My Graced Journey: Living in Sudan

Monday 1 September 2008

Living in Sudan

English Teacher in Khartoum

Social interaction

Sudan 2008

During 2008 I had the opportunity to teach English in Khartoum, Sudan. It is not exactly a popular tourist destination like Greece. Civil war between the North and South still existed. A huge UN presence in Khartoum to monitor issues in Darfur, made it a volatile situation. The president was at that time indicted by the World Court for crimes against humanity and the rebels attacked Khartoum at one point. One could not walk around like a tourist taking pictures of everything. There was a certain danger to everyday life. Yet I felt more secure and safe than in South Africa. You knew the boundaries and the do's and don’ts, whereas in SA the enemy is within. The locals in Khartoum are very hospitable and caring. They went out of their way to show kindness and provide help.

Again like in most African cities the divide between rich and poor is evident. Some had everything, some had nothing. Yet people showed no jealousy or envy, but rather a contentment. Due to the fact that much Non-profit Aid and relief organizations are involved with projects in Sudan, a huge foreign expat community exists. The UN, UNHCR, WFP, WHIO, UNICEF to name but a few employ a wide variety of workers with different nationalities. Parties, get-togethers, and clubs like in the days of colonialism exist to entertain and strengthen the camaraderie between expats in a faraway dangerous place. I attended some of these, but my impression was that these events only served to provide opportunities to get drunk legally.

As alcohol is forbidden in Islamic countries, bars and pubs exist to a limited extent, and then exclusively served expats. NGO expats got their drinks flown in on sanctioned UN planes to pass customs unnoticed. Eritreans supplied the locals need for booze. I was approached on a street by an Eritrean offering me a bottle of whiskey for USD 70. The illegal market in pornography and alcohol provides a constant supply for the great demand. It is said that there are more alcoholics in Islamic countries than anywhere else. More affluent Arab men are huge consumers of sex tourism in Thailand and China. There are sex hotels in Dubai specifically to cater to this need. In Afrikaans, we have a saying "bo blink, onder stink", which means that on the outside people are all pious and holy, yet on the inside they are rotten........ 'White-washed tombs'. Double standards of foreign expat workers who came to 'help' but in reality fled away from their countries to pursue illegal activities legally, also existed. The locals hated the UN and all its sister organizations.

Petroleum companies from China also invaded Sudan to exploit this valuable commodity. One of my functions was to improve these employees' English. As a minority group living in compounds, they were quite eager for friendship. As I worked in China for 3 years, I could speak reasonable Chinese and they took me in and made me part of some extracurricular activities. In the poor areas, you had street food and sidewalk tea, while in more affluent areas you had 'Beverley Hills' style coffee shops and restaurants which catered for the upper crust expats and locals. I loved the spontaneity and friendliness of the poorer classes, which made you feel welcome and accepted. The upper crust entertainment venues filled with expat snobs made you feel like the cat dragged you in.

Not all expats were there for the wrong reasons, I went to church there and met Christians who were trying to erase the bad image of expats within the community. I had friends within all these different groups of people and it gave me great insight into the make-up of Khartoum, truly a city of contrast and variety.

Exploring Bahri - posing with locals

Exploring Tuti island - Khartoum

About Sudan

Sudan (Arabic: Al-Sudan) is the third largest country in Africa and sixteenth largest in the world, bordering Egypt, Eritrea, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Libya, and South Sudan. Sudan is afflicted by civil wars which have been raging, on and off, for more than 40 years. When the colonial map-makers divided up Africa, they included in Sudan the predominantly Muslim people of the north (including Nubians), who share much of their history and culture with Egyptians and Arabs, and the largely Christian and Animist Nilotic and Bantu people of the south, who have more in common with the rest of sub-Saharan Africa than with their northern neighbours (Wikitravel).

About Khartoum

Khartoum (Arabic: Al-Khartum) is the capital of Sudan and is located where the Blue Nile and White Nile Rivers merge. The huge, spread-out city is actually made out of three distinct cities (Khartoum, Khartoum North or Bahri, and Omdurman) which are divided by the Nile and its two arms (Wikipedia).

The Three Towns—Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North—together comprise the political, commercial, and administrative center for Sudan. Located where the Blue Nile and White Nile join to flow north toward Egypt, the capital city is the largest urban complex in the country. Khartoum, the political capital, means "elephant trunk" in Arabic (encyclopedia.com).

As I was walking around my neighborhood, Buri, this group of teenagers passed me in their horse cart.
They invited me for a ride and I did a photo shoot. Content with so little was my impression of them.
On the other hand, you had many expats with lots complaining all the time