a little nervous as she plucked at her hijab. She listened attentively to my ailment, asking about my general health, occupation, the weather, anything really to put off the fateful moment. But no longer: ‘Could you show me what is wrong then?’ She bent her head for some moments in a silent desperate prayer. Cheering up though having survived the ordeal of inspecting a man’s bottom, she confidently told me that she really didn’t know what to do, but perhaps I would like some painkillers?

With the pain bursting through all available pills, I thought this would be a good time for a second opinion. The office nurse was aghast and immediately warned the local hospital to expect me. Incidentally, navigating the agony of mud rut bumps while sitting on an abscess is much more difficult when you are driving the car.

The surgeon was equally impressed, pronouncing it ‘quite huge’. Dropping my trousers was now a formality, unfazed even by an old man in a dashing white turban clambering out of his bed to see what the fuss was about. Waiting for the hours to pass before the op and clearly the only khawaja in the hospital, my celebrity was spreading. I was getting meals at an alarming rate (despite not being allowed to eat), and an endless stream of medical staff wanting to get in on the action with injections, blood tests and the like.

Then the operation was nigh. Two nurses tried to manoeuvre me into a wheelchair to go to theatre. An animated little discussion in broken arabic convinced them that as I couldn’t sit down, this wasn’t the best option. On the operating table, anaesthetised from the tummy down, I have never before had the experience of not feeling anything while my body is physically moving up and down. Why the force was so necessary when an array of sharp little knives was at their disposal will remain a mystery. Maybe they weren’t so sharp.

A slightly traumatic experience later, I was back in my hospital room, the nice clean effect only slightly spoilt by a lack of soap or loo paper. More food; pills; blood pressure machines; injections; and nurses trying to convince me that two wives is definitely better than one. Though not up to working out if they were offering their services, my arabic was good enough to explain that drugged and with a large hole in me, I might like to be alone with my thoughts. All very entertaining though when you are still high on opiates.

Sadly the anaesthesia wore off during the night. The dressing change the next morning was excruciatingly thorough. A nurse, luckily for all concerned with no English, enthusiastically worked away at the hole in my flesh. Our office nurse, horrified, negotiated that she would do the dressings from then on. Small mercies…

How not to go on holiday

To keep you entertained while you look at our professional-quality photos from our recent holiday to Uganda, here is a brief How-To note to spicing up what might otherwise be an uneventful holiday abroad.

Principle 1: Leave your wallet in your checked-in luggage.

Although not seemingly a catastrophic act, this makes your flight immeasurably more exciting once you realise that you will need to pay $50 per person to enter Uganda, and that your money is awaiting you on the other side of the nice customs officer. It is further enhanced by the kind Ugandan in the seat next to you, who swears blind that the baggage handlers in Entebbe will identify your bag and steal your wallet from it before it ever reaches you. Sadly the fun was spoiled by a very helpful attendant and the bag turning up intact. Unlike our other bag, which enjoyed an extra little holiday in Nairobi.

Principle 2: Use a bank that regularly blocks your card when it is used to draw cash overseas.

A cast-iron banker for setting your heart beating slightly faster is the polite message at the ATM that your only source of money for the holiday has been rejected, and is to all intents and purposes a useless piece of plastic. Although Lloyds do give you a number to call should this happen, they make up for it by insisting on your secret telephone banking PIN code which you made up in 2005 and have not used since. We reduced the fun factor by having access to the internet and therefore answers to obscure security questions about my account, but this one clearly has a lot of potential if done right.

Principle 3: Use a ‘cheap’ car hire firm

Our kind friends whom we were staying with had a deal with a tour company, getting us cut-price rates on a car for our little planned safari. So much the better, we thought. And when the nice Land Cruiser turned up, we saw little room for adding to the excitement. We were effortlessly disabused as the support bar broke (does a car even have one?), leaving us stranded for 5 hours on the side of a west Ugandan road. Handy hint – if you can secure a driver who will not tell you what is wrong or how long it will take to fix, so much the better. It is also useful to make sure that the owner of the company considers it your fault that the car is broken, rather than his.

Principle 4: Assume that a security guard will ‘secure’ or ‘guard’ your belongings

On the way to a hotel with some other nice friends, we had the opportunity to verify for you, the attentive reader, that little can trump this very simple but effective rule. On reaching a fuel station in a sleepy little town and deciding to grab some food there, we cleverly assumed that the presence of an armed guard within touching distance of the car would keep it safe for 20 minutes. 20 minutes later, and minus 2 passports, 2 flight tickets, a few books and 3 bags of clothes, we asked the guard what might have happened. Out of the question that he had hidden inside during the rainstorm, he steadfastly informed us that we must have forgotten all of the above at home, that he was standing by the car at all times, and that as a man of God he never lied.

And two rules to make life easier:

1. Trust God. When all has gone wrong and there is nothing you can do, we remembered that there is a time to give up trying to make things happen and railing at the world. And that relying on the Big Man breeds patience and peace that we couldn’t have otherwise.
2. Depend on others. A whole network of kind people, foremost Gandalady, her husband and their very cool kids who put us up for a week, combined to get us back less than a week late and still reasonably sane. And reminded us that the best bits of a holiday are not necessarily the ones you have planned and paid for…

Rapping for peace in Darfur

I’ve never been to a rap concert before, but I’m fairly sure they don’t look like this.

Thinking that it would be more interesting than watching a DVD, we took up the invite to go and hear Al-Nour and his friend rap for peace in Darfur. Arriving at a residential house in a smart part of town, we found the rap massive in a small garden politely sitting in neat lines of plastic chairs facing a high stage with a couple of enormous speakers.

As we came in, an old woman was swaying as she played a tune from her mobile phone into a megaphone. A few mildly interested people looked across at her, while the majority went on chatting. We were greeted and led to a couple of hastily vacated chairs near the front. Sneaking a look round while trying not to look as conspicuous as two khawajas in seats of honour usually do, the audience was mostly made up of middle-aged men in smart shirts and women in colourful topes – material doubling as a wrap and a headscarf – surrounded by large numbers of children.

The atmosphere was wedding-festive. But instead of a beaming bride and groom, two scowling young men in baggy jeans strut-danced their way onto the stage, breaking into a few rap-grunts before bigging up the crowd. After a couple of numbers in Arabic, they tried their hand in English and French, singing a little bit about ethnic tolerance and a lot about women. Their credibility was only slightly damaged by the huge un-rapper like smiles they burst into now and again. And the singing was impressive - if they hadn’t swiped some lyrics from MC Solaar, then they must be the most talented people involved in the peace process so far. Though that might not be saying much.

In case this started getting too hardcore (not a huge risk), every couple of songs the rappers disappeared to stock up on water and lurk coolly in a side garden, to be replaced by a string of unlikely comperes who obviously felt things would get nasty if the crowd wasn’t entertained.

One of them, an old man in a dazzling all-white get-up, recounted what seemed to be the conjoined histories of rap and colonialism in Arabic, with the occasional explanation in English and nod in our direction. The man to be was clearly James Brown. Jazz and rock and roll beforehand, and the progression through to modern RnB had only happened to frame Brown’s greatness. He emphasised this with boyish wide-eyed excitement and a couple of slick pirouettes at every mention of his name.

As the sweaty evening progressed, we were treated to a second act – Breakdancers with moves and kit right from the 70s. The only things missing were the afros. The Omdurman Dancers, for these were they, were a group of ethnically mixed (tall, thin Dinka from the south, ethnic Arabs from the north and many others), very serious young men who had clearly grown up on a diet of 70s TV shows and football. Football, because after half an hour of whirlwind stunts, we were treated to a whole session of Peter Crouch robot impressions.

Thankfully, our friendly rappers returned, rescuing us from the risk of any Robbie Fowler or Rio Ferdinand-style efforts. By now the crowd was properly warmed up, in particular a group of distinguished old men in the front row. Getting up every five minutes with youthful shouts, Grandad A swayed in an immaculate ankle-length yellow-green Jallabiya, shaking his beautiful silk turban to the choons. Grandad B, complete with Samuel Lee Jackson reverse flat cap and glasses, clutched his bottle of chemical cherryade as he boogied backwards and forwards, desperately trying to persuade us to join him. Grandad C went a little further, jumping on stage and grabbing the microphone before launching into a beat-perfect accompaniment to the performers. A group of young girls in veils also excitedly simpered to the front, only to be struck each time by shyness and stand at the side of the stage giggling at each other.

And so the time came to leave. Walking back through the sauna of downtown Khartoum, we figured mandatory rap concerts at all future peace talks might just do the trick.

At the butcher

It was Ginger Beer’s birthday yesterday, and we had some friends over for supper. Meat balls and ratatouille were on the menu, so in the morning I went on my daily shopping spree.

Buying anything in Khartoum requires adaptability skills. Very few people can manage good English here – the majority only speaks Sudanese Arabic, a colloquial dialect of the modern standard Arabic you would find in Syria, Lebanon or Jordan. When I first arrived, I took a 2-month course in the latter, which proved very helpful to learn how to read and write and at least gave me the satisfaction of knowing more than Ginger Beer. Fortunately visiting your local store puts you back in place rapidly.

It was only as I walked through the door of our local butcher for the first time that I realized my mission would be a difficult one: I didn’t know how to say beef or lamb, and chicken – zujaja – was nowhere to be found. And I honestly don’t know what scared me the most: asking for meat, or watching a 6.5-foot-tall and severe-looking man cutting chops with a hatchet on a tree trunk casually placed in the middle of the store.

So why the following happened, I really cannot tell. As the man turned around, the hatchet still in his hand and his apron covered in blood, and as he threw me a look of disapproval saying “Na’m? – Yes?”, my mind suddenly went blank. Pointing the fingers from my head in his direction, all I could mumble was: “Erm… arrh… ‘urrid’ – I would like – erm… moooooooooh?”. Hatchet man was NOT amused. He gave me the sternest look and I could swear I saw him tap his tool impatiently in his hand. Thankfully, one of his apprentices who was almost wetting himself laughing at the scene, came up to his boss and explained that I didn’t have mad-cow disease but just wanted some beef – bakara, duh! I left the shop and never went back.

Lessons learnt (in no particular order):
1. take a crash course in Sudanese Arabic urgently
2. don’t play jokes with the man with a hatchet
3. thank God pork is not allowed around here

Les derviches tourneurs

Il est près de 18h lorsque que nous approchons du tombeau et la température avoisine encore les 40 degrés. Quelque chose me frôle la jambe et je me retourne pour apercevoir une femme recroquevillée par terre, qui me regarde et me sourit. Elle est complètement difforme, plusieurs membres lui manquent et j’imagine qu’elle doit être atteinte de polio. Autour d’elle, des enfants se bousculent. En portant son pied à la bouche, elle parvient à imiter un son de sirène de pompiers qui les amuse beaucoup. Elle s’amuse de les voir rire et feint de les poursuivre en rampant. Un homme l’interpelle et lui fait signe de s’éloigner du cercle afin de ne pas importuner les derviches.

Extase religieuse
Les derviches, littéralement « les mendiants », sont des religieux du soufisme, un ordre spirituel issu de l’Islam. En Turquie, ils sont particulièrement connus pour leur danse-toupie pratiquée pour atteindre l’extase religieuse. Mais à Khartoum, ils constituent la principale (voire l’unique) attraction de la ville.

Comme chaque vendredi soir au coucher du soleil, plusieurs centaines de personnes se rassemblent à Omdurman, banlieue ouest de Khartoum, et forment un cercle devant la mosquée du cimetière pour observer les derviches tourneurs. Cette cérémonie, bien que religieuse, attire aussi bien soudanais que touristes intrigués. L’ambiance est participative : au premier rang, des hommes pieds nus vêtus de djellabas et turbans blancs se pressent coude- à -coude pour participer à la célébration. Chacun essaie tant bien que mal de bouger au rythme des tams-tams et d’oublier la sueur qui coule de son front.

La face embuée
Devant eux des « chauffeurs de salle » vêtus de tuniques vertes pour la plupart et de chapeaux de lutins arpentent les rangs en brandissant leur bâton ou claquant leur fouet, encourageant les fideles à chanter en cadence : Allah Ya-he ! – Dieu est vivant ! De temps à autre, un homme circule et agite de l’encens. Il s’arrête quelques secondes à notre niveau, et sans prévenir tend le bras et agite son calice sous notre nez. Nice, nice ? – c’est bien ? – nous dit-il en souriant, avant de poursuivre son chemin satisfait, laissant derrière lui des têtes embuées.

L’excitation est palpable, mais c’est au centre du cercle que la tension est à son comble. Tournant, dansant, s’élançant sur un pied et se rattrapant sur l’autre, les derviches virevoltent sur eux-mêmes pendant plusieurs minutes sans interruption avant d’entrer dans une semi-transe ou de perdre l’équilibre et s’effondrer sur le sol.

Le petit tricheur...
L’un d’entre eux m’intrigue. Il tourne littéralement depuis notre arrivée, soit il y a plus de 40 minutes, affichant un sourire radieux sans se lasser. Dans ses poches, on distingue des sortes de boites d’allumettes qui donnent de l’ampleur à sa tunique chaque fois qu’il tourne. Ce faisant, le pauvre bougre a signé son arrêt de mort : tourbillonner gracieusement pendant des heures ou s’afficher aux yeux de tous en sac à patates.

Le ton monte progressivement. Les tams-tams donnent la cadence, le rythme est lent et monotone tout d’abord, puis accélère pour finir en une apothéose effrénée. Malgré tout, on a davantage l’impression d’assister à une rencontre sociale qu’une expérience spirituelle.

Tamam
Une fois la cérémonie terminée à la tombée de la nuit, c’est l’heure des retrouvailles et des salutations. Kwayis ? – comment va ? Tamam ? - bien ? Bekhayr, allamdullilah – ca va bien, grâce a Dieu. Les mains claquent et se retiennent, les poitrines s’entrechoquent le temps d’une accolade. Nous nous éloignons discrètement pour laisser la place à une centaine de personnes qui viennent de s’agenouiller dans notre direction pour la prière du soir, et après avoir trouvé des tabourets bas en plastique, nous prenons un thé à la cannelle en savourant le petit air frais qui vient de se lever (juste une trentaine de degrés…) et en bavardant avec quelques étudiants soudanais à qui leurs professeurs de langues ont recommandé d’aborder les touristes pour pratiquer l’anglais.

La nuit s’installe. Les odeurs de viande grillée commencent à émaner des étalages et les vendeurs de livres religieux replient leurs bâches recouvertes de poussière. Sans nous presser, nous regagnons la voiture, tandis qu’au loin résonne le bruit d’une étrange sirène de pompiers et d’enfants qui rigolent.

Rules of traffic

More intimidating than days of relentless heat, or overwhelming storms of dust, is the traffic in Khartoum. It is often said that traffic in African cities has no rhyme or reason. But this is often the observation of a newcomer, terrified by unknown patterns, unused to the liberating use of the horn and struggling to understand a less ordered universe than the docile roads back home. In fact, although subtly different in each city, the flow of vehicles has its own intricate rhythm. If you learn how to move by this, driving can almost be a relaxing experience.

In Khartoum however, these invisible rhythms have been manhandled into an aggressive wave of metal, where whoever has the most, wins. It is best to follow this or you will become one of the victims to beaten front wings, broken lightbulbs or total write-offs lining the roadside. The law is the law of the sea – the biggest fish will always eat the smaller ones, who accordingly run for their lives or wait respectfully while their betters glide past. The regular buses are only too aware of this, as they barrel along, across and through roads that seconds before were full of other cars. These have beaten a hasty retreat, unsafe in the knowledge that firstly, they will not win in any collision and secondly, one more dent on the bus will make precious little difference. A hole in your door will take time and effort to fix.

Into the hands of a kamikaze minnow

Second to these are the Khartoum tractors with shiny trappings that try to put a gloss on the bully beneath. Making expert use of width, noise and large tyres, these tower over the puny saloon cars, taking their lunch money and throwing the ever-present sand in their faces. When we first arrived, we had the use of one. What at first sight appeared to be a free-for-all quickly broke down at the approach of our walrus. Size matters.

And so on down through the species and sub-species of vehicular life, to the teeth-cleaning fish at the bottom. Tuk-tuks (three-wheeler motorised rickshaws) are a traditional sight in many cities of the world. Tourists peer hopefully out in downtown Bangkok, happy that they have plucked up the courage to go local, while wondering if their driver really did know the name of their hotel. In Khartoum, the expression on most passengers faces is one of panic, as they realise that they have put their life into the hands of a kamikaze minnow shaking its fist at a gang of sharks encroaching on its turf. For all cars, lorries, buses and so forth will inevitably regard the tuk-tuk either as non-existent, or as having the responsibility to leave the area the moment something more important arrives.

And tuk-tuks in turn respond by squeezing into the most improbable gaps to gain precious seconds on their hated fellow road users. Even if those gaps involve pavements, or spaces between the tyres of a juggernaut. They also sport as many decorations as can be fitted on without overbalancing. Flags (any country’s will do), felt, and road signs are all acceptable. But the most popular embellishments are clearly Boadicea-style wheel hub enhancements. These can take the form of the swords the warrior queen added to her chariot wheels, simple spikes or even three-deep spinning ‘Pimp My Ride’ style alloys. All in plastic, of course. Not only do they look good, but they also serve the useful purpose of damaging the tyres of those who dare come too close, and crippling unwary civilians. The Government in its wisdom has decided to ban tuk-tuks from the centre of town, probably for their own good.

First impressions of Khartoum

The first thing that hits you as you land in Khartoum is the heat. Stepping off the plane in England, you brace against the grey wind of England or disappear down a shabby tunnel into the bowels of the airport. But at the top of the plane steps in Khartoum, a hot, dry mugginess invades you.

Closely followed by the smell. A faint, acrid odour of burning rubbish accompanies the airport bus, jolting you out of your longhaul-induced semi coma on the way to the terminal. You already feel part of the atmosphere.

But venturing out of the hotel the next morning I realise what really defines Khartoum – light, dust and traffic. An intense, white, burning light reflects off everything, searing your eyes, and by its heat forcing retreat into the comfort of buildings to shelter in the cool blasts from the air-conditioning units high up on the walls.

This light and heat is only mitigated by the cover thrown up by the dust, as though fighting the sun for supremacy in this city. The whole town is a dull, desert brown, a straggle of half-finished buildings testament to the population explosion from 50,000 in the 1950s to around 4 million today. Blocks of flats and large mansions stand unfinished and unplastered, revealing their dark, colourless earth-brown bricks. Even plaster and white or garish pink paint rapidly turns light brown.

"The dust finds a way in"

The buildings are not the only ones to suffer. Even slipping from an air-conditioned car to the welcome shade of your house, your skin picks up a fine film of dirt. And inside, despite sealing doors and windows and blocking up the tiniest gaps, the dust finds a way in. After one of the many haboobs during the dry season, every surface is covered. Not for nothing every middle class house in Khartoum has a cleaner.

At their most spectacular, haboobs approach as high, dark walls of sandy cloud. More commonly but equally effectively, a light wind gradually gathers pace – no gusts, simply a growing momentum, dragging the desert up and into the face of anyone who dares to be outside. And then it is gone, leaving the town to the mercy of the intense heat once again.