An Introduction to Sudan 4

Student Name: ______

 Sudan is the ______country in Africa.

 There are ____ countries bordering Sudan.

 Less than ____% of the country is able to be ______or suitable for______, which causes conflict over ______resources.

 The capital is ______, which has ____ million people living in it.

 It became part of the ______empire in ______. They divided it into ______(Arabic and Muslim) and ______(African and Animist).

 They gained their independence from the British in ______, but the North and the South continued to ______.

 The first Civil War between the North and South began in ______and lasted until ______. ______million people were killed.

 A second Civil War erupted in ______and lasted until ______. (____million killed; ____ million displaced) President ______helped with the Peace Accord, which gave ______Sudan the right to vote to ______in 2011.

 From ______-present, the government of Sudan has been involved in the world’s most recent ______in Darfur, its Western region. Over ______have been killed and ______million displaced from their homes.

 In January of ______, Southern Sudan voted with a _____% majority to become a separate country. On July ____, 2011, they will become the world’s newest country. However, the North may not let them go ______…

Tears of The Desert

by Halima Bashir

My name is Halima. It is an important name and you must remember it. It is important because my father gave it to me seven days after I was born, in the village naming ceremony. In a sense my father saw into the future, for he named me after who and what I was to become.

I was my father’s firstborn child, and I was his favorite. I know all children say this, but I had an especially close bond with my father. For the first five years of my life, I was an only child. I used to long for a brother or sister to play with. But I also knew that when one came along I’d have to share my parents with them, which was the last thing on earth that I wanted to do.

Whenever my father was home I would always be sitting at his side listening to his stories. He’d tell me about the legends of our tribe, the Zaghawa, or about the lineage of our family, which was descended from a long line of tribal chiefs. Or he’d tell me about his work buying and selling cattle, goats, and camels, and about his travels across the deserts and mountains of Darfur. One day when I was very young we were lying on some rugs by the fireside in the center of our home. In each corner of our fenced compound there was a thatched, circular mud hut: one for the women, one for the men, one for my parents, and one for visitors. And in the middle was a thatched wooden shelter with open sides. Here we gathered each evening, lounging around the fire and gazing up at the bright stars, talking, talking and laughing.

My father told me the story of my naming ceremony. In our tribe each child’s name must be announced within seven days of the birth. My mother and father were so proud of their firstborn that they invited everyone to the naming ceremony. My father was a relatively rich man in our village, as he owned many cattle, sheep, and goats, and dozens of prized camels. My father slaughtered several animals and a feast was prepared for all.

My mother was resting after the birth, and would do so for forty days, as was our tradition. So my fearsome Grandma Boheda rounded up some of the village women to help cook. There were trays piled high with Kissra, a flat, sorghum pancake cooked on a metal plate over an open fire. There were cauldrons overflowing with acidah, a thick maize mash. There were bowls piled high with fresh salad, garnished with sesame oil and lemon juice. And there was lots of smoked cattle and goat meat, with hot, spicy sauces.

On the morning of my naming, people came bearing gifts of food or little presents. The women were dressed in topes, long robes of a fine, chiffon material, decorated with all the colors of the rainbow. The unmarried girls wore the brightest, with flame red, fire orange, and sunset pink designs. And the men looked magnificent in their white robes that swathed the body from head to toe, topped off by a twisted white turban, an immah.

“You were lying inside the hut,” my father told me. “A tiny baby at your mother’s side. A stream of people came in to see you. But Grandma Sumah was there, and you know what she’s like…She had your faced covered. ‘Please can we see the baby’s face?’ people kept asking. But Grandma just scowled at them and muttered something about protecting you from the Evil Eye.”

The Evil Eye is a curse that all Zaghawa—and many other Muslims—believe in with fervor. With my mother resting, Grandma Sumah was looking after me, and she was very superstitious. She didn’t want anyone looking at me too closely, just in case they had bad intentions and gave me the Evil Eye.

“She’s so beautiful---what name have you chosen?” people kept asking. But Grandma just gave an even darker scowl, and refused to breathe a word.

My father had strict instructions. He wasn’t prepared to announce my name until a very special person was present—the traditional medicine woman of our village. “I’m calling my firstborn Halima, after you,” he announced. Then he took the medicine woman into the hut so that she could bless me.

“But why did you name me after her, abba?” I asked my father. The tradition in our tribe is to name your children after their grandparents. I’d always wondered where my name had come from.

“Ah, well, that’s a long story,” my father replied, his eyes laughing in the warm glow of the firelight. “And it’s getting close to your bedtime.”

I knew he was teasing me, and I begged him to tell me the story. Eventually, as was nearly always the case, he relented.

“At first I thought of calling you Sumah, after Grandma,” my father continued. “But she refused to let me…” My father rolled his eyes at me, and I giggled. We both knew what Grandma was like: She’d never agree to anything if she could help it. “And then I remembered a promise that I had made when I was a young man. One day I was out on a camel rounding up cattle. The camel stumbled in a dry riverbed and I had fallen. Some villagers found me lying unconscious, and they were convinced that I was near death. Well, nothing they could do would wake me. All the herbs and medicines failed to stir me. They cut me open here.” My father revealed a thick white scar running around his neck. “They wanted to bleed me and let the infection run out, but it didn’t work. Even the hijabs that the Fakirs prepared didn’t help…”

I was amazed. Hijabs are potent spell-prayers that the village holy men—the Fakirs—would prepare to protect and heal people. We believe in their power absolutely. If even they had failed, my father must have been very ill.

“It was as if I was determined to die,” my father continued. “Finally, they took me to Halima, the medicine woman. She treated me for months on end, and nursed me until I was well. She saved my life, of that I’m certain. Anyway, I promised her that I would name one of my children after here. And that’s why I named you Halima.” “On the day of your naming, old Halima was brought into the hut,” my father continued. “She was the guest of honor, so Grandma allowed her to see your face. She bent close to kiss you and spotted your white eyelash. She may have been old, but her beady little eyes missed nothing. She called me into the hut and pointed it out. She told me that it was a special blessing, and that you would bring luck to all the family. And so it proved…”

I put a hand to my face and touched my eyelash. Ever since I was old enough to listen, my parents had warned me that my white eyelash was precious, and that I should never cut it. In Zaghawa tradition, a white eyelash signifies good fortune. My father was convinced that the year of my birth was the year that his livestock business had really started to flourish. He’d even managed to buy himself and old Land Rover—the first vehicle to be owned by anyone in our village.

My father’s name was Abdul, but everyone in our village called him Okiramaj—which means “the man who has many camels.” It also has another definition—“he who can do anything”; for the man who has many camels is rich, and capable of many things. He was tall and dark-skinned, with a long, ovoid face. He had a thick, glossy mustache, and I used to think that he was the most handsome man in the world.

He had two vertical scars on either side of his head, at his temples. He had been cut when just a boy, to mark him as being from the Zaghawa tribe. These two cuts were also believed to prevent eye infections, and so we called them “the glasses cuts.”

If you didn’t have them, people would ask: “You don’t have glasses? Why not? Can you still see well?”

The more scarring that a boy endured, the more of a brave warrior and fighter people believed he would be. Some Zaghawa had clusters of scarring all over their neck and chest, but my father didn’t. He came from a long line of tribal leaders, and education and skill at trading were highly valued. He was more a thinking man and a village philosopher. He was slow to anger and quick to forgive, and in all my years he never once raised a hand to me.

My father wore a traditional Zaghawa dagger strapped to his arm just below the shoulder. It had a wooden handle, a silver pommel, and a leather scabbard decorated with snakeskin and fine, geometric patterns. All Zaghawa men wore one, which meant they were ready to fight if need be. Around his waist was a string of hijabs—little leather pouches made by the Fakirs, each with a spell-prayer scribbled on a scrap of paper and sewn up inside.

I called Grandma “abu”—Zaghawa for “grandmother.” She was tall and strong, and her round face was framed with plaited hair. In Zaghawa tradition a woman would plait her hair tight to her scalp, with one row running parallel to the forehead, and the rest running backward to hang down her neck. Grandma had two deep diagonal scars on her temples, and the left side of her face was a mass of tiny cut marks. This was the scarring of the Coube clan, and each clan had its own distinctive markings.

We Zahgawa believe that scarring makes women look beautiful. One day Grandma told me how her mother and grandmother had spent hours doing her cutting, when she was just a little girl. The two cuts to the temples had been made with a razor blade, but the tiny, shallow cuts to the check were made with a sliver of sharp stone. I thought it was wonderful, and I was dying to have it done to me when I was old enough.

Grandma had agreed to my father marrying my mother in part because his father had only ever taken the one wife. He was a relatively rich man and could have had many. But his wife had told him: “I will give you as many children as you want. I can even give birth to one a year. But you are not allowed to take another wife.” She had proved true to her word: My father had four brothers and eight sisters, so there were thirteen children in all.

By contrast, Grandma’s father had taken nine wives. His family grew so large that he couldn’t even remember the names of his children. Grandma used to have to join a line of half brothers and sisters whenever she went to see him. He would ask each the same question “Who is your mother?” That was the only way that he could place the child.

When my father married my mother, he’d built a new house—a bah—for them to live in. There were four circular mud huts, each with a central pol supporting the beams and the grass thatch roof. Next to that central pole was a fire hearth. There was one hut for my parents, and a women’s hut where Grandma and I used to sleep. Across the way was a men’s house, and a hut for visitors.

In the backyard was a chicken coop. I used to love searching for the hen’s eggs. The coop was on two levels. There was a lower roosting area for the hens, and wooden boxes hung from the rafters, which were for pigeons. Most Zaghawa families keep pigeons: They are given as gifts at weddings and births. Grandma used to collect the pigeon droppings, and mix the dry powder with oil to make a paste. She’d dab this on to our skin if we had allergies, or bad cuts, and often it did seem to help. The whole of our bah was enclosed by a fence made of tree branches driven into the ground. The fence was so high that I couldn’t see over it. But it was just the right height for a fully grown adult to peer over, and call out a greeting as he or she was passing. When I grew older I was to learn that the fence was mainly for defensive purposes, as there was forever the threat of conflict in our region.

My best friend in the village was called Kadiga. She was strong and a good fighter. Her nickname was Sundha, “the lady with the bright face.” Her complexion was more a golden red, as opposed to smoky black like mine, and people used to say that she was the more beautiful.

The men of our tribe preferred lighter, more reddish-skinned women. In fact, they want crazy over anything red. They painted the leather scabbards of their daggers with a bright red dye. They ate meat cooked in a spicy tomato sauce. They even liked to drink Fanta whenever they could, simply because it was red. And people always got married in red. The bride would wear a red tope, a red headscarf, red shoes, jewelry encrusted with red gems, and her hands and feet would be painted with red henna.

But I used to tell myself that my black skin was better: It couldn’t be damaged by the strong sun and it was the original color of us Africans. I was far more robust and suited to being here than was Kadiga. I’d tease her that she looked like an Arab, telling her to paint her skin with some black paint. Kadiga would retort that black girls like me had to wear lots of makeup in order to look pretty, whereas her light skin made her unnaturally beautiful. Above all else Zaghawa men prized a woman’s long hair. Grandma had the longest of any women I knew, but she’d rarely if ever let it be seen. One day she told me proudly how it took three women five days to prepare it for her wedding.

One day my mother awoke with a terrible pain in her ear. We were worried that an insect might have crawled inside during the night. Grandma inspected the ear, and concluded that we had to pour in some hot sesame oil to force the insect to crawl out. My mother lay down on Grandma’s bed. She heated up the oil, tested it with her finger, and when it was just right she poured a little inside. She asked how it felt, and my mother said it was quite nice, sort of warm and soothing.

Grandma proceeded to pour in enough oil to fill up my mum’s ear, and then we sat and waited. And we waited and waited and waited. Finally, Grandma had to concede that no insect had come crawling out. There was only one thing stronger than sesame oil, Grandma said, and that was gasoline. I’d never heard of anyone having gasoline poured into their ear, but Grandma insisted it would do the job. She went to fetch the can of gasoline that my father used for his Land Rover. I wondered if it really was the right thing to be pouring it into my mother’s ear. It was meant for the Land Rover, a machine, not people. Grandma returned with the heavy metal can. She unscrewed the lid and poured a little of the liquid into a clay bowl. As she did so, my nose caught the rich, heady fumes.

Grandma warmed the bowl of gasoline over the fire, and poured a goodly dose into my mother’s ear. We stood back, holding our breath as we watched. For a second or so nothing happened, and then my mother started to splutter and cough horribly. An instant later she was heaving and clutching at her throat, her face a vivid red color. She kept trying to choke out some words, but her voice came out as a breathless, strangled croak.

I grabbed my mum’s arms, which were shaking violently, and put my ear close to her. “Water! Water!” she rasped.

I rushed out of the hut and grabbed a bowl of water. I watched in mounting panic as my poor mother gulped it down, and an instant later it all came back up again. My mother clutched at her stomach and her throat in agony. All that day she lay on the bed getting steadily weaker. Her breath came out in short, wheezing gasps, and nothing would stay down. I was worried that she was going to die. It was terrifying.

When my father came home that evening he was beside himself with anger. All night long my mother was retching and struggling to breathe. At the crack of dawn my father was up and about, preparing to drive her to the hospital. He carried her out of the yard and laid her across the front seats of the Land Rover. The following evening my father returned. He was grim-faced and exhausted, anxiety etched across his features. My mother was very sick, he explained. The gasoline had gone down the narrow tube that connects the ear to the throat, and from there it had got into her stomach and her lungs. She would be in the hospital for many weeks, although the doctors hoped she would make a full recovery.

Later that night he took me on his knew. He stared into the firelight, worry in his eyes. “That Grandma of yours, Halima…You know, she believes in some stupid things. Some of them are so wrong, yet can anyone tell her? Of course not. She’ll never listen, so she’ll never change her mind.” I told my father that we needed a doctor in our village, a proper one like they had at the big hospital. Otherwise, Grandma might end up killing someone. That made my father laugh. There was nothing he could think of that the village needed more, he said. It would be a real blessing.

-Taken from Tears of the Desert by Halima Bashir, pages 5-41