adhunika blog

This is a continuation from my two previous posts on my Sudan trip:
Sudan Tales
Life in Khartoum 

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One of my group mates likes to count cats and dogs. So far she has seen 28 dogs and 2 black cats on this trip. Fortunately none of the black cats have crossed her path so at least bad luck has been averted. We have been trying to convince her that maybe it’s the same black cat that she saw twice but she is quite adamant that they are two separate ones.

I would think counting goats makes more sense here in Khartoum considering how many there are around. Or even donkeys, donkeys are used all over to carry water especially to remote localities… or to pull a cart. The carts go jingling by, the donkey bells sparkling in the sun, a half asleep driver at the helm and a long row of cars following behind honking impatiently and eventually just giving up.

Yesterday was a day of sand. We had declared Friday as our day of freedom from work. In fact work was a dirty word that no one was allowed to mention and if possible even think about. We went to see the pyramids which are a couple of hours away from Khartoum, these immense structures which even predate the pyramids in Egypt. We were inches away from centuries old hieroglyphics. The intricacy of the carvings in the pyramids, in the temples that we saw was stunning. The remains of a great enclosure lies close to one of the temples, half broken walls, with hieroglyphics of lions, tigers, elephants, pictures of hunting to other words that tourists and locals have scratched on them over the years.

The immensity of the sky in Sudan never fails to amaze me. It was a vast stretch of blue, no clouds in sight and the blazing sun. And us among the yellow sand dunes interspersed with volcanic rock ridges, slipping and slithering in the midst of a sand storm. And then there were the camels… .yes I did ride one for a while probably shrieking my head off half the time. And no the camels didn’t spit while we were there although we had heard so many stories about camels spitting that we were just waiting for that eventuality.

A boat ride down the Nile finished off our trip. Language has been a bit of an issue for the entire trip and especially during the boat ride. We had no clue where we were going in the boat, for how long, or how we would get back. We went wherever the driver took us, we stayed there as long as he wanted us to. When the boat docked by the side of the river in the middle of our ride, we didn’t know what exactly to expect, were we supposed to get off, see something?  We kept on hearing the boatman say  over and over again, “house, big house” which eventually translated itself into “bird house.” The boatman wanted us to see these amazing bird houses in a tree, in varying shades of brown and green twigs, intricately created, they looked like blown up Christmas tree ornaments just hanging there on the tree.

It never ceases to amaze me how much my world has changed in the past few years. Here I was in Sudan with a group consisting of people from all around the world sharing and experiencing life in Khartoum. In some ways our experiences were quite different, colored by our own personal opinions and beliefs about life, and in other ways our experiences were quite universal- battling the blood sucking mosquitoes, marveling at the pyramids, memorizing Arabic phrases and trying to communicate to the best of our abilities. It is this universality that I shall remember most about this trip.