wish you were here

khartoum's post office is a bit hard to track down if you don't know what you're looking for. what you're looking for is a rundown, colonial-style building with a rusting wrought-iron fence, one street west of nile avenue.

you'll know for certain that you've arrived if, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., you see men outside this crumbling building selling postcards from the 80s for anywhere between 50 piestas and two pounds.


i've never seen anybody lounging along the nile. certainly never a woman in a short skirt.


the presidential palace. it's still pretty impressive.

camels. (in case you missed it, camels = africa)

random wildlife.


the nile!

click, click, click, click

as a favor to lou, i spent yesterday morning at the school where she volunteers. the kindergartners are graduating at the end of the month and they needed someone to take pictures before the ceremony. i was happy to oblige. gotta say, they were pretty damn cute. here's some evidence:

colors in the sky

the sun sets in omdurman.

moving here has taught me there are a few things deserts have in common. one of them, it seems, is their big, uninterrupted skies. whenever i see a sky like this here, i can't help but think of arizona. it's sort of comforting to know that, with all of the changes in culture and law and language, there are a few constants in my life these days.

the wrestlers who came from nuba

two circles of chalk had been laid down, one within the other. and around those circles was yet another, this one made of metal poles and pieces of cloth. and between the chalk and the makeshift walls were yet more circles, circles of people, packed close together.

all of their eyes were directed toward the center, for at the center of this bull’s eye, were four men. two were there to fight. two were there to enforce the rules.

the wrestlers bent at the waist, their eyes on one another. they reached down, scooped up fistfuls of the powdery earth and bathed in it. they ran the dirt along their arms and their thighs. they moved it, like kindling, quickly between their hands. what was left of the dirt, they let fall, like soft rain, back to the ground.

everybody watched. everybody was quiet.

the refs circled, caught up in an orbit around the wrestlers, and the two nuba fighters began their own rotation. moving to one side and then another.

it was slow at first.

one man cautiously raised his hand, the other recoiled. one man extended his hand and tapped the other man’s head. they grabbed each other’s shoulders, then released.

a feint. a taunt. always rotating. it was slow at first. but only at first.

suddenly, they were upon one another. an arm around a neck. a leg around a waist. they became a jumble of limbs, a knot of flesh.

then, just as quickly as the action had begun, it ended with one man standing and another on his back.

it did not take long for the crowd to erupt. arms shot up into the air, and so did voices.

the victor stamped the ground with his foot and sent dust flying. he took a lap around the circle of people, offering a smile to all, collecting money from some.

this happened again and again, more times than anyone, except the referees perhaps, bothered to count.

when the wrestlers were spent and the matches decided, the makeshift walls were pulled down and the crowd exploded outward. they wasted no time leaving; it was time to pray.

soon, all that was left were the two circles of chalk, one with another, and inside them, two young boys.

the boys faced one another, bent at the waist, scooped dirt into their hands, let it fall and began to wrestle.

showed and told

i've started doing show-and-tell with my second-year classes. see, it's an activity that works to everyone's advantage: every student gets some time to talk, uninterrupted, and i get to learn more about my students.

also, i get presents: one girl gave me some sudanese marriage incense. i accepted. the class thought this was hilarious. obviously.

anyhow, this past thursday was the first round, so i went, too. i showed and told about my polaroid camera.

thursday, 8 to 9:30 a.m.

thursday, 9:30 to 11 a.m.

thursday, 9:30 to 11 a.m., reverse

and the young boy sang for us

i never really know where i'm going in sudan. or what's coming next. at first that bothered me. lately, though, i've just been trying to let go, let sudan take me wherever it wants.

a few nights ago, after a day at the camel market (obviously), i found myself at a sufi compound in omdurman, one of the three cities that make up khartoum's metro area.

sufism is hard to explain -- at least, i find it hard to explain. the best i can do is describe it as sort of a mystical branch of islam.

the people there, as is often the case wherever i wind up, were kind beyond all expectations. the sheikh showed us through the compound, through the mosque and through the small cellar where, we were told, he spends the month of ramadan without food or water or fresh air.

we also got to meet the students at the adjoining islamic school. all students in sudan, unless christian, are required to take islamic studies as part of their core curriculum. but the students at the mosque study nothing but the quran. a good part of this education involves reciting quranic verses.

one of the young boys (he's in the picture above) showed us how it's done. to hear what that sounds like, click on the media player above. listen closely, and you'll probably also catch the evening call to prayer in the background.


boards like these we scattered around the otherwise-empty school room.








once the camera comes out, you know a group picture is inevitable.


"there is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God." this message was repeated several times in the cellar where the sheikh spends the whole of ramadan.

when the sun came up

sunrise over the blue nile -- hasaheisa, sudan -- jan. 31, 2010

i remember learning about the nile river in grade school. it usually came grouped with mummies and hieroglyphs and pharaohs and other things that seemed too far away (both in distance and time) to be real. so, i guess, that's why i've always felt the nile was some sort of magical place. specifically, some sort of magical place that, despite the fact it winds its way through more than 4,000 miles of earth, i would probably never see outside the pages of a textbook.

but then sunday morning, my alarm went off at 5:50 a.m., and i found myself walking through a small town south of khartoum called hasaheisa. i found myself walking past closed shops, empty roads and waking roosters. i found myself climbing down a hill of dried up mud, taking a seat and watching the sun rise over the nile.

here's what i saw: