Leaving Sudan - Kosti to Gallabat

As there was no way through South Sudan we had to head eastwards towards the Ethiopian border. That we did. On the way to Gallabat, the last town in Sudan, we had to cycle through the region known in Sudan as the Delta. This land lies in-between the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The landscape is mainly flat and formed by endless fields of cotton, sugarcane, sorghum and acacia tree forests. As it is the dry season all the fields are barren and the land is dry, dry, dry. It is also very, very hot and a dry, almost unbearable wind adds to the discomfort and makes us drying out very quickly. The closest to describing the feeling is having your hair dryer on full power, blowing at your whole body. It starts at 9am and ends at 12pm! There is nowhere to go and hide! There is no cooling wind! There is no shade that helps cooling! NOTHING BUT HEAT! After some hours in the scorching heat, the tongue sticks to the palate and there is no saliva to swallow. In the evening we would usually stop at a village and ask for a place to sleep. We were always invited to stay at someone's place. They seem to have a room/tukul for guests which we were offered! Hospitality is just astonishing over and over again!

These 500 km were a hard test to our endurance at heat, little food and very hot and dry wind. After 4 days we arrived exhausted in Al Qadaref. Here we enjoyed the comfort of a hotel as Yann fell sick, probably due to the water we drank on the way here. Usually we filter our water, but as it was so hot, we sometimes just drank whatever we were offered. When offered water by our hosts, it would have been very rude to refuse! 

Once recovered we cycled the remaining 160 km to the border town of Gallabat. We crossed the bridge, over a river with no water at the time and found ourself in a very different world. 

Family transport

Lunch break, the owner insisted on inviting us!

Invitation to tea, and after that all the women wanted to have their picture taken.

Some little rascals, very sweet.

The road runs along an old railway track, maybe the dislocated train waggons are the explanation to the disuse of the line?

Wood transport.

At Sennar the water of the White Nile gets held back by a dam built by the British 60 years ago to irrigate the land between the White and Blue Nile. Luckily it still holds and the power station that profits from it is also still in use. We were invited to stay with Mohamed, the uncle of our dear friend Mohamed from Kosti. As he is the manager of the hydroelectric power plant in Sennar we were allowed to stay in their guesthouse, the only payment was a short presentation of our trip!

Engineers of the hydroelectric power plant. The lady in orange is a future engineer. Due to security no other pictures were allowed!

I was so proud of our picture of the desert bus in our last blog, I thought it was the last one of the mohicans. But then we found another one and another one and another, and this one. 

Filling up water during lunch break. We tried to stay out of the heat from 12 am to 5 pm. 

Sometimes we found lovely spots! 

Date palms are not only useful for us humans. In this one there is a big bird colony living and breeding. 

Shortcut: ferry in Rabwat.

The ferry is used for people and goods transportation...

… and even entire sheep herds! Do they pay for each one?

Another break with a lovely tea lady and comfy rope bed.

Our first baboons…. to be honest they are quite big and a little bit scary. Luckily they were nibbling at the bush next to the road and not on juicy biker's legs. 

We asked for a place to pitch up our tent and were offered our own tukul, too cool!

Walk-in tailor...

Whirlwind in the streets of Al Qadaref.

"Yes, the air conditioning is working", we were assured, but the truth was more like "ah may be not? so lets take it out and repair it!". A couple of hours later the as-good-as-new air condition was put back in place again. It refused working during the heat hours of the day! But at least in the evenings it brought us some comfort. TIA!

Market in Al Gedaref.

Who is faster, Yann or the boys? (they are: three on one bike, no luggage, young legs!)

These young men belong to a nomad tribe called the Rashidas, they wander in the lands between Eritrea and Sudan. Their wealth and pride are their camels and the nomadic way of living. Proud and beautiful. 

Our last camping night in Sudan. This must be the favorite hunting place of all the scorpions around. All the way down through all these desert areas we have not seen one of this creatures. On this spot there were three around our evening "dinner table". Which means we where sitting on our mattress on the floor when the scorpions were out to hunt. Luckily they were very small but it was not a very relaxed dinner, as we were constantly searching the ground for the black beasts. 

There was also another visitor. What looks like straw is in fact a little insect that came to have a look at us. Probably they all got a bit over excited by the light of our head torches.

Gallabat, our last town in Sudan. 

We say goodbye to a country with a lot of hypocrisy, a not so democratic and just government, a country with harsh living conditions and we say goodbye to the most generous and hospitable people we met so far. 

Thanks to the people of Sudan, we felt very welcomed!  

 

Arab culture - a glimpse while travelling

Sorry, this post has no photos!

We have been traveling in arabic / islamic countries for nearly 4 months now and some things stick out. 

• hospitality towards total strangers has never been so nice, warm, welcoming, heart warming and unquestioning! so many times have we been invited to tea that we stopped counting! so many times have we been invited to stay overnight, had we accepted we would not have made it further than Cairo by now! People are incredibly open and curious! and pride of what they have and are!

• Islam / Koran / religion is not only a believe, it's also a whole set of rules, customs, behaviors,… There is an intertwinement of religion and culture. It's fascinating and worrisome at the same time. Questions are accepted as far as Koran / Islam is not questioned, thus the fundamentals of why things are the way they are, is not questioned and Allah has an answer to everything and is the cause of everything. For us Westeners, coming from Switzerland where fundamental value discussions are up anytime, this can be at best strange sometimes. Here are some examples:

• Having many children is something men usually want (we have not been fortunate enough to talk to many women to find out their opinion…). We met the odd one who said he wanted 2 or 3 children and not more, but usually the aim is to have 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or even more. (Btw: it's not the men taking care and raising the children!). When questioned if they had enough money to raise their planned 9 children the answer would be: "Allah will make me find enough money!" or "If there is not enough money, my children will go to work for me!"
  So the mindset is not "I am the one who is responsible towards my children and have to plan according to my economic possibilities" but more "If I have many children, then Allah will give me more work/money so that I can provide food and education to them." Responsibility is outsourced! Quite handy! Is it reality????

• Having more than one wife is a wish to many men. On an individual basis this might be understandable (although it's the first proof of gender inequality! No women will ever be allowed to have more than one man!) but if taking it to the level of a nation it quickly becomes obvious that for every man who has a second wife, there is going to be a man who will not find a wife; is that fair? Expecially: is that selfish behavior as a man fair towards other men?? (imagine 80 million people in a country, 40 million men, 40 million women. 20 million men have 2 wifes, leaving 0 women to be married to the remaining 20 million men!!!). Most of the time the discussion stopped here: the abstraction was too hard to take. Discussing this with a retired teacher the answer was: "in Sudan the population is not 50% men 50% women. There are more women than men." Hmm, I didn't look it up. Presenting him the 50%-50% figure later his answer was: "I don't want to see this. You have to ask yourself who does publish this and what are their interests in doing so!"
  Another man told me that he thought that for a woman there were actually only advantages if her husband had several wifes! Of course Chantal was not within hearing distance when he told me that! And his voice had lowered to a louder whisper, just for that sentence!

• In the Sinai we were invited to stay overnight in a small oasis. Having talked with the two men of which one had a daughter who was around, I asked permission to take a picture of all of them. Permission was granted for the 2 men, but not for the daughter, even if she wore the head scarf! "If you take a picture of her, then any man can look at her. I don't want this!"

• There is a thing called Harraam, which I would freely translate with "loosing your honor / reputation" and it's one of the worst things that can happen, since it does not affect the individual but the whole family. Our understanding is very superficial and crude, so we do apologize for the inexactitudes. Nevertheless it's something that no family wants and will try to recover if it looses it by any means, which includes killing your daughter or son for example! Asking one of our friends to give us an example he explained: "If a daughter (or son) was to kiss a boy (or a girl) without being married, this would be haram and the father or brothers will kill her (or him) to restitute the family honor/reputation!"
  We know all this from the TV and news at home, but hearing it one to one being told to us without hesitation, is very different!

• In Jordan I lived for 2 months with a Norwegian woman, sharing apartment. It didn't work out at all! A Jordanian was totally astonished hearing that we had arguments: "How come you don't get along. You are from the same culture! You must get along!" To him, it seemed, being from the same culture meant we could live together without problems.

So, as a first conclusion: if you don't mind seeing, observing, experiencing and living contradictions and values that are different to yours, then Jordan, Egypt and Sudan will be fascinating places to visit and you will experience one of the greatest hospitalities. And if you mind: it's another culture and it's fascinating to try to understand how people are functioning! What makes them do certain things and not others, why they are where they are, why things are moving the way they are,…

Sudan - the (not only) backside

Here are some anecdotes, as lived or heard of during our time in Sudan


Security encounter
It's 45°C in the shadow, we have cycled some 70km with headwinds and are entering a town when the security officer in his air-conditioned 4X4 drives besides us and without saying a word arrogantly waves us down (that's when you know he is security! NO normal Sudanese would do that!). We stop and he asks us where we come from, where we go, wants to see our passports and then says this sentence, pointing at Chantal, that makes me explode: "What is this?"

My answer is harsh: "What do you mean what-is-this?"

"Sister? Wife?"

"Of course she is my wife! What do you think? Why do ALL Sudanese ALWAYS have to ask this ?" 

I feel I have gone too far! But apparently he does feel the same for his behavior. He just puts up an apologizing face and only says: "Welcome to Sudan!" And we don't need to show our passports! So we enter the town.

On another occasion we were told that Al Bashir had made a public statement on TV saying he was ready for any critics as soon as by the end of January. So a professor asked in a newspaper where he had his 3 villas from. 2 days later the professor was arrested by security and held for at least 20 days in detention without charge. The newspaper didn't appear for 20 days. The warrant was signed by Al Bashir himself! All this for asking about 3 villas!

Corruption is nearly openly shown. At a police checkpoint we were stopped and questioned on our wherefrom and whereto. While discussing with the police officer on one side of the car, another car stopped (policemen don't get out of their car, you have to go to them!), a man got out and handed something that looked like a booklet to the police officer on the other side of the car. There clearly was a bank note in that booklet which was not there when the booklet came out again...

On another occasion a police officer made sure we left before he served his "next client".

When leaving Sinnar we stopped at a local supermarket and the vendor spoke quite well English. He told us 2 astonishing things:

• "I want to go to Britain. In Sudan there is no innovation!" 
• "People here just get up, eat and then go to bed again." meaning they don't have any ambitions to change things.

Are the people responsible for this? or the system? or both? or do they like the way it is...? Does everyone want a change? if yes, which way? how? by which means? (Yann, stop it!)

But things are also changing. In Al Qadarif near the Ethiopian border the governor apparently moved out of his huge governor building into a smaller house and donated the building to the local hospital . When questioned about his move by the central government he apparently said that he didn't need such a big house and was happy to stay in a smaller one. What a brave sign to all those people who think government officials are only scum!

The same city forbid plastic bags on its territory 4 years ago!!! In Al Qadarif there are no plastic bags given to you when you shop. You can buy one (which you will surely not throw away as long as it lasts) or you get a paper bag for free, but not a plastic bag! Not to say that there is no garbage in the street, but it's definitely cleaner!


On the rare occasions we met women privately, we had animated discussions (although limited by language barriers that we tried to bridge with internet translations!) about if the women of sudan want to change things. It was a difficult question, and the discussion hovered around the topic of gender equality. Women are still in a very weak position and emancipation is not very far advanced. But it also showed that these topics are discussed by women. One other topic was birth control and it seems that Sudanese women are interested in contraceptions and they like to have the opportunity of family planning. A lot of the women we met in Sudan, who could to our benefit also speak English, were very well educated and most of them had a college or an university degree. Unfortunately as one elderly Sudanese man made it clear: after the marriage the women are not supposed to work outside home anymore. University degree or not. Does this sound familiar? Yes, it is not that long ago that it was the same in Europe...
Some male behave very arrogant: a man would throw the cigarette cellophane on the ground in his house. Or would throw the cigarette on the ground and leave it there. Women are supposed to clean! When we later discussed this the other family members would complain about it, but never tell him! You don't tell an elder man that he is doing something you don't like, especially if you are a woman!
We also observed that there are lots of gender misunderstandings circulating. As an expample: if you give a woman chocolate she will want to have sex! (says a man)
Another example: if man and woman shake hands, there are hormones transferred from the woman to the man. Therefore some men don't touch women at all, others don't touch them once they have washed before prayer.


Wouldn't it be great to set up a webpage / discussion forum for men/women in arabic cultures so that they can discuss gender issues on an anonymous basis? Who could help set this up?

Sudanese family stay - a thousand thanks! شكرا كثيرا

Arriving in Kosti we are welcomed at Mohammed's place. Tom and Matt from www.tomandmattcycle.com stayed at his place in Khartoum, he invited us to stay with his family in Kosti. He lives here when he is not studying in Khartoum.

He is married to Zeinab and they have a freshly born son, Abdullah. Zeinab's mother Sofia and her daughter Neda also live here. Sofia's husband comes every now and then since he is married to another woman too.

Entering the compound the guest room is on the left. on the right there is the shower and toilet house. For men and visitors the shower and toilet to be used are the ones facing the guest room. On the backside of the shower/toilet house there are the shower and toilet of the women who are living in the compound. Water is kept in big plastic tanks beside the 1.5m high wall that draws a line between the guest room and the shower/toilet house. This is to prevent outsiders to view the women when the entrance door is open. In a way it is understandable because the women have to wear the head scarf when men are around, so when men are not around they can take it off. Imagine the stress with an open door!

Behind the wall there is the kitchen, a sleeping room, a closed room and another sleeping room (male area?).

The male guest has to stay in the visitor area, maybe entering into the male area beside the visitor area but is surely not allowed to wander around where the women are! The opposite applies to the female visitor. So until we were "adopted" by the family, Chantal and I spent most of our days separated! It was a strange feeling to be in the same compound and still not see each other except when being in the guest room!

Mohammed and Abdullah

shoe making - Mariann, this one is for you!

do you remember which one belongs to whom? ;-)

cutting the leather for the shoe making

cutting the hair: before...

...after

which one is Sudanese?

Sudanese family - women only! Not Chantal's usual outfit, bit here we went to see the sufis of Kosti, and the guest has to have decent clothing.

                                        

making Zalabiya

riding a bike is fun!

proud Mohammed with his son Abdullah

This is a Sudanese Sauna called Duchaan, it is actually a pottery amphora let into the ground. In this amphora the women lit a fire with acacia wood...

.... the women has to wear a black poncho, and on top of that a woolen blanket. It looks cosy, but it isn't. I would like to remind you that there is fire in the hole underneath my legs and the outside temperature is around 40 °C. From time to time I'm aloud to lift the blanket and get some fresh air under it, it was very hot.....

....after the sauna, you go and take a bucket shower; no soap aloud. The smell lasted for a week...

...then to complete the treatment you have a henna-session, but only married women are aloud to wear henna...

the result -  with it came an incredible change in attitude of both men and women towards Chantal when cycling later on! Everyone noticed it and everyone asked where I got it from and was admiring the good work of the henna-painter. For the people here she now is half Sudanese half Swiss.