August 13th: Khartoum

On August 13th 1980 I was in Khartoum.  I was waiting for a flight south to start teaching, but had been marooned in the El Sharque Hotel for the three weeks since my previous entry. 

The River Nile:  My picture

It was the middle of the Eid festival marking the end of Ramadan and Khartoum was even more closed down than ever.  This day however I was able to get outside the city.   Two teacher friends were invited out for a picnic and I and three others went as well.  We drove out of the city to the riverside, through the suburbs into the country through citrus and mango orchards, said to be run as a prison farm.  It was a popular picnic spot with quite a number of people around, about 20kms upstream on the Blue Nile.  Nearby were brickworks and an enormous pump system and the African huts where the aragi (hootch) makers lived.  It was mainly a family affair, the family of one of the groups who came to pick us up; the women were beautiful and sat on a carpet in a corner but enjoyed the whole thing as well.  We drank beer and whisky.  I found space for a walk in the bush just to feel I was really in Africa and to look at any wildlife.  Later on the women began to sing and the whole thing really came together, at least for me, with clapping and dancing (it reminded me of Afghan dancing).  I talked with a group from Kadugli, one of whom was a waiter at one of the large hotels I visited.  We left at the height of the event, a good time to go, with copious farewells and an exhilarating return on the back of a Mazda pickup.

Tuti Island, 2009:  Picture by Petr Adam Dohnalek, CC

Tuti Island, lying in the Nile between the various parts of the wider city, was a good place to get away from the frustrations of the city and was best in the late afternoon.  It was really a village or a set of villages in the middle of the city.  On my first visit when I stepped off the little chain driven ferry, a man stopped me:  "How do you like Sudan?" he asked.  He spread his arms and continued, "it's the most undeveloped country in the world, just look."  I liked Tuti, the lemon orchards and little irrigated fields, and dark people living in little shacks.  As I walked back to the ferry another time, walking from the quiet edge of the river on the far side, I passed a number of nightjars flying along with their mouths open.  On the ferry there was a big delay with someone banging something in the engine room.  The boat got more and more crowded, and the women segregated themselves and made me move to sit on the baskets carrying lemons to the city.  There must have been several hundred people on board, as well as a few donkeys.  After an hour or so we left but in midstream there was an almighty crash, and the water level rose alarmingly close to the deck at the front; I think no one got swept away, but one or two were severely soaked.  We broke away from the chains and the men started jumping up and down and shouting while the women set up a huge wail and we began to drift down the river in the direction of Cairo.  Finally we pulled up near the bank somewhere close to the Hilton and scrambled across a piece of piping to reach the shore. 

As the Eid had approached the city had become a little more lively as preparations were made for the feast.  In the arcades in the centre of town they were selling sheep and happy purchasers were leading them away or putting them in their pickups.  At the hotel they were cutting up a lot of meat and giving the cats a field day with scraps.  The Eid, however, was not good news for the cats, of which there must have been fifty living at the hotel; they wanted to clean the place up and set up a restaurant in the courtyard and to this end they shot every cat with an airgun and then laid out the tables.  The obnoxious young Syrian manager made an effort to get rid of the teachers, but he was outwitted because some of our number had been entertained at the Syrian Club by one of the brothers who owned the hotel.

One day I went to the railway station to see off some teachers who were going to Kadugli in Southern Kordofan.  In my boredom I wished I could have got on the train with them; at any rate here there was a bit of the excitement of a railway station as the train pulled away, probably the only train on that day.   The main reason to be in Khartoum was to wait for a flight, but I was now working out the practicalities of taking the train to Wau or the Kosti steamer.  Most of the teachers departed, leaving only the ones going to the South.  Some latecomers arrived from London, got their postings and left, leaving the same people waiting in Khartoum.

After another two weeks of being stranded the word came that there was a flight to Wau in the morning.  I might finally be going to Rumbek.  I went out before it was light and came back with two taxis in five minutes.  Four of us teachers headed south and some well wishers all piled in with our luggage.  There was a long delay at the airport and then the flight was called and we got on the plane.  Looking down on the expanse of green before landing at Malakal, I realised it was all worthwhile.  And as I walked around Wau towards evening and sat in the Dinka souk with the blacksmiths, having chai, with cows behind against a background of green, I felt that six weeks of waiting in Khartoum might have been worthwhile.  

The Nile:  My picture

July 24th: Khartoum

On July 24th 1980 I was in Khartoum.  I was waiting to travel south to teach English in a secondary school.

A week before, I had lugged my massive amount of luggage to Denmark Hill Station in South London and from there to Victoria and on to Heathrow.  The check-in was a little piece of Africa.  You went past all the normal check-ins which had booths and orderly queues.  Sudan Airways, yes Sir, keep on through that door.  In an area cordoned off, there was chaos.  A large man in a robes stood in the middle with a sheaf of tickets in one hand and printed list in the other, while the customers milled around like a rugby scrum to see if he had their names.  There weren't any tickets for the teachers and it seemed the flight was overbooked.  Some returning teachers were even on standby, but Kevin from the Sudanese Cultural Centre turned up and everything fell into place. 

I had applied to be a teacher with the Sudanese Government and had been interviewed at the beginning of June.  I heard that I was going at the beginning of July and went for a couple of days training at Farnham Castle.  The training was divided between firstly tips on how to live in Sudan and how to stay healthy, and secondly some ideas on teaching from ELT experts.  There were some teachers from the previous year there to assist, but nothing was really relevant for Southern Sudan.  I got a letter a few days later with some leaving dates and luckily decided to take the earliest flight.

Khartoum:  My picture

By this stage in Khartoum, I had successfully negotiated to get to the South and knew that I would be going to Rumbek.  The main hassle now was to get the financial side sorted out.  This day I tried to take a  more positive stance against the bureaucracy.  At 8.30 we Southerners assembled at the Unity Bank, which operated in South Sudan, for a morning of opening bank accounts and dealing with ECR1s (the forms needed to convert Sudanese money into foreign currency).   I got more involved in these petty negotiations than I often did, maybe because I had the determination of innocence.  However something was achieved between the Ministry and the Unity Bank and the Bank of Sudan, and I think my presence was felt.  I felt positive about things.  I had virtually everything in place to be able to leave for the South.  Some teachers going to places close to Khartoum had actually left.  I had been given some spending money and I could see an ending to this period of waiting. 

They had put us up centrally in the El Sharque Hotel, The Shark, which was basically a cheap hotel: we shared rooms with running water and there were fans and a sort of rudimentary air-conditioning.  There were also massive cockroaches and the simple rooms were crowded with all our baggage for a year in Africa.  I had moved quickly to one of the rooms at the back which opened on to a courtyard and were quite quiet.

Omdurman:  My picture

Khartoum was hot, over 40° C each day, and dusty and occasionally humid.  It was Ramadan which made it harder to get food in the middle of the day; it also meant that smaller restaurants only opened briefly, or intermittently or not at all in the evening.  So the days tended to pass as follows:  mornings fighting the bureaucracy, lunchtime back at the hotel with fruit for lunch and then siesta during the hottest part of the day; in the evenings I often had a meal in one of the big hotels as I was trying to keep my weight up, sensing that I might have leaner times in the future; then it would be socialising, in the Athenée, an open air juice bar and cafe in a central square or drinking beer of one sort or another in one of the hotels.  There were occasional outings to Omdurman and I discovered Tuti Island in the middle of the Blue Nile which gave a feeling that you were actually in the country.  Occasionally it was pleasant to sit on the steps by the Blue Nile in the evening air and enjoy the spectacle of the huge flocks of queleas roosting near the Presidential Palace.  Basically there was nothing to do.  The nights were hot and sweaty and sleep was always difficult.

I made a point of getting to know my fellow teachers, who were a very mixed bunch.  Few of them had travelled much, one had never been out of Yorkshire, but people had very mixed reasons for being there.  I enjoyed hearing their stories and I tried to help and encourage some of the less experienced ones.  One unlucky young woman got polio very quickly and had to be shipped home in an iron lung.  Others got sick but nothing so serious.  One of my cohort lost all his money and belongings on the first day.  Some of the teachers already knew Africa, some had little idea what they were letting themselves in for.  I never understood the recruitment process, but I was glad to be there, with the prospect of living for the best part of a year in Southern Sudan.

There is a photo of the El Sharque, taken the year before I think, here.

 

Khartoum:  My picture

April 6th: Khartoum

On April 6th 1981 I was In Khartoum, making final preparations for returning home.

Khartoum at Sunset:  My picture

Mary and I spent only a little over a week in Khartoum.  Getting my papers right turned out to be quite easy: I suppose I had put in all the hard work in Juba.  We toyed with coming back via Egypt but decided against it for one reason or another.  We stayed in the Grand Hotel as it cost only a little more than the dump we started out in.  The Grand was the turn of the century hotel built for Thomas Cook's early Nile Cruises.  It still had its lovely lines but was getting a little seedy; everything was there but nothing worked quite right.  One attraction was the swimming pool, one of the few in Khartoum, but they started emptying it within an hour of our checking in and it never got refilled.  Still the river views were good.  I carried on with the process of trying to fatten up; this included the giant, everything imported from France, eat all you like buffet at the Meridien Hotel; fine for me but Mary wasn't getting filled on the salads which passed as the vegetarian options.

I made a quick farewell trip over to Tuti Island and enjoyed once again the country in the middle of the city.  We did a trip over into Omdurman and walked around the souk, but my heart was not in it.  I was ready to go home.

I ran into many old friends as the teachers started to come back after the teaching was over.  The teachers in the north seemed more satisfied than those in the south and there was plenty of talk of coming back.  My friend Richard had done a great trek with a horse called Huxley out near the Chad border.  Some people from the far north had been starting camel journeys.  Indeed I'd heard of one teacher who had been doing real desert journeys: Michael Asher's book "In Search of the Forty Days Road" would be published in 1984, providing great evidence that Sudan was at that time one place in the world where ways of life remained which were unconnected to the modern world.  He may have made some of the last great journeys that remained to be made by Europeans.

Omdurman Souk:  My Picture

March 21st: Juba

On March 29th 1981 I was in Juba in Southern Sudan, with Mary.  I was trying to get the documentation which would allow me to return to Khartoum, get my exit visa and my money converted, and from there travel back to the UK.

The days were hot and close in Juba: mornings in the Ministry fighting the bureaucracy, a siesta after lunch and the Greek Club in the evening, food and socialising with other teachers.  The time passed quickly but frustratingly for me, and agonisingly slowly for Mary, who was finding being a vegetarian difficult in Sudan.  I was trying to eat as much as possible and taking iron pills to try to get my weight up.  Most of the other teachers from the South now seemed depressed by their experiences, but we made cheerful conversation as we had done previously.  I met one of my students working in a shop in the Malakia, the market area.  After graduating from school it was the only job he could envisage, working for an Arab trader; if this did not work out he planned to go back to his village in Equatoria and cultivate, as he put it.

At first we stayed in a depressing rat-ridden guest-room at the University, where we saw no sign of students or staff.  Two aid workers took us to Sunday lunch at SIL, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, because they did cauliflower cheese and real mashed potatoes and Mary could not resist.  Eventually they offered us a clean, modern room in their compound at a good price and we capitulated.   The missionaries were blue-eyed and calm.   At lunchtime we would listen to their tales of language translation around the world; they looked on Southern Sudan as a hardship posting like everyone else, and described it as second only to New Guinea in terms of under-development.   After lunch on that first Sunday we walked out to the hill behind the non-functioning petrol station.  We climbed to the top among baboons and the trees, and admired the view away from Juba from the summit.  The hill seemed volcanic and was the only place to get exercise - I was still looking for weight after the poor diet of Rumbek.

Otherwise we saw a Sergio Leone film in a small open-air stadium; some enterprising Britons living in Nairobi were importing the films and trying to make a little business of it.  I also visited Issa again at the Wildlife Hostel and heard tales of exploits from her macho shooting Latins, "My father was a professional hunter."

Finally the papers were all provided correctly and we got a flight to Khartoum.  Going through customs I followed an Arab trader, who was asked to open his battered, overfull suitcase.  The case held nothing except banknotes, and he had difficulty stuffing them all back in like a crook in an Ealing comedy.

Edward Hoagland in his book African Calliope gives a description of the Greek Club, hunters and other Juba characters he met there in 1977.

Juba, 2007, Picture by Katy Fentress, CC

March 15th: Rumbek

On March 15th 1981 I was in Rumbek.  Teaching had ground to a stop and I was getting ready to leave.  The season of tribal fighting had passed, but other concerns were more pressing.

I heard in the morning that they were dismantling the Dinka souk, which we called Dinka Alley.  This was an atmospheric area to one side of the double row of proper shops run by Arabs, centred on the store owned by John Mikis, the Greek trader.  The plan was supposed to be to move the Dinka souk to a new area on the other side of town and build modern shops in this area.  There had been a funky little circle of ad hoc stalls which did tea and coffee or African doughnuts.  Behind there was  a line of stalls which sold cheap household goods, and the ornaments and swimming shorts from China that the men liked to wear, but with African traders.  Behind there was an area where Dinka blacksmiths sold huge ornamental pipes and others sold tobacco, the one crop some Dinka grew.  Old men would sit here and smoke and pass the time of day; young men would come into town, check their decoration and hang out; then they would make occasional forays to the tailor shops where the unmarried girls would be trying out the little yellow skirts they wore, knowing the young men would be around.  In the afternoon I saw the desolation of the souk for myself: it reminded me of the worst stories of urban development in Africa and India, where the squatters are physically moved out to make way for development.  All the town behind the Arab souk was being destroyed, all the tea-shops and restaurants, all the small shops over a wide area, leaving nothing but the shells of the houses.  The Arab traders all had happy faces, but the poorer people, the locals seemed confused, not knowing what was going to happen.   It seemed like the end of an era, and I couldn't imagine Rumbek having the same atmosphere again.  I knew it was time to leave.

This was against the background of the news that the official map of Sudan had been rewritten.  A new map had been published by the Nimeiri government which had changed the arrangement of provinces, but it had also moved the straight line between the North and the South some distance towards the south to include in the North the area around Bentiu where the oil exploration was taking place.  This had made people uneasy and very pessimistic for the future, rightly as it turned out.  In some ways this was the act which started the ball rolling for the resumption of civil war.  It did not come as a complete surprise, as there had been political action in Juba, including a demonstration, back in December.

As the dry season set in, the school well dried up, and the students had to search for water among the other drying wells of the town.  The wind began to move the dust and brought a new peril, meningitis,

which had left 80 dead in Rumbek alone it was said in the past week.  There was also anthrax around, as well as the usual problems of TB (the skin sort) and cerebral malaria, which killed the little boy of our neighbour.  People would come round to the house seeking advice and medication as they did not trust the hospital.  A UN doctor arrived to diagnose the meningitis and supply some drugs.  I saw a student being rushed to the hospital with cerebral malaria, but they got him there on time and he was saved.

The house had been full of people coming and going.   Our Dinka friend Mayen had been in town awaiting a court hearing and was not allowed to leave town.  He spent the nights with a number of other young warriors, laid out like spoons on our veranda.  Feeding this lot used up our rations quickly and tried our patience considerably.

Teaching seemed to have finished: all that was left was the final exams for the third year and it was made clear that the foreign teachers were not going to get in the way of good results by invigilating and not giving the students the right answers.  Mary from the BBC crew had returned to visit me and we planned to travel back to England together.  The headmaster had been away for some time, but I eventually got the deputy to sign my release form.  In the end I was pleased to get away: the frustrations and hardships had outweighed the benefits of living in such a remote place.  I was wondering about returning, as I wanted to teach more, but in a school that worked, or at least worked better.  Andy did return for a third year at Rumbek.  He told me later that the year had started pretty much on time, but that more and more closures led to the whole year petering out with very little teaching taking place.  

Mary and I left to Juba with an aid worker in a Land-Rover.  We stopped off to look at some "oxplough showgrounds", where there were attempts to persuade the Dinka to use their precious cattle for menial agriculture work.  We looked at one field which had a minimal shelter built in the middle and a tether for oxen, but no animals.  Mary asked how long the project had been going, thinking it would be weeks or months:  the answer was that they had been there for several years.

February 16th: Rumbek

On February 16th 1981 I was in Rumbek.  I had been invigilating the exams for first and second year students which would allow them to progress to the next year.  I was also dealing with all the papers to mark which was depressing because even the better students had felt the need to cheat.

The exams had been held early in response to events which started a couple of weeks before.   I had been teaching 3B when there was a disturbance outside, and after a minute or two the students in the class decided it was serious.  The Dinka students rushed out of the class first to join in, so everyone else trooped outside to watch.  The fight was between Dinka from the area around Yirol against Dinka from the area around Gogrial. The initial view of students hurling stones and brandishing sticks at each other and tearing across the dusty ground was impressive.  Everyone believed the Dinka wanted to get the exams abandoned and there were accusations that they had been incited by one of the teachers with allegiance to one side.  Later in the town square I saw 40 or 50 Gogrial students under police control, while the Yirol ones were in the police-station.  About 10 students were in hospital, one said to be on the operating-table.  Teachers had tried to intervene but were threatened.  We were told that 105 students had been held in prison along with one teacher, but that 35 would be let out soon, and that any students let out would be sent straight home.

Then a week later I heard about a battle to the north between Agar Dinka of the Pakam clan and the Nuer with a lot killed (maybe 36) and 100 wounded.  This was in retaliation for a fight a month or so previously when, I had been told, "at least 50 Nuer were killed";  unfortunately this time the Nuer turned up with guns bought from the Murle, who had some grievance against the Dinka as well.  A Nuer student I knew told me that there was an Agar in the school who was being very provocative and had turned up accompanied by other Agar with spears in the dormitory, and the Assistant Commissioner of Police took all 28 Nuer students to his house for the night.  The next day I heard shots in the souk; it seemed it was a family dispute between Agar over a girl and they went to sort out the wrong-doers with pistols.  The police fired in the air and closed the souk with tear-gas.  Against all this violent background, local tribal chiefs made an appeal and they decided to go ahead with the exams over the weekend and get them done with.

However the night before this day the Gogrial students were once again afraid of being attacked and had gone to the police.  The police arrived in force and found hoards of weapons, sticks and iron bars in the dormitories.  They rushed through the last couple of exams without informing me, and by the afternoon trucks had started to turn up to ship the students home.  All the first and second year students passed.  I started to turn my mind to helping my final year students to prepare for their exams.

February 1st: Near Rumbek

On February 1st 1981 I was near Rumbek.  I was some miles to the east near the bridge over the Bar Na'am, the main river in the area.  I sat for a long time on the bank of the river enjoying the view, as this was the first opportunity for a few weeks to at least sit higher than somewhere else and look down on things.  Rumbek is a seriously flat place.  I wrote this in my notebook:

The Bar Na'am near Rumbek:  My picture

It's hot, almost midday.  I've cycled from Begjui, where the archaeologists' camp is, and I'll be thirsty when I get back to Rumbek.  It's fairly peaceful here on the bank of the river with a wind blowing and the hot sun on my forehead.  A herd of cattle is opposite, some fine song-bulls, with yellow wagtails cheeping among them.  Between them and me trickles the muddy river; a skinny naked youth washes the ash from his body with a tin can.  Behind I can hear goats bleat and cranes crying.  A little cattle camp shelter by a nearly bare tree, with a flag and a few men sitting with goats.  

Such a contrast to the forest where I was this morning, looking at the ground hornbills.  I cannot sit in the sun too long.

On the previous afternoon, a Saturday and so no teaching, Jeremy of the archaeologists had come round to ask me out to their camp, at Begjui to the east of Rumbek, to help them eat a sheep which had been given them by a local chief called Chut.  I borrowed Andy's bike and put it in their Land-Rover and grabbed my sleeping-bag.  In the event the occasion did not work out, as two of the party were ill and the camp was very subdued.  I went to bed quite early as did everyone else and then Jeremy left early in the morning.  I went for a dawn walk and enjoyed the monkeys and the small mammals of the forest, which I could not see closer to Rumbek.  Then I cycled out further east along the road as far as the river, which is probably about 20 miles from Rumbek.  The road however was too much for the bike as the rear brake failed and finally a valve went.  After sitting at the river, I pushed the bike back a mile or so towards Rumbek.  Finally a truck passed, the first vehicle I had seen, and I hailed it.  I had a miserable bruising ride back to town, as the truck had little cargo but a huge number of passengers and I had to support the bike all the way.

The Road I Cycled:  My picture

At The Bar Na'am:  My picture

January 13th: Rumbek

On January 13th 1981 I was in Rumbek.  The school was slowly coming back to life after the Christmas break but I was only managing about one session a day, with some classes not having restarted and most others being cancelled for political meetings which never took place.

I took the opportunity offered by Jeremy and Peter of the British Institute of Nairobi to go for a trip out into the bush.  We visited two empty wet-season cattle-camps which were interesting enough to look round, seeing unusual artefacts such as mosquito-net covers, clay cooking-stones and the different cattle pegs.  The first one was Jalla in empty toich, the second was closer to acacia woods with good bird life around.  Then we saw animals, especially giraffe, 6 or 7 moving shyly away from us at speed, and I think there were kob there as well.  Finally we went to an enormous cattle-camp at Warnyang, where there is a luaich or ceremonial house for Makot an elder who must have died eleven generations ago, which would be 200 years; he had been buried with special sacrificial posts and other tombs were marked.  Special sacrifices to God are held there each year and there are two houses on stilts for two old women who live there and look after the place.  It was very atmospheric and nice to have a few young Dinka warriors passing through.  There were low houses on one side for the fattening camp, post dry-season.  

Guardian Women's House at Warnyang:  My Picture

Detail of Guardians' House:  My picture

Ancestral Byre at Warnyang:  My picture

Fattening Camp near Rumbek:  My picture

January 7th: Juba

On January 7th 1981 I was driving a Land-Rover from Juba to Rumbek.  This is adapted from what I wrote in my journal:

I managed to get up soon after 5.20, and to get things ready before Tim, an English teacher working near Wau, showed up nearer 6.30.  Donato, from the school, had come about 6, and by the time I'd picked up Rose, wife of Theophilus a teacher at Rumbek, and son and small girl, who slept in the back with Donato most of the way, it was 7 o'clock, which meant that I was on schedule.  We got to Lui at 9.30, left Mundri at 10.30, passed Yeri at 12.30 and Mvolo at 2.00, all times approximate, getting here at 5.30 which was exactly right.  I was worried about turning the engine off as I had had difficulties the day before but my main worry was about petrol: in Juba I filled the tank partially with fuel from the drum, almost inhaling which was horrible; I was still anxious at Lui when I couldn't get more petrol out of the drum, but when I put in some from the jerry-cans, it overflowed and I realised that the fuel gauge like most of the electrics wasn't working.  I was worried about getting stuck after dark in case I ran out of fuel or couldn't get the vehicle started.

The journey was remarkably easy, and I was able to drive a bit more quickly, which meant that as I got tired, I hit some ruts rather too hard, but the car stood up well.  We had breakfast rather spontaneously at Lui, talking with Mark and Maria who are having a quiet time there, not very involved with the school which at least has a competent director in Alfred.  We bought orange but hard mangoes in Mundri, ate papayas in the forest after Mvolo, and had a chai-stop and Dinka-style begging for lifts at Akot.  Tim was good company and we talked a lot particularly about our different schools which have both suffered from bad directors and relationships with other awajahs.  He talked of Ted Joans, the black US beat poet in whose house he had been staying in Lamu.  Not much wildlife, warthogs, baboons, perhaps vervets.

When I tried to start the Land-Rover the next day it was completely dead.  It was due to go to the house of John Mikis, the sole remainder of the Greek traders who had been in Rumbek for generations. John Mikis's driver was towing me and had stopped when the rope broke outside the Unity Bank.  Two Land-Rovers drove up, an Englishman got out and said "Oh, my old Land-Rover", Peter the archaeologist, who had sold John Ryle this car.

 

Sarah Errington had been using this Land-Rover to help carry equipment for the BBC crew who had been making a film called "The Dinka Bride" for The World About Us.  This was about Marial, a Dinka studying Civil Engineering at Leeds, who had been married by his mother to Yar and had come back to Rumbek to collect her over Christmas.  The crew had stayed in our house while I was away and had returned on New Year's Eve.  A jolly time was had and I got together with the Camera Assistant - we still are together.

I spent a day watching them film, waiting for the uncles to come and sacrifice the goat, while we played cattle songs on cassette, but they did not turn up that day.  They filmed Marial at the house in town, Marial on the bicycle passing through the town.  Best was out at Majak, Marial's house of the sort I had heard of but not seen, built on stilts and with a lot of earth hard baked to make them comfortable. 

Sarah had arranged with a previously unknown local to take the equipment to Juba in his vehicle, but when he arrived at the house about 8am, he had changed his mind and had a full load of passengers.  Sarah would have been stuck but I offered my services to drive the Land-Rover back and was gladly accepted.  We left an hour or so later with minimum preparation.

The journey down was fun.  After a final stop at Majak, I rode on top of the Toyota until way after Yeri, hanging on for dear life in the bumpy stretches.  There was a stretch of track when we left the Yirol road through tukuls, a lunch stop in nice forest with Jur around, and a sight of the bombed out old Rest House on a rock near Mvolo.  Then we saw warthog and some sort of long-necked gazelle.  I sat for an hour in the front of the Land-Rover, then at Mundri I took over and got the feel of the vehicle and was enjoying it, keeping up with the Toyota in front.  There was a good deal of roadkill: two rabbits, a jackal (small and silvery) and a ratel, also one of those nightjars with the long feathers trailing back from the wing, though I didn't know until we arrived, which was about 10.30.  The road into Juba was paved for a couple of miles, the only paved road in the South.  I had to ask which side of the road I should be driving on: I'd been driving for several hours and living in the country for six months.  I think it was the left.

BBC Crew with Toyota at Rumbek:  My picture

After Sarah and the crew left I had a day to do business in Juba.  I had a number of tasks to fulfil for Sarah, I wanted to buy fruit to take to Rumbek and I wanted to know if anyone needed a lift.  I visited the Africa Hotel, the cheap hotel by the river to see if there were any travellers who were interested.  I walked around the Malakia market until I was exhausted, I looked in at the Greek Club.  I visited Issa of Sudan Safaris, part of an Italian family who organised big game hunting trips, because she had the drum of petrol which Sarah had arranged to buy.


View Juba in a larger map

December 19th: Wulu in Southern Sudan

On December 19th 1980 I was in Wulu in Southern Sudan on the last leg of my Christmas holiday journey. 

This holiday journey:     Rumbek to Tambura           Tambura to Yambio         Yambio to Rumbek 

I had found a truck in Mundri to take me close to Rumbek.  Unfortunately the truck was bound for Wau and was taking the direct track to Tonj and not passing through Rumbek.  We stopped for the night in Wulu, twenty miles or so south of Rumbek, and I spent the night soundly asleep on the veranda of the police-station. 

The truck had been almost empty and I had tried to sit up on top of the cab for a seat and the best view, but the driver was hell-bent on getting to Wau in record time and eventually I took my bruises back to my usual spot over the wheel-arches.  We passed through thin forest with antelope and baboons and little population.  The country around Yeri was more populated, the people I think Moro.  After Mvolo it was dark, and the forest became much thicker, the road much rougher.  The passengers looked out, calling out in various languages the names of any animals, such as cats and jackals, a hyena and honey badgers, and the tribal affiliation of any people we saw, mainly Jur-Bel and some Dinka.  We took on a Jur-Bel hunting party who were going to Wulu, where we arrived exhausted about 8.30.

Wulu was scarcely a town, just a few single story buildings set a round a wide open space.  I woke about 5am when the truck left and I wondered what to do: I'd bought a load of fresh fruit, a precious commodity and I was reluctant to lose it.  I went to pay a courtesy call on the Dutch nurses who had their base in Wulu.  Elie was inspiring to talk to, homely and business-like at the same time, treating a large number of Dinka, who always preferred the nurses' clinics to the hospital in Rumbek.  She offered to drop some of my stuff at my house when she next passed so that I could walk to Rumbek, and I quickly decided to take her up on this.  I wrote this description of the walk when I got back to my house.

The walk was fine.  I stopped for tea in Lol Cuk, a Dinka village about an hour's walk on.  I was always trying to push ahead which I expect was right.  There was a long forest area near the road junction where I saw an augur buzzard and a couple of Jur with bows and metal-tipped arrows.  I stopped for welcome lunch amidst flies and silence.  I was constantly afraid I was making too little progress.  The next settlement under some mango-trees seemed like a Jur prison camp, the people were hostile and jeering and I felt discouraged.  But I sat down for an orange after a toich section and felt better when I started again.  I was singing out loud.  When I got to Maloe there was an army truck.  13 miles in less than 4 hours.

After Yambio I had taken a crowded but entertaining truck to Maridi.  There was a travelling Nigerian magician on board, with snakes and drums and other effects including a heavy act he turned on late in the day to frighten the other passengers; his travelling companion just shrugged her shoulders under the black shawl she wore - she had a particularly striking face with dark deep cheek scars.  In Maridi I again had to spend two nights before I got out, but here there was the side attraction of a ridge of low hills which meant I was able to get out to a little solitude and altitude.  I wrote this in my notebook.

Village near Maridi:  My Picture

How wonderful to have discovered an accessible hill.  I saw the ridge last night in the dying sunlight and this morning's plan was immediately formed in my head.  It worked OK although I had occasional misgivings as I couldn't believe any trail in Africa would lead where I wanted to go.  The ridge remained before me as a goal and I managed to find a route through lovely huts with red-earth beaten compounds hidden amongst banana patches.  Then I was on a jeep trail around the teak forest and suddenly a gap, the words "open country" sprang into my mind, so that I had to cry them out loud.

Mist in the Valley at Maridi:  My picture

Up here it's like a chain of dome-shaped tors, four or five I think, hard rock patches and loose stones, little clumps of tufty moss like grass are the main vegetation, plus some short grass and occasional small trees. The birds are larks, wheatears and kites.  Mostly around I can see planted teak forest but straight ahead from where I sit now is an open patch of farmland, durra and bananas and mango trees, cassava I'm sure, cocks still crowing and odd voices and bangings and clappings.  The birds below fly in winter flocks.  A kite flies around and over me as if to attack.  Beyond is rolling country with just a couple of hills, still some mist in the low valleys, but it's mostly giving way to haze.  The countryside looks more like wooded savannah than the equatorial forest of Zandeland, even if the equatorial forest there has been slashed and burnt.  But it's much bushier and thicker than Rumbek which was looking very brown and dusty when I left two weeks ago.

I continued a bit further along. 

On The Ridge at Maridi:  My picture

I am now on the last hill of the main chain, there's a metal/stone pillar to mark that peak, maybe the highest of the chain.  I know it's not much in the way of hills but I haven't been able to look down on things much recently.  A good wind is blowing from the north, giving nice air for kites and hobbies and other birds of prey.  To the south is Maridi, stretched out, so many different complexes and I can't make out the souk or the hill I was on last night, not for sure anyway.  But I can see the trail I'll take back to town.  I'm on rocks at the end which are almost steep, and short trees which have shed their leaves and contain one or two beehives, long thin ones wrapped in straw.  Voices of children come up from the durra and papaya trees.  It's very peaceful up here.

From Maridi to Mundri I took a bus from the Karim Bus Company, which travelled fast and furiously along the gravel road.  A bus was completely unexpected and I spoke with one of the family of the owners.  They were Ugandan Asians from Arua and refugees to Kenya from Idi Amin.  They ran buses from Nairobi to Western Province and had brought four vehicles to Juba, running three routes to Torit, Yei and Maridi.  The Maridi route had only been running for a month and was doing so at a loss because local people thought it too expensive and not for them.  I did not see further evidence of these buses in Juba when I went there later.

Maridi:  My picture

December 16th: Yambio in Southern Sudan

On December 16th 1980 I was in Yambio in Southern Sudan. 

This holiday journey:       Rumbek to Tambura        Tambura to Yambio       Yambio to Rumbek 

My Christmas holiday was now more than half way through and I was leaving the land of the Azande.  Yambio was a larger town with a mixed population.  I stayed in a bare, waterless room in an official teachers' house and had bedding on the floor supplied.  That afternoon I managed a walk out of town to a low rise tothe south, mainly in teak-forest where I saw black and white colobus monkeys, but I was tired and wanted to be on my own and there were always people aroiund

The teachers' house was near the market where I spent much of my time and once I recorded what I saw in my notebook:

Yambio Market:  My picture

Sitting outside the shade of a mango tree which serves as an outside cafe in the market area.  Several stalls sell chai laban (tea with milk) or coffee and little boys sit with tins of buns.  The clientele, mainly Dinka or Azande, sit in groups around a table or chairs or on the traditional wooden benches.  Dinka and Azande do not mix of course, there is mutual dislike and their styles of life are totally opposed; yet the Azande are a very tolerant people.  The Dinkas themselves are very mixed; a study of the way the clans mix together outside their areas would be interesting, or of what goes on in the cattle-camps in Zandeland.  Yet they are instantly recognisable, by their looks, their clothes, their bearing, their albeit mixed scars. 

Yambio Market:  My picture

The market is busy and bustling, the most active I've seen, with a distinct charm and character.  Yet it's far from picturesque with its shabby tin shacks, some painted corrugated iron, others concocted out of oil-cans, all stretching in haphazard lines.  There's a little brick vegetable stand in the middle with women clustered in groups around on the ground.  There are some Arab shops in brick around the outside with tin verandas and wooden doors.  The larger Arab merchant shops in red brick are on the main street.  Arab music plays from a radio at a tea-stand behind me.

After Tambura I had found an arabiya (truck) to take me to the Zande town of Ezo where I was stuck for a couple of nights as nothing was leaving.  The first night I was cold sleeping outside the police station, but as the second night approached I realised I was in an attractive place.  As I sat on the edge of town I wrote this in my notebook.

Another equatorial sunset; they are so long here with the haze, the sun gets red and it starts to get cool an hour before it dips below the horizon; only you don't see it dip - it's beginning to fade even now and probably I won't be able to see the moon again this evening.  The sun goes down away from the line of shops which constitutes the souk, where there is an open stretch of green with a few elm-shaped trees in a line.  Beyond there is thicker bush and a layer of mist which rises in a straight line.  I've never seen such sunsets before.

It's an idyllic sort of place, as it ought to be in such a spot, right on the border of the three remote countries of Central Africa, Zaire, The Central African Republic and Southern Sudan; to the right where the sun goes down is the Central African Republic, straight along the road is Zaire.

I took a lovely little stroll behind earlier to the spring at the water source, which is built like the one at Tambura only steeper, and then to the outskirts of town through the back lanes, there being a romantic  feeling of African perfection I haven't seen before; this is I suppose the most tropical I've seen it in Sudan, different trees and palms, even epiphytes, big blue butterflies and violets, the birds too have a different feel.  There is the prettiness of the Zande houses and huts around, and the greenness of it all.

And later:

Back in town it seemed the remotest place in the world, but then I met a student from the third year called Philip: before I'd only seen those I recognised from the truck I arrived on, mainly Arabs and the Kakwa game scout from Yambio.  It's getting darker, the swifts are flying, the midges coming, later maybe there will be bats and mosquitoes.  Three trucks are pulled up and there are quite a lot of people around, the clack of dominoes on the table behind, the players Dinka I think and one English speaking Shilluk.  Radio aloud with French and strange music by the couple of tea shops.  "Karkadeh" coos a dove, and a cock crows, and a cow moos.  Evening sounds, it could be an interesting night.

I stayed the night at Philip's house.  He was a mature 22 year old with a wife and 2 children.  He put me up in his guest house within the beaten earth compound.  Zande compounds are compact and Philip's felt more like a conservatory with plants all around and the separate "houses" more like rooms - guest house, kitchen house, latrine house and so on.  We sat and drank a Zairean beer and his wife served us a meal of meat and cassava leaves.  I managed a bath of sorts but got stung on the shoulder by a giant centipede while using the latrine and this hurt for days.  Earlier Philip had walked me around the town and the agricultural project area.  We drank a cassava and honey suku suku (spirit) and a honey beer which were much better than their Rumbek equivalents.

From Ezo I got a lift with Austrian Klaus, in the front of his Steyr truck, to Nzara where he was putting a generator into the agriculture produce factory which dates back to the British period.  I found Nzara a hole, more or less an industrial town, with people from all over mixed together; it seemed to mark the end of the pristine area from Wau to Ezo.  I had to wait overnight for a ride, but a student from Rumbek put me up in his parents' house, basically a hostel room related to the factory.  We ate cassava and pineapple and when I went to bed I heard on the radio, Voice of America, through the thin walls that John Lennon had died - killed I thought they said, but I couldn't be sure.

December 10th: Tambura in Southern Sudan

On December 10th 1981 I was in Tambura in Southern Sudan.  This was during the holiday while the school was closed for Christmas.

This holiday journey:     Rumbek to Tambura     Tambura to Yambio    Yambio to Rumbek 

Tambura was a small town of the Azande, a Bantu tribe, also found across the borders in Zaire (now Congo) and the Central African Republic.  I stayed at the Rest House, reserved for Government officials, including teachers.  The centre of the town, no more than a few houses and a market place, was along an open ridge looking down on the Zande villages.  On the way in I had seen a crashed plane on this ridge, probably a relic from the Civil War.   I recorded this day's activities in my journal.

Zandeland was best for the first 24 hours when I was still a new face in town.  The people are friendly, but more shy and distant than the Dinka.  I took a walk on a side road after breakfast, and felt again the peacefulness I've felt elsewhere in Africa, the people with friendly reserved smiles, their neat clean huts, round or rectangular, the latter seem almost like toy-town houses they are so perfectly symmetrical with their door and two windows.  No animals around except dogs, the cattle in town belong to wandering Dinka who also have a shelter behind the Unity Restaurant.  But when I reached the area of the next village and sat beneath a mango-tree for a breather, the people began to gather round me in some consternation, and I think they were genuinely frightened.  Rafael who had shown me the rest house the day before came by and rescued me, taking 32 oranges to the owner of the Unity restaurant ("Arab man") and they had a fight over the price which upset Rafael.

In the evening I walked around the mission and primary school, which was an idyllic spot with fine views and a long gorgeous sunset through the perpetual haze.  I talked with a carpenter while a sister practised Christmas songs, beautifully, in the church, and then I sat and gazed over the valleys rolling away, trees and trees for ever, and another crashed plane and it felt good.  Later sitting on the veranda of the guest-house I could hear drums and a small bow-harp being played.

Leaving Rumbek for my Christmas travel holiday was primarily about getting the right lift.  I met a Dutch aid worker who was going to Wau and so that is where I went without any specific plans.  I enjoyed the journey as this was my first chance for three months to see more than very local country.  I enjoyed the road which was easier to drive in the dry; we saw some animals including a fine bongo antelope.  We also saw some people in the forest who were definitely not Dinka, Bongo perhaps before Tonj, and after Tonj some men going hunting, who were short, wearing loin-cloths and carrying traps and snares made of wood and wire, with most handsome beadwork and very friendly waves and smiles towards us.

Dinka Cattle at Wau:  My picture

In Wau I spent a few nights at the Youth Hostel to take stock.  It was a sociable time with both holidaying teachers and passing travellers.   However this had a down side: all the teachers were teaching in the north and some clearly did not believe what I was saying about my school and its difficulties; I found myself defending the South and the southern people in the inevitable Sudan split.  I was happiest when I went to the Dinka souk and drank tea.  I spoke enough words of Dinka to communicate a bit now - I think the language was called Manjang.  One day I went for a walk on the far bank of the river across the bridge.  There was a calf who had got stuck in the mud and I helped the young Dinka retrieve it.  Arranging this and discussing his cattle in Dinka was very satisfying.

I travelled onwards to the south on the mail truck which was the nearest thing to public transport as it left on a (fairly) regular schedule, weekly I think.  It was crowded and the foreign travellers were whinging about the conditions.  We had a long wait at the Bussere ferry and then drove through forest and small Belanda settlements.  As evening came I saw more animals, such as hartebeest and waterbuck.  We had a chai stop and then an overnight stop at a village and I slept out under the stars.  In the morning, driving through hills, we had a stop for repairs by a very pretty set of rapids which I had to myself.  At Tambura I got off and found a room at the Rest House.  I was constantly complimented on the good exam results achieved by Rumbek the previous year, top in the whole South.   I knew these results had been reached via cheating and I think everyone else knew it, but the pretence was kept up in a formal way.

November 8th: Rumbek

On November 8th 1980 I was in Rumbek.  It was a Saturday.  The previous day an Intermediate School boy had been injured by the northern shopkeeper he worked for, in an argument over his weekly wage of about £1.  The town had been closed down, but everything seemed to have blown over.  I took a walk out of town on the road to Pachong, looking for some peace in nature, as I often did.  The road could be quite busy with people walking or sometimes cycling between town and the main Dinka Agar villages.  I wrote this in my notebook and finished it when I got back home.

Patas Monkey:  Picture by Mila Zinkova, CC

An inspiration took me out this morning to find the best piece of bush I've yet walked in.  There are still people about, a lady out getting wood and some boys with cows, and the space between the road and the hard to penetrate long grass is small.  But there are stacks of birds here, swallows that might have come from England, some lovely large trees and I've even seen a monkey, a Patas Monkey, the first I've seen here.  And despite the noises of voices by the roadside and what sounds like gunfire from Rumbek in the distance I have some peace and privacy here and a little alone in the African bush.

And gunfire it was.  As I walked away from the nice shady mound where I'd been sitting I soon found the road, where some girls ran half scared, half giggling away into the bush, "what happens when a white man comes out of the forest," as a passerby on a bike said.  Coming back, I passed groups of Dinka sitting or standing under shade-trees talking animatedly and a schoolboy made a machine-gun sign to me.  I passed a truck loaded with armed police hurtling along the road.

The details of the incident were never completely clear of course.  This is what I wrote the next day.

It seems that, after the schoolboy died, another Arab stabbed another Intermediate School boy in the chest; then a mob surrounded a house with 3 Arabs including the culprit within, and the police couldn't control things; eventually the house was burned and the 3 Arabs speared by Dinka townsmen.  Then there was a degree of chaos with shots being fired off, from different weapons in different quarters (this was what I heard from the forest).  Two shops were burnt out and some looting done.  Police and Arabs were the ones with guns.  All the Arabs were rounded up in the Police Station where they stayed.  First it was said six died, now it seems more like 4 with 2 critically ill.  Last night was quiet, supposed to be curfew from 5pm to 9am, but people were out earlier this morning.  A police lorry went round telling everyone to stay at home, and the electricity was on all day yesterday, but not this morning.  Radio Juba only said that Monday was to be a public holiday for Islamic New Year.

On the Tuesday morning the school was closed while a search was undertaken, and rumours were circulating that the school would be closed until after Christmas.  This was certainly false as the school did open on Wednesday as did the souk.  However the classes were much emptier and some students started going to Wau to take part in sports.  During the following weeks the school struggled on and by the end of the month the school was closed for Christmas.  Some things were definitely getting worse.  I had a stream of students coming to the door to complain about other teachers and their poor teaching.  Teachers were spending more and more time drinking suku-suku, the local sugar-based spirit.  The rainy season was finally blowing out and the once green land was turning brown.  Women no longer brought little pieces of fruit to sell in town. 

Southern Sudan was trying to be a democratic region at the time.  There had been elections two years before which had been largely respected: there were Southerners in ministerial jobs and they had a degree of authority in their departments.  The process was backed up by a radio station in Juba that broadcast political news in English.  They were aiming at a model like Kenya's.  There had been some problems about the Southern President, who at this time was Abel Alier, and he had taken over power in dubious circumstances.  He had visited the school earlier in the year, but had stayed the night in the prison as that was where he felt safe.  All this democracy of course was against the reality that the North held the real power.  In Khartoum the elections had had no significance, and there nothing was ever officially announced until after the event, usually a long time after the event.

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October 5th: Cattle Camp Near Rumbek

On October 5th 1980 I was at a cattle camp near Rumbek.  A cattle camp is a place where the clan's cattle are herded communally.

This was a full day away from the school with Sarah Errington, a photographer, who had been working on a book on the Dinka for Time Life with John Ryle.  It was difficult to get out of Rumbek, motorised traffic was rare, bicycles were not really strong enough and it was dangerous to head off across the bush on foot where there was nothing to focus my eyes upon, as I had discovered on my efforts. It was supposed to be a trip to Sarah's village, Billing.  But she came to collect us earlier to try to visit the cattle camp first.

Song bull at the cattle camp:  my picture

We drove out across the bush and the country seemed as attractive as anything I had seen in Africa. We arrived at the camp just as the cows were being led out for grazing, and there were just some calves and a few bulls around. We were taken on a tour of the buildings and shook hands with the ash-covered people. The atmosphere was outstanding, the smells of ash and cattle, it felt as though I was a witness on another world, different from anything in my experience.

Sarah had a tukul (hut) back in the village, where we went afterwards and were royally entertained and feasted by the villagers. I made a note of the food afterwards: we ate first chicken (really good - the best), then kissera (a kind of durra pancake) and broth and tomatoes, then hard-boiled eggs, then pumpkin and peanut butter, finally several hours later green beans, like the vegetables before mixed with peanut butter.

A warrior prepares to break into the circle:  my picture

Then we went to the dance at the big tree in Billing. This was very different from the public dances every weekend in Rumbek, which rarely varied from a standard male attracts female cattle format. Here it was mainly songs, dancing of a few people in a circle, with one young man telling a story, very graphically - no need for translation - putting himself graphically in the role of someone desperate to go to Khartoum to make his fortune and falling off the roof of the train from Wau to Khartoum. This was broken up with violent spear-dances when a warrior broke into the circle and challenged everybody.

Although the school and the town were ethnically very mixed, the area around was Dinka Agar territory, and the Dinka were never far away. They came to town a lot, to do a little market trading, a lot of socialising, and go dancing in the square at the weekend. The men came to smoke tobacco and drink tea in a Dinka area in the souk, the young women to buy skirts from the tailors in the souk. Mayen, one of Sarah's main contacts, and his friend Beith used to come regularly to the house, to leave their spears (not allowed in the town centre) and to use a mirror to check their haircuts and ornamentation - most important for parapols (young warriors) on the make.

Dinka covered in ash:  my picture

Puppies get fresh milk:  my picture

Mayen (left) with friend:  my picture

Beith in his finery:  my picture