­The week of the referendum in Shendi- 

Saturday the 8th of January 2011

I received a call from my friend Abdul Rahman, I was not asked but instructed (;-))to join him  for the henna painting on his hands. Though I was tired, Lykke was to exhausted to join me, I ventured across the campus and joint him and Fatima (one of our first friends here in Shendi- whom I had not seen much off recently), she was the deciding factor for me to actually join them for what turned into an interesting night.

 The male students apply Henna on their palms, finger tips and knuckles for their graduation. Originally Henna for men is used in wedding celebrations for the groom, but as tradition changes it is now also used at graduations. I actually don’t know whether they applied it for other celebrations but from observations I have made men only seem to use it for weddings and graduations.

After I watched Abdul Rahman getting his hands covered in Henna in the picturesque setting of live Eaut ( Sudanese guitar) music and candle light and him dancing with his fellow graduates we decided to join a graduation celebration that was going on at the theatre of the university. 

The students graduate according to the regions they come from and not their subjects. This evening it was the graduations of the Southerners. Apart from my friend Thomas I did not realize that there are quite a few Southerners in Shendi. It was Augustino’s gradutation- Abdul Rahman’s good friend. The dress code was different to previous celebrations- which was to be expected as most Southerners are Christians or of other religions so that the strict dress code does not apply. The mood was definitely different, with the party organised by the SPLA representatives in Shendi- ( this is what one of my students explained) there were quite a few political statements which were shouted when the students were carried down the fairy light lit path to the stage. Augustino asked me to walk with him up to the stage, that he would be honoured. So I decided to throw my utter discomfort about drawing any attention to myself over board and do him the favour.  Apart from out one off at the Kordofan ( region south of Khartoum) celebration, where we forced to go on stage and “contribute”, I had managed to stay clear of getting myself into anything like this. Abdul Rahman convinced me that it would make his evening so I stopped thinking about my discomfort and hobbled along, of course only after the political shouts calmed down. One should stay clear of being associated with any political movement. Especially the night before the referendum kicks off. 

So was walking along with Augustino with his family and flicking my fingers, shouting “abshir” an eventually even had to walk on stage with him, being congratulated to the degree of my friend by some representatives of the party and the regions the students came from. His aunt had come from Abyee, the town which was going to face the massive challenge which comes with being a future border town and oil rich on top. She must have travelled a few days to get here. She was so so proud, and Augustino so happy, that I realized after a while that I completely was proud of a young man I just met who finished his degree and almost emotional about it. 

In the midst of it my friend Thomas suddenly appeared whom I though of being at his parents house but he had just returned from there and was ready to celebrate with his fellow students their achievements. 

As I was watching the rest of the students graduate and walking their walk up to the stage, I became quite emotional, there was such a diversity. The people from different back grounds were celebrating together and were full of joy, dancing and cheering for one another. Would this all disappear, not only because of the different states but also because of the announced Shari’a law enforcement once the states are separated. Students and friends who had belonged to one country would now be from different states. Would this trouble their friendships and what would happen to the diversity of which I was able to witness so much, even in Shendi which is known for being a very conservative town?

Would the freedom they had gained over the restrictions before the CPA in 2005 be lost again?

 

Protests in Shendi amongst other other event

Please read the previous blogs I wrote about Sudan and how incredible and wonderful it is. This experience needs to be understood in context as well as I do want to give yet another impression of Sudan as a conflict only country.

At the end of the week of the 9^th the prices for food items roes instigated by regulations of the government. Where it stood out particularly was in the bread prices. Whilst you could buy 5 breads for 1 guinea you would now only get 4. This was due to the governments regulation to raise the price for bread by 18% ( Quote: The Democrat). Of course this caused outrage among the population of Sudan, which has a high unemployment rate. We had given the students articles to read that week which were talking about different aspects of political life in Sudan ( of course Sudanese newspapers). And now felt rather uncomfortable about having possibly encouraged them to take part in a demonstration which could have become dangerous.

-a little side note here, the limitation of the freedom of press is not as half as great as we expected it. The newspapers clearly state their opinion and are straight forward in their opposition to the government of aspects of the government. Sudanese bluntness in its most lethal use. ( Usually it is just telling people they are fat or look very tired or dehydrated ;-)) Though of course you can get into deep waters with statements and I am pretty sure that being Sudanese you know way better which comments one should make and which one not. Though one is slightly above the law and definitely above conventions/ moral police request as a foreigner, we are aware theat we should tread carefully with political activities and alliances to one party or another. 

So when we went to our Arabic lesson on Monday we were warned that we might not have any students as they were all going to protest in Shendi, workers and students…. (Protests in Shendi????) When we got to class all the students were present. Well the ones who did not skip class. ;-) We asked them about and they were surprisingly unaware of the whole food issue. The next day we walked past a big group of students protesting from one faculty to another within the university compound. Mainly guys but also some girls. Being surprised or not sure whether it was because of the recently circulated video or the food prices we got informed by some of our students walking and chanting that it was the latter. Not surprised by which students were protesting and which not we decided to continue walking to our class and would attempt to hold the class.

Lykke’s class- dutiful first years were all present, my class rebellious Semester 8 was completely absent. Guess they took the chance to skip the class to focus on their research paper as it very unlikely that you would join a protest 1 month before graduation.

So we pretty much only drank a lot of tea that day and expected the next day to go back to normal.

Wednesday: Arabic Lesson in the morning, followed by a late breakfast at a students house.

Huge breakfast at a students house, the calm before the storm!

On our way back we encountered a bunch of students protesting outside the university gates where we stopped and chatted to a few and the continued towards our lecture. 5 min later the situation became heated and the police ended up using tear gas and there was sudden screams by the girls and students were running away from the demonstrations. Later on we found out that this is how demonstrations usually go but if you have never heard tear gas being shot, it does sound like guns, so we were pretty scared at the time. Not for ourselves but for the students.

We could not see what was going on but could get whiffs of tear gas tickling in our noses. There were two more waves of teargas shooting and screaming before the demonstration finally dissolved.  We did not really know what to do and how to react because one part of you agrees with demonstrating and standing up for your own rights whilst the other part just really does not want your students to be hurt. So given that it was already turning wild we opted for trying to discourage the students to get closer.

As we signed a contract to be none political at the beginning of our stay there was not much we could do so we did what all the other students did and retreated to the arts faculty.  (Besides that, you can not protest as a teacher with the students), We sat and had tea with the Dean who half laughingly informed us that this is how demonstrations go in Sudan. (This was confirmed by a good friend of ours, who said that you get used to tear gas and being arrested, that’s just how it is) and then the  Dean started to teach us Arabic- which was a rather bizarre experience given the outside situation, but hey we learned that most things are not entirely logical to our ordered little kawatcha ( white person) minds.

It is quite a shame that the protests turn into violent outbursts. It takes just a couple of heat heads to throw some stones and the situation escalates. One of the other teachers told us that on the first day of the protest, the organisers of the march politely entered the class rooms and asked him politely whether they could take the students out of class, to which he responded who ever was interested could go. It was all very civilized. It makes me wonder to where the violence starts. I know my students as polite, sometimes cheeky, young men and women who do not strike me as stone throwers but I guess it depends on how much you get frustrated with a situation.

The students were stuck on campus or in the girls’ residence, as once they would leave the university compound they would get into trouble from the police. The girls hostel is right behind where the clash between police and students was happening so  that the ones in the hostel could not get out and the ones on campus could not get home. It is about a distance of 40 meters away from each other). The police usually do not enter the university so it was safe to stay on campus. When we thought earlier on that the girls had joined the protest, hearing their voices chanting, they were indeed safely on the roof of the residence encouraging the boys. The reason behind the police keeping the students at bay was that they wanted to prevent the students from getting into town to protest there. The university itself is in the outskirts of Shendi so if they shoot teargas it will only hit students, down town they would not be able to do that, as it is full of women and children and innocent bystanders. Also any violence is limited, according to the Dean, when women are involved in protest. This sometimes leads to the girls taking part of protests for that very reason. It was quite easy to take the students’ side as anyone would automatically but I guess there was some reason for the harsh behaviour of the police. The previous year 2 policemen were killed during a protest in exactly the same spot. I guess that leaves some space for a grey area.

With regards to our rest of the day: We did not have any students for class so that we decided to hang out in the student cafe and chat with who ever turns up. We ended up with 7 students with whom we started talking about the protest, two of them rather feisty young men were in the midst of the protest earlier on but did not get hurt. You could feel their anger and it took about 2 minutes to realize that the problem was not just the bread and also that their was a level of daring of the youth in their participation in the protest. At the same time you could sense their frustration with the whole situation. We mainly listened because lets be honest: What do we know really about what it is like to be in their shoes? It left me personally very humbled about being politically active or talking about right or wrongs in societies. If you protest at home, you might get some wet feet, here you risk being arrested, which did happen to some of the students but they should be out within a day or two the most.

Mohamed, Surajadeen, Mohamed, Hassan, Sami, Asar, Lykke

The conversation became a bit more light hearted when we talked about broken hearts and different approaches to love and then ended in roaring laughter when the students started yet another Arabic lesson focusing on our pronunciation. Fair due, they should be allowed to make some fun of us, we force them to speak English all the time. 

Our crazy day was rounded up with what we thought a dinner at our handy man’s house…. Little did we know that we were in for yet another Arabic lesson. Unfortunately his English was limited to “my house”, “work”, and “about”. Just recall in your mind that we already had 3 hours of Arabic lessons and were a bit shaken by the Protest experience. On top of this, having been for dinners in Sudan before we came prepared, meaning totally empty stomach. So here we were starving, tired and slightly delirious trussed into an hour of hectic pointing at pictures repeating and writing down in Arabic the names of the pictures we saw (dogs that looked like hyenas and sheep that appeared to be prehistoric creatures). What can you do in situations like this? Well you end up laughing hysterically, well trying not to but it did not always work. One hour into the manic teaching, which by the way was observed by 8 women, He indicated to Lykke to finish her juice and we were walked home- again at a very Sudan unusual.

Gosh and just as you think the day comes to an end we bump into our lovely student and friend AbdulRahman who convinces us to have dinner- but they ran out of the good stuff so it was cows foot with bread! I guess it was the right way to end this bizarre day.

Weekend 1 in December in Khartoum

So when we were first told where our placement was it was about 1 hr away from Khartoum. Arriving in Sudan it became 2 hrs and when we finally made the trip up it turned out to be more like 3 hrs. So quite a trip a to make one would think. However in December I shall find myself 4 times going back and forth. Amidst other challenging and interesting things that announced themselves to happen in December.

Weekend 1 in December: 

When I was in Khartoum over the Eid holiday  (the two weeks of at the end of November) I began working with a young journalist who started a small independent new agency. As usually in Sudan I met him through a friend, in this case Osman, whom I mentioned before. We realized quickly that we have interests in similar topics and both agree on the importance of making media production accessible and available for all layers of society. The first three days were full of meeting various people and sitting in meetings where they mainly spoke Arabic and I started wondering what was the point in attending them. By the end of the three days I had realized that work here comes through relation ships with people. That the coffee drank with a potential client is more likely to give you the contract than maybe your superior skills. Of cause you will still deliver any product to the best level but the relationship with the person you work with has greater importance. This was an interesting lesson that has been learned. So within a few days I filmed in the streets of Khartoum without a permit (more about doing that later), met with various clients, tried to catch up with the constant change of speed of the guy I just had started working with and edited a film for UNIFEM in Arabic.

So the weekend of the 10^th of December I went back to get started on some more work. Planning to prep for a shoot on Thursday evening Lykke, my co volunteer and I, got whisked away into the desert by the Archaeology prof who had taken us 2 days prior on a trip to various archaeological sites with the students. Just picture sitting in a bus full of people, various goats underneath is in the boot we hobble along though different villages until we reach the station where the German archaeologists were staying and spend the evening with Ulli, Jens, Isabelle and  ….(shoot I really need to get a better name memory).

So we spent the night with those lovely Germans at their station and got an introduction to pottery analysis. Two days prior, I have to admit that after the 3^rd site I lost track of what I was looking at. It all had become one old stone next to another one. However listening to Ulli, the German PHD student who had been working in Sudan on and off for about 10 years, I began to understand the fascination with the ancient world.

Super idyllic in a courtyard underneath trees which started with a marvellous dinner (as much as Lykke and I are amazing cooks ;-)- it is great not to eat similar food every day) followed by Shisha. and Germ-Eng-Arabic conversation and ended in Jens’ recital of German “Schlager” music lyrics.  As much as I would have liked to stay for the camel ride I thought it nice to stick to my promise and arrive in Khartoum at 11, meaning getting up at 6:30 to get the bus which comes between 6:30 and 7:30 you just stand in the road and wave to the bus driver.

This country teaches you patience like no other. There I was hopping out onto the street at any noise whilst my Sudanese friend the Arch. Prof, Abdel Momein seemed to know exactly which bus sound was the right one, but patiently hobbled out with me onto the street every time a vehicle went past, making me sit down in between to have tea and coffee. So 5 walkouts and 1 hour later I caught the bus straight to Khartoum in midst of Sudanese people who kindly welcomed me and bought me breakfast on the way. Should have learned my lesson though, the bus does not stop for pee breaks. Those were very long 4 hours on the bus…. Small accident on our arrival in Khartoum so it was actually 5 hours. But hey, I made it in the end and being forced to find out where I was and what the muschkila ( problem) was with the bus I did find enough Arabic words to realize that again patience will pay of and eventually the bus moved again.

So much about the journey. I ended up editing an interesting video about young Sudanese Artists performing political pieces at an open mic night, in a pretty amazing venue. I had been there weeks before hand and met my friend Ash there for the first time, who had moved back to Sudan after having left it when he was 6 years old, so good memories were attached to it. The art centre had been a business man’s house who decided to change his home into an arts venue, providing a space for Sudanese artists to express themselves and encourage becoming artists to believe in the importance of art. There were numerous young artists who presented their poetry, mainly political and all very critical.

However before we were able to start editing, Mohammed Badwi (the journalist) showed me the video, which is now shown on various websites of the Sudanese woman being lashed for some sort of inappropriate behaviour. Just to give you the right picture. I was sitting in one of the coffee shops/ restaurants I do not particularly like because it makes you feel like you are not in Sudan and personally makes me feel very detached from the world.  It looks like Europe and it the clientele is predominantly none Sudanese. I prefer the tea ladies at the corner where the tea tastes like Sudan and you can delight in people watching. I guess I do not like them as it points out very much into your face that you can leave the challenges of Sudan at anytime whilst the people who are not part of the crowd of the coffee house have no choice but stick it out. However it had free wi-fi and a socket. So there I am sitting surrounded by other Europeans watching the video of a woman being flogged and as I start as gently and diplomatically (well, maybe not that diplomatically) as possible to question Mohammed about it, he admits quickly that he is out of his depth about Sharia law and will call his friend who studied it and is pro the government. Guess who was slightly terrified now?  Was I going to have a discussion which I was going to regret? Who is this man and how the heck did I get myself into a discussion I certainly was not prepped for at all??? So I suggested we record it!!

Well to cut the suspense short. It was a frigging challenge and did throw me into a long process of thinking about cultural relativism. There are still many hours of thinking to be done about this conversation. Once I have come to a expressible result I shall let you know. But I did highly appreciate the opportunity to be able to throw out all the questions I had about the complexity of the Sharia law and the video that is circling at the moment and also found it very interesting to understand what the Sharia law says about the video/ lashing itself. Give me 50 years and I will be able to understand the complexity of it. …. Maybe.

From there I went on to an evening filled with Khartoum’s other side.  Jamal, my lovely German- Sudanese (I know loads of Germans in my life- who would have thought I would stock up on “se German friends” in Sudan) took me along to the British Embassy. So if you are in Sudan, which is a dry country, you go to diplomatic grounds to get alcohol. Never having been a big drinker I do not mind much the lack of alcohol in my life at the moment but usually the diplomatic grounds do come also with a diplomatic freedom of speech, which I did enjoy- together with a Heineken ;-). Followed by a party thrown by some Canadian UN worker. It is strange those parties are all about getting in there and then you are told where and when they are and who is on the list and in the midst of Khartoum you are part of this little community of foreign workers, where you cant tell at the time whether you are at a London party or in Sudan. Having been on one of the parties 2 weeks prior, I met the same people again. When Lykke and I went to the first party we were rather bizzared out (nothing unusual - we usually are baffled by life here) by the sheer amount of white people in one place. It is a different life to our life in Shendi where we usually hang with the students and other teachers, sitting on a rug and sharing cheap student food from one big bowl (fatah akl talaban) or having tea near the canteen on the grass. It is nice to be able to breath European air, I met some nice people and it was great to rock the dance floor without having to be conscious about whether your dancing was not appropriate as teacher/ woman.

My little weekend trip was rounded up by a Sudanese concert at the Goethe institute. Jamal, mentioned above, works there so it is pretty impossible to miss anything good going on there. Khartoum is a village so as we get to the concert my friend Nadjla happens to walk past us on the way to somewhere else. We met some weeks back when she had invited myself and 5 other volunteers without knowing us for a traditional Sudanese meal just because she had heard that we haven’t had one yet. (Gosh we rolled back home after that dinner). I had meant to call her but had run out of time with the edit and having promised some friends already to hang out that night. As we had some time before the concert started we grabbed some Chai and zalabia ( insanely sweet tea and my Sudane vice- a doughnut like thing you get in the mornings and evenings at the tea ladies). It was good to hang out with her, given that she keeps pushing me to speak Arabic. (don’t be fooled I do sound like an idiot when I speak it). So she invited me and Lykke again to her cousins wedding and we parted ways before the concert.

I do not want to blow my country’s own trumpet here but in terms of integrating into the country the Goethe institute does rock. The concert was amazing. The audience mainly liberal- according to Musa, my kind friend who translated the beautiful lyrics of the songs to me, well after getting the translation I could see why they would be drawn by this band. The band finished at 10:00 and came back to a friend’s house afterwards where they kept playing until 1am. 

So I was back on the bus at 8 am and in the classroom at 3 on Sunday afternoon. The week starts on Sunday, though but that means you are finished by Thursday. Awesome.

Finally getting round to starting the blog

I landed on Wednesday morning on the 6th of October. Flying over the desert for hours I could barely believe that I finally made it, which might have had to do with the lack of sleep.
Let me start from the beginning. I had stopped over in Cairo for 2 nights to see my friend Wiam- whom I hadn't seen for 3 years. Besides wandering the streets of Cairo and watching the sun go down behind its skyline I meet so many of her wonderful friends- Including a couple of fluent German speaking guys from Cairo and a Spanish doctor who specialized in tropical diseases and insisted that I take his details in case I need some medical advice- he stayed in Sudan just a few months ago. If one would have asked me to have a guess what would await me in Cairo, this certainly would not have been it.
I also watched the practice of a choir project Wiam was part of, for which an eclectic mix of Cairos finest people, it seemed, come together for a week each day after work. Together they write and practice songs- political and comical all leading up to a final performance at the end of the week. With a certain degree of risk as political comments are not really tolerated.

Most of the people who will actually kindly take the time to read this blog will know that I have arrive by now in Shendi- a town 3 hrs North of Khartoum after 2 weeks in the big city-where I was waiting to get my papers sorted and my blood taken- to make sure I don't have AIDS.

So below a quick summary and I shall try to write about interesting events more in details in the next blog

Arriving in Shendi was not really a suprise- check out the wikipedia page- we knew there was not much there from the beginning so we were prepared.
Apologies let me explain we: I am teamed up with a Norwegian Volunteer called Lykke who is pretty awesome and I could not think of a better person to life with for 6 months in a place where the highlight of the city is the teashop and where there is a curfew at 8 for the female students/ women in town. ( or at least that was our first impression of Shendi).

We met the Dean of the Department of Art on the same day and were told that he does not really like foreigners.... welcome to Shendi the "Hochburg" ( home) of the tribe where the president Bahshir is from. ( If you are not up to date with Sudanese politics- voicing your opinion in public could go wrong and the ICC is pretty keen to have a close encounter with him with regards to the war crimes committed in Dafur) but of course all this is 'propaganda' and the west portraying the political situation incorrectly. More about that at a later stage.

Things took time to become arranged in Shendi but as we weren't teaching for the first week we just explored our new home town and got our stomachs used to the Shendi water. We started meeting students and preparing our lessons. One week later we were besides some little hick ups settled in a teaching routine and had moved into our little house in the prairie ( minus the grass).  We had a couple of students who took it onto themselves to show us around and gently guide help us with the local customs. We had spent several more awkward conversations with the Dean but were slowly learning how to take him. He is after all taking good care of us.

So the weeks flew past and suddenly it was the week before Eid- the Muslim equivalent of Christmas as it was explained to us several times but actually is the celebration the sacrifice of the lamb instead of the Abraham's son.  So turning up to the classes seemed to have become optional for the students and every other evening there was different celebration/ party going on at the university, so that we were quite relieved when it was the holiday and the other volunteers arrived to pick us up for our trip through the desert to Port Sudan followed by the return to Khartoum to spend the Eid Celebration with our friend Osman's family.
Unfortunately 4 of us caught a virus so we were rather boring visitors who needed to be looked after. Which was amazingly enough nothing that would taint their joy of having us around. If being sick is always this pleasant I would not mind it coming round more often.

Now we are on the second week of the Eid holiday and 5 of us remained in Khartoum working away in different jobs/ volunteering and enjoying the pleasures of a big city. Like speaking English at a normal speed and taking part in different cultural events like the football game of the two main teams of Sudan.

So now I am feeling like am up to date. If you want to know more about Port Sudan, Eid or Kartoum read on in the next blog.

Erster Eintrag

Having been asked several times by different people, I figured I might as well start a blog about my 6 months in Sudan.

Why Sudan?
- I always wanted to go to East Africa for at least a few months, especially Sudan- I think I was 15 when it first entered my consciousness.  I was immediately fascinated by the landscape and really wanted to spend some time there.

So now 10 years later I am on my way to Sudan.
Of course it is not solemnly the landscape because of which I am going. Having made a short documentary about a charity project in Tanzania and seeing people being able to tell their story, I was just taken by the impact filming can have. The supporters of the charity where more able to see what their money and support did as it came through the beneficiaries themselves. But not being able to speak Arabic I figured I will spend some time there first and then see how my media skills can be used and learn Arabic first.

The more I read and learn about Sudan the less I think I know, as it is the human side of events that interest me. Teaching English will be an incredible opportunity to meet people. Whether I will come back with an idea for a documentary or have a chance to film there I don't know but I am very much open to it and shall post links to it if I get a chance to.

In 4 days I will arrive in Khartoum and travel to Shendi, the town north of Khartoum, as soon as my documents are processed.  There I will be living for the next 6 months. This blog might be about the bumpy bus journey, personal encounters with people, my struggle with teaching people English without having a common language to fall back on or something completely different.  Feel free to comment.

Rhea