In the Midst of Visual Riches...

So endeth another trip away from home.

It is always a wrench having to pack up and go away for a while. Even short trips seem endless until that magical moment when, upon arrival at the airport, you come out of ‘Arrivals’ and there is beloved waiting to drive you home.

It is a part of the job. You think that it is something that you get accustomed to over the years but that never happens.

Many years ago we fulfilled a contract in Sudan that required each of us to go there, to Khartoum, for a month at a time. I went twice.

The country around us was interesting so boredom was never a problem but being away from loved ones was a bad thing on several levels.

While I was in Sudan I received a card from my son, Zakwan. He wrote, “Miss you, Dad,” on it. Makes you feel very sad and very, very homesick.

Just a short digression; several expert writers and people who teach others how to write suggest that the word ‘very’ should be stricken from your vocabulary when it comes to story telling. They are right.

But.

There is always a ‘but’.

Perhaps I should tell you a little about Sudan. At least, my impression of it.

We dubbed ‘Sudan Airways’ ‘Insya’Allah (If God wills it) Airlines’ because everything they did was suffixed with ‘insya’Allah’ thus preparing the way for a failure to carry something out. Should something they said would happen not occur then, clearly, God was not willing for it to happen.

They would routinely depart from any airport seven or eight hours late. If it were the same day then they would regard the flight as leaving ‘on time’.

First Class passengers were afforded a similar level of comfort to that which Economy Class would be on any other International Airline but Economy Class passengers on Sudan Airways had to beware that they weren’t sitting next to the goat!

(Not really but that was the impression we got from looking back into the Economy Class area).

We were told of a fire that was lit in one of the aisles on the aircraft—an Airbus A330. Seems the occupants of the adjacent seats became a little impatient for the in-flight rations!

It would be a rare event for the Airline to actually come and pick you up from the airport as promised and as contracted to do so. It seems that the transport was provided by a different part of the Airline to the Training School; the two divisions rarely spoke to each other, apparently.

We arrived there shortly after the American military decided to deliver a cruise missile to a baby food factory in Khartoum. This had several effects.

Firstly, the baby food factory was no more. This threw lots of people out of work. Why anyone would wish to destroy a baby food factory is completely beyond me. Anybody who has been to Khartoum would know that the manufacture of anything more complex than baby food in a baby food factory would be utterly beyond the average Sudanese concept of things. If they were going to make chemical weapons they would build a ‘Chemical Weapons Factory’.

The American Embassy was not permitted to stock or provide alcohol to their guests. Sudan is a ‘dry’ country. The British High Commission had a guest night every week at which it was possible to partake of beer and spirits. These were not actually for sale. You would buy tickets and exchange them for drinks—including ‘Cok-uck-Ola’. The Americans were displeased at this but, then, it was their cruise missile...

The trade embargo by Western Nations that followed the demolition of the baby food factory created a storm of poverty in Sudan that did not affect, in the slightest, the hierarchy. Construction stopped almost immediately so there were many abandoned buildings in various states of completion and, of course, the roads were filling with sand and holes. When it rained heavily the holes filled up so nobody wanted to drive; Khartoum lurched from dead slow to stop.

Most of the drinks stalls were run by Algerians, oddly enough. Most of them spoke only Arabic and French whereas most Sudanese speak Arabic and English. This was all right for them!

We had occasional sandstorms. These are colossal walls of sand that approach quite quickly. They stretch from horizon to horizon so one wonders what the ‘end’ of a sandstorm looks like.

The thing that you don’t see on films about sandstorms is that they are preceded by flocks of small eagles—Harriers, no doubt. Each one trying to grab the small birds that are flushed along by the approaching wall of sand. The other thing that you don’t see is that when it rains the whole thing comes down as dollops of mud. The Hilton Hotel was plastered with mud after one such sand/rain storm. The staff were out there for a long time hosing down the walls and windows to clean it up!

I did have a flock of goats follow me into the hotel. On my return from a visit to Omdurman I alighted from the bus and these goats chose to follow me along the road. They happily trotted along and some of them followed me through the doors into the lobby, the rest stayed behind to munch on the flowers in the hotel forecourt.

The staff were occupied for some time trying to round them up and usher them out and then try to prevent them from joining their colleagues in destroying the garden.

No, I have no idea to whom they belonged or from whence they came.

Along the banks of the Nile there are thorn bushes. The thorns are about an inch and a half long and like steel nails. They make short work of tyres. One of the workers in the hotel informed me that these were the very thorns that were used to make the ‘Crown’ that Jesus (pbuh) wore on the cross. That being the case they would have been extraordinarily painful. I brought a ‘sprig’ home for my son to take to school to show the class in Scotland.

Also along the banks of the Nile and in various locations around the towns were sellers of ‘karkadil’. This is a drink that tastes rather like blackcurrant. It is made from the petals of a Hibiscus flower. They sell it here, in Malaysia, under the name of ‘Roselle’. Tasty.

It is usually made by an old lady at the roadside. She will offer it hot or cold, sweetened or unsweetened, in a small glass for just a few small coins. She will heat up the water and brew it over a small charcoal burner. It is delicious; I believe I was almost addicted to it.

When you order and drink it you will sit on a small circular seat made from ‘rebar’. They will cut off three lengths of ‘rebar’ to make the legs and then form the rest into a circle. The three legs are wleded onto the circle. Plastic tape is woven around the circular part to form a seat. Quite comfortable, cheap and efficient.

In Omdurmnan there is a museum that traces the British occupation and the demise of Colonel Gordon who sailed up the Nile to quell the natives and got himself quelled instead.

The bow gun from his boat is still there. Interesting.

The problem with Omdurman and many other places is that the poverty is rife.

This is real poverty. This is not people who are merely ‘poor’; these are people who have absolutely nothing.

Not for them a choice between ‘Corn Flakes’ and toast in the morning; their prayer is that they will get something—anything, that day.

It is utterly impossible to give a few coins to one of them because you will be immediately deluged in outstretched, stick-like, arms. All around you there are large, luxury, cars rushing past and the contrast is too much. These cars are often owned by ‘friends of the Government’.

It is pathetic. In the literal sense. By that I mean it is full of pathos. I took a friend into Omdurman to visit the museum and the soukh (bazaar) but I had to get him straight back to the hotel because he was in tears. This big, strapping rugby player, a really tough character, was overwhelmed by the poverty he saw there. He said he felt helpless, inadequate.

I could tell you about the bridge, that crossed the confluence of the White and Blue Nile, that the British built and is now a military secret but I am overcome by the memories of those people and my failure to be able to do anything about it.

Sudan is not alone. Poverty on this scale is endemic.

Just look around you.