Humar an Noom

Sudan Studies, Number 15 (January 1994)

The condition known as 'noctambulism', which is less obscurely defined in dictionaries as 'somnambulism', and is spoken of in the English speaking world as 'sleep-walking', finds expression in northern Sudan in a colloquial phrase about a donkey.

This 'donkey of sleep' (humar an noom) first blundered across my path on a clear night, on the east bank of the Nile, between the villages of Argo and Burgeig. I was staying with a family who occupied one of a small cluster of government houses. The father and several of his sons worked at the nearby pumping station which poured gallons of Nile water into the irrigation channels (jadwalls) of farmers up and down the river.

On the first day of my visit I was introduced to the neighbours and after a swim in the Nile was taken on a guided tour of the area, visiting the family's cattle and the huge water pump itself. In the evening we dined on fish which had been stranded in a bend in one of the pump's massive pipes. The fish was delicious but the water with which we washed the meal down contained a hint of benzene. It too had been drawn from the metal guts of the machine.

It was an oppressively hot evening, the final nuance of discomfort being provided by squadrons of 'dive-bombing' mosquitoes, whose tormenting screeches and whirrings, greatly surpassed the itchy swellings resulting from a bite, as a form of mental torture.

At night when I was expecting to be shown to a bed somewhere in the yard, I was instructed to go after my male hosts who inexplicably clambered onto the roof of the house. On following I was surprised to find six beds (angarebs) laid out under the open skies on the narrow iron roof. The house could hold all of this on its head because it was government built and constructed of corrugated iron. The mud and jariid roofs of locally made houses could not have supported such a weight, jariid being nothing stronger than straightened palm branches stripped of their leaves.

As we lay above the mosquitoes, gazing at the stars and enjoying the breeze, I tried to explain, in an attempt at humour, that I hoped I did not walk in my sleep, to be woken unceremoniously after falling to the street below. My host, Mohammed, choosing to overlook the joke, implored me to descend if I really thought it likely that humar an-noom would take possession of me during the night.

Being less than enthusiastic about the prospect of a night at ground level, deprived of the wafting breeze andd at the mercy of the mosquitoes, I elected to stay on the 'head' of the house (rass al beet) and in doing so, gained a lasting memory of my visit, after sleeping more like hajar an-noom - the stone of sleep - than the donkey.

From Argo to Leicester Square

Sudan Studies, Number 7 (January 1990)

It was 3.30pm on a hot dusty day in the northern Sudanese village of Argo and it was my turn to make the tea. Mohammed Osman had broken into his usual banter about my status as an 'unbeliever' as soon as we'd left the school in which we taught. In his opinion, my atheistic Scottish soul was destined to join the shrieking hordes of other 'kaffirs' in Islam's everlasting bonfire. To those of my friends who had feared for my sanity when I left the cold comfort of dreich Edinburgh Saturdays, for the blast furnace of the Sudanese desert, my tenancy of hell was already an established reality.

Sudan's detractors for a glittering cast of thousands starting with the ancient Egyptians who refer to that part of the world still beyond their ken, south of present-day Wadi Halfa, as 'the land of the dead'. Centuries later, a passing explorer by the name of Ewart Grogan, described southern Sudan as, "God-forsaken" and a, "desolation of desolations". He felt his journey to be kind of apprenticeship for existence in the afterlife, taking a consolation of a sort in the words, "I have passed through it (southern Sudan) and now have no fear of the hereafter". The north did not escape criticism of this sort. The distinguished journalist, G W Steevens, writing at the turn of the (19th - 20th) century was eloquently damning in his appraisal of the north; describing it as, "a God-accursed wilderness, an empty limbo of torment forever and ever". Try as they might, commentators found it impossible to conjure up positive images of the 970,000 square miles which constitutes Africa's largest country. Even the Sudanese who are less vituperative about their homeland, than outsiders such as General Gordon, who called the country a, "useless possession", have a saying that 'when Allah made the Sudan, he laughed'.

I was not disposed to laughter when I learned that I had been transferred from my teaching post in Argo to a new one in the remote Nubian village of Abri. My journey began in the cold 6 o'clock morning air, some two hours after the most devout had ventured into the mosques for dawn prayers. I had to take a box from the centre of the village to Kerma, a breathtakingly beautiful village, where a weekly market day meant I could catch one of the Halfa-bound lorries. A box is a Toyota pickup with two benches for passengers in the back and often has a locally made roof which provides shade for those inside and extra space for luggage or passengers on top. The concept of transport is based on the principle of moving from A to B in Sudan. The comfort of the journey is of little importance. I was not put out when I found myself pinned to my seat, with restricted breathing by the presence of two very large Sudanese ladies on either side. People overcome the hardships of such travel by a wonderful act of will. They simply ignore all the signs of pain and irritation.

Dongola 'bus' prepares to leave Omdurman

The box took us through the streets of Argo, passing Arab-style houses constructed of mud bricks and largely left unpainted, giving the impression that they were natural outcrops rising out of the sandy ground. The world of Tarmac roads was some 300 miles south in Khartoum. Drivers here lived on their considerable skills, literally piloting their vehicles through the rutted sand. Capsized lorries were not uncommon and a journey in which the vehicle did not get bogged down in deep sand at least once was an almost unheard of rarity. As we slewed through the streets, boys would jump onto the back of the truck and hang on nonchalantly, with one foot on the back steps and one hand on the rear rail of the roof rack. In four years I never saw one of these exhibitionists come to grief.

By the time we reached Kerma most of my fellow travellers had got so engrossed in conversation with each other that they'd quite forgotten how uncomfortable they were; clutching at the seats and rails unthinkingly, when the pickup bounced over rough terrain, threatening to throw us up and slam our heads against the low ceiling which bristled with exposed screws and nails.

Kerma is effectively the gateway to the Mahas region of the north. From al Ghaba south of Dongola up to Burgeig - which lies between Kerma and Argo on the east bank of the river - the people speak a local language or 'rotana' called Donagla. On Badin island which sits in the Nile level with Kerma, local people often speak both Donagla and Mahasi, of which the latter is a form of the same basic dialect and extends from Kerma as far north as Akasha; after which, yet another refinement of the language known as Halfawi is prevalent. All of these groups form the original Nubian language and culture of the region (pre-dating Arabic considerably) which is dying out in the same way that Celtic culture and Gaelic language has lost ground in Scotland.

I found the place where the lorries began their journeys in Kerma on the bank of the river. By this time the sun had begun to beat down mercilessly and it was a blessing that a row of large leafy neem trees lined the river bank offering luxurious shade to market goers, lorry drivers and loiterers alike. Behind the trees I could see large, locally-made feluccas ferrying groups of women to and from Badin island, their white patchwork sails hardly unfurled at all as they glided with silent, swan-like, majesty across the face of the Nile. A clamour rose from a line of sacking shelters in which bands of blacksmiths hammered away, sweating copiously from the combined heat of the sun and their fires, which were sustained by young men pumping bellows at their sides.

During the course of that journey (to Abri) I was treated regally by my fellow travellers. A handful of dates extended from the press of bodies; a house in a tiny Nubian village providing tea for forty of us; countless offers of water from roadside houses; invitations to share travelling meals in a tiny mosque - traditionally the place to receive strangers. Such treatment was not given exclusively to me. Some unspoken understanding meant that all present gave each other equal consideration. The Sudanese proverb, "ar-raffiq gubl at-tariq" (travelling companions are more important than the journey itself) has rung resoundingly true on every trip I have ever made in Sudan.


Puncture? 'ma fi mush killa'

If anything I grew more agitated and 'hellbound' on the homeward UK-bound journey, the further Sudan Airways took me from one of the hottest parts of the world. Heathrow engulfed me and I was again amongst a sea of fixed expressions, cold and uncommunicative; in a world where an extended kindness to a stranger could be interpreted as some kind of assault. I entered the maw of the Underground as I would the portals of the infernal regions. A passenger bumped into me neither hearing nor expecting my muttered apology and below on the platform, the guards were demons wielding the train doors as instruments of torment. I could almost detect a whiff of sulphur as I stepped onto the next train for Leicester Square.

Abu Nakhla - as smoked on Sudanese public transport