We arrived in Gedaref after nightfall and got directed to a hotel which clearly wasn’t going to make our budget. However, after a call to Sohaib, we gathered that we could stay with Sohaib’s friend Asaad and that he would be with us shortly. Soon enough we were settled in Asaad’s home eating dinner with his family. “Hospitality” has become a cliché in Sudan.
Asaad is a business man in Gedaref and is a man of stature. He commands respect with a simple air, large family and open house. Throughout our stay, men and women and children would visit to greet us and shake our hands.
It appears that as we travel south, communication will become less and less of a problem. Asaad’s eleven year old daughter Summa is a forthright girl and very eager to learn English. She took it as her duty and delight to wait on me, act as translator, take me on tours to visit her neighbours, and even take me to a Sudanese wedding. Her English was basic but her eagerness to learn and be my friend was engaging - if a tad tiresome at times!
We would walk together to her aunt’s house. I would greet her aunt with a Ma Salaam and a hand shake and be offered to take a seat on the bed. The houses were large circular rondawel huts, but completely different to the Southern African mud huts. These were large in diameter with a central overhead fan, three beds lining the walls, and perhaps a cupboard or two. Seated, I would get offered a sweet and a glass of water, and make some gestures and a few smiles while there was general amusement on the part of my host. After five or so minutes, Sumna would stand, and I would follow, and we would visit the next relative.
They have massive families.
Sudanese weddings! I was decked out in a lime green Sudanese sari – beautiful fabric, but ridiculously difficult to wear, let alone to wear gracefully. The fabric slips off surreptitiously, and short of taping it to my head, a mass of blond hair was often revealed! I would then try and recover some fabric whilst Summa tried to tuck things in – all to my embarrassment and a general hysteria on the part of her mother and aunts.
The wedding was in walking distance and so together we went off in direction of the music. Through a door in a mud wall, I was in an enclosed courtyard that held every hue known to man. The women were exquisite! Decked out in saris in vivid colours, and with distinct poise, they would move through the crowd with a sequence of handshakes and melodic talk. There was a bustle and freedom that I had not yet experienced in Sudanese women. When I concentrated on the noises I couldn’t help but recall Natal’s Indian mynahs… With no intention of insult, it really did sound like a cacophony of birds. The women sat in circles around a large circular tray that held dishes of meat and beans.
I was encouraged to eat as though I was a starving child. Struggling to break bread, dunk and swoop into my mouth with my right hand only, I caused a fair level of merriment. Sudanese eat only with their right hands and use no utensils to speak of – it is quite literally a matter of dunking and grabbing at the food… messy business. So there I sat, with an eleven year old as my host, dressed in lime green that would make my sister proud, trying to eat with one hand and simultaneously keep the sari covering my hair, and everything together with some element of grace.
I got back to Asaad’s house and shed the sari in a matter of seconds! I didn’t know that in a few hours I would go back together with the boys for the celebratory side of the wedding. And so, re-adorned in lime green, but in fits of laughter as the boys were dressed in white Arabic cloth and matching hats, we returned to the celebrations. And there was dancing!
It was an awesome experience marred only by a bad bout of food poisoning a couple of hours later! The experience was all too much for a stomach that has held its own well enough ‘til then. I was up until 4 am and was pretty ill so decided to truck the last day to the Ethiopian border. This was very disappointing, but was a welcome one as I passed the team on the road in the heat from the comforts of a particularly dusty Sudanese bus. I was in no state to be cycling!
Sudan has been a surreal and beautiful experience. It has been an honour to embed myself into a different world and try to understand how they live and how they think. I would struggle to live in their world, but I am better for understanding how they do. Sudan is a world far removed from that which I had gained from international media – it is a massive expanse, with the most genuinely hospitable and faith-filled people that place enormous emphasis on family and community. I have learnt life lessons from the Sudanese.
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