Sudan

Lessons from the First Climate Refugees

September 3, 2018September 4, 2018By Magdi 4 Comments

Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, wrote in an August article that We are all Climate Refugees Now. “This summer’s fires, droughts, and record-high temperatures should serve as a wake-up call.” he wrote. “The longer a narrow and ignorant elite condemns Americans and the rest of humanity to wander aimlessly in the political desert, the more likely it is that we will all end up in a wasteland.” His point is that the politics of climate denial is leading us into a new era which poses grave risks to humanity, including mass migration.

What does this have to do with Nubia?

The Nubians were the first climate refugees, and have a lot to teach the world, as I explore in my upcoming book: The Water Wheel: Reflections on a Submerged Culture and Identity.

The signs have been there for all who wish to read them.

In 2011 Thailand experienced a flood that was the fourth costliest natural disaster in history at the time, and cost over 800 lives. In 2013, virtually every building in Tacloban, in the Philippines, was wiped out by a four-meter wall of water that surged over the city during typhoon Haiyan. The cost of the Thai flood was eclipsed by hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, which has now exceeded $80 billion in economic damage and killed over 4,000. The United States experienced $300 billion in damage in 2017 and is going through a string of devastating events, including New Orleans, Houston, New Jersey/New York, and California wildfires.

The worst has yet to come.

Sea level rise is expected to continue for centuries. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that sea levels would rise 18 to 59 cm during the 21st century. In 2013 IPCC raised its estimate to 28 to 98 centimeters by 2100, 50 percent higher than the 2007 projections. The Third National Climate Assessment, released in May 2014, projects a sea level rise of 1 to 4 feet, over 120 centimeters.

What is clear from these estimates is that not only will our storms be more violent, but also rising seas, and many of our coastal communities will need to relocate. In 2017 water and fish sloshed through the streets of Miami, whose existence is threatened, and climate change has already impacted its freshwater aquifer. Alaskan communities and Pacific Islanders are confronting the need to move to remain viable as people. Kiribati has prepared to relocate its population, but we should really be concerned for Bangkok, Manila, Dhaka, Dakar, Saigon, Rio de Janeiro, and Venice, both in Italy and Los Angeles.

There are parallels and lessons.

In 1964 over 100,000 Nubians were relocated, against their will, from the homelands in which they lived for over 5,000 years to make way for a massive lake created by the Aswan High Dam. Despite the immense importance of the region in history, and that it had not been fully explored by archeologists, the dam was the final straw, after three smaller dams earlier in the century, that ultimately shattered the way of life of my grandparents and their fellow Nubians. My father’s village is under 60 meters of water, and this blog was written to document the journey my son and I took to understand what happened.

There were more rational alternatives and ways to meet Egypt’s needs more sustainably. But dam had become a political imperative, a political symbol of a strongman’s desire to make Egypt great again. Alternatives were off the table.

Nubia had a few years to prepare for the exodus, but until the threat was imminent, there was denial. The magnitude of the change was not fathomed, not absorbed, not internalized.

The displaced Nubians were initially given the power to choose among resettlement sites, and then the power was taken away. They had no input over the design of their habitat. For a community built on self-reliance, this was the deepest cut of all. They had no choice but to board the trains in 1964, to a destination not of their choosing.

The state tried to prepare, but wholly inadequately. They quickly build resettlement villages, each name replaced by a number; Nubian names replaced by Arabic names; the distribution of houses designed to favor the labor requirements of a state agricultural project, not the way people actually lived. Nubian houses in the old country were made of mud brick, painted and decorated, with beautiful courtyards, and since there was no rain, thatched roofs. These were considered worthless when compensation was offered; today they are regarded as priceless art, and their construction a perfect and sustainable adaptation to the natural environment. The houses that Nubians received? Years later, we discovered that the water supply was untreated and dangerous, and the “modern” roofs are made of asbestos.

This loss of agency contributed to denying Nubians the ability to lead lives informed by their full selves. The relocated Nubians, fifty years after the flood, are barely hanging on to a culture that persisted for five thousand years. The language is dying. The older generation remains understandably bitter, wedded to a paradise lost, their notions fixed in time and unyielding; unable to fully commit to a “New Halfa.”

Perhaps few who are displaced will have lost a civilization that existed continuously in a narrow parcel of land for over five millennia, but for every community, the loss will be as deep and as profound. A significant share of humanity’s cultural assets is located on coasts. What will come of our sources of culture and identity, when we collectively arrive, to paraphrase the late Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih, at our Season of Migration to the North?

Will the old canals of Bangkok, long since covered up to make way for roads and highways, flow again with water against abandoned sidewalks? Will the old shop houses, bridges, and the skyscrapers peer out from the water like the minaret of the central mosque of Wadi Halfa, a haunting last reminder of our collective failure, until finally giving way to the flood?

Until the urge to maximize at all costs is replaced by a call for balance, our past and our future are lost. The world is already experiencing a forced displacement crisis of historic proportions. Syrians, Africans, Afghans, and others are streaming across borders in more significant numbers and far more difficult circumstances than the Nubians who were forced to board trains and rebuild their lives 600 km away in 1964. Among other factors, a severe drought drove Syrian farmers to abandon their crops and flock to cities, helping trigger the Syrian civil war.

As more and more join the exodus, they will, like Nubians, inevitably confront a profound crisis caused by the contact between the rooted and the rootless. If the present path continues, that will be many of us. We are that Syrian child rebuilding her sense of confidence in a youth shelter; the Darfuri boy risking a Mediterranean crossing; the Brexit voter; the Afghan engineer seeking any employment whatsoever.

The modern climate challenge is not only about making agriculture productive in the sweltering heat or preventing our bridges and homes from being ravaged by the untamable forces that we have unleashed. The modern challenge is how to know one another. And to do so peacefully, without regret or loss of who we are.

In a world of transition and migration, this inevitably includes respect for the identity of the hosts as well as the guests. To join a new society and to be accepted, one must also contribute. In today’s world, the most significant contribution is that of ideas. Syria was the center of ideas; home of the world’s most extensive libraries and sources of knowledge, including optics, astronomy, much of medicine, and the scientific method itself. Nubia was a sophisticated civilization that both rivaled and renewed ancient Egypt, contributed extensively to Sudan’s history and was considered a model of peace and sustainability. Yet these contributions are not appreciated, not sought. As the wellsprings of our identity and our ideas are flooded, on what basis will the uprooted contribute?

There was a better way forward. These questions and some possible answers are explored in The Water Wheel: Reflections on a Submerged Culture and Identity. The book is with literary agents. Stay tuned.

The Photo is courtesy of Hassan Dafulla, the late Governor of Northern Province at the time of the Nubian Exodus.

Nubia, Sudan, Travel

The Lost Water Wheel

May 17, 2015May 17, 2015By Magdi No Comments

Emerging from the home of my mother’s parents and grandparents, we follow the path out toward the river, through the cultivated field, through the grove of date palms, and to the edge of the water. On the way, I ask to see the water wheel.

The farms of the village were watered by a Saqia, the old water wheel that Hamza al Din used to sing about in his gravelly old voice.

http://www.nonesuch.com/albums/nubia-escalay-the-water-wheel-oud-music

The Eskale as it was called the local Rutana language, was powered by an ox, a gorondi, who turned a wooden wheel around its axis, which was geared to a vertical wheel, a goshor, that in its course dipped clay pots, Feshai, into Nile water that, having traveled from the mountains of Ethiopia or Rwanda, found its destiny in irrigating the small but intensively cultivated fields. The rhythm of the Saqia, the oxen slowly turning the wooden wheel, the sound of the ropes on wood, the sound of clay pots entering the river, lifting, pouring out just enough water and not more, marked time in those villages, marked the day into two shifts of agricultural work, carved the week into work days, the year into the three seasons – the flood, summer and the bitter, cold winter. And so in the valleys carved by the Nile grew date palms, wheat, oranges and okra (oyai) in abundance, which sustained a civilization, a people called Nubians, since before there were pharaohs or great men or anything called history.

For such a society to persist for seven millennia in such a confined space, it required deep reserves of what Buddhists might call Dhamma-vinaya, or Western philosophers might much more simply call ethics, as a basis for social harmony. There was a balance between nature, on the one hand, and man’s desire to accumulate wealth on the other; a desire called “Al Takathur” in Islam. In Nubia this was determined by the simple technology handed down the same way since before the Romans. The Saqia and the ox turned at a speed that determined how much water could be drawn, and therefore how far away from the river the canals could stretch; and therefore how much land could be worked, and therefore how much each could accumulate and own. Man’s animal spirits were held in check by the animal’s speed.

Courtesy of Nubian House in Abu Simbel, here is an example:

Wate r wheel in Nubian House, Abu Simbel

These natural limits forced Nubians to adopt social rules that emphasized cooperation while also maximizing the output from those small plots. The water wheels and canals could not be built, and the scarce land could not be productive if every individual worked for themselves. Success required some harmony. Grandfather Abbas’ father Mohamed and the other families worked together to maintain the Saqia, and the sons and men of those families also helped with the farming. The farmers that worked would receive their due for their labor, along with the investors that shared in its cost. As such a system which combined community ownership and individual effort emerged. The Nubians figured a way to jointly invest and build assets, maintain records of the shares that belonged to each, and even trade these shares. This way the village avoided the fate of many societies, the curse of inheritance dividing and fragmenting the land into smaller and smaller plots, until it could not be farmed productively and left the young generation little choice but to leave for want of a chance.

We walked toward the river, on a path between the fields. Through the grove they point to the place where the water wheel stood. There is no water wheel. Only a small remnant of the wheel remains intact, and this piece is being pressed down by a black water pipe that leads directly from the river to the field.

This wonderful technology was gone, and the remnant was now holding up a black pipe. The power of the ox has been replaced by the power of a diesel pump. it brought water with ease; it surely allows more land to be cultivated, and saves time. But there is no beauty in this black pipe.

What remains of the Escalay — The last remnant of the water wheel, pressed down by a pipe from a diesel pump bringing water from the Nile

I reflect on this.

I wonder how much of our culture and identity was tied to the water wheel. We know culture as the set of beliefs, artistic expressions, knowledge, morals and customs that we acquire as a result of being part of a particular society; it is our collective inheritance. Part of the culture of the Nubians, since at least 200 BC and until very recent times, was this water wheel. But would many small changes like this eventually have eliminated what we knew of the culture of Nubia even without the high dam?

I cannot blame anyone for wanting to use modern technology. Nubian men often worked away from their village and left the farming to the families left behind, led by their wives. It was difficult work. A diesel pump would make life easier.

But just as this imported technology displaced something genius and home grown, does this imply that the ideas, culture and identity would also be displaced, or would it have been integrated and absorbed into a new Nubian culture? Has it eliminated some of what bound Nubians to each other; the need for collective effort to maintain the canals and the water wheel? I don’t imagine songs will ever be written about this black pipe or the beating sound of the diesel pump.

We make some more visits, see stop by a house where another family recalls my older brother Semir who had visited this village in the late 1950s or early 1960s. We enjoy a wonderful tea and the typically Nubian dried sweetened bread, gargosh, which is taken with tea. We enjoy a conversation, a recollection of old times. The people are here for each other.

Through these changes I still see the outlines of a beautiful culture, a village called Serkametto where 50 years later one can visit and ask about their deceased ancestors, and still find their friends walking around and recalling them fondly.

There is change, but there is continuity.

Nubia, Travel

Sarkamatto

May 4, 2015May 4, 2015By Magdi 1 Comment

It was a dazzlingly bright day, as we got back on the highway. As the last six hours of our journey to Wadi Halfa the night before had been conducted in darkness, we only now noticed the dark hills on either side of the valley, or Wadi, gradually etched through the hills by the Nile. The hills had strange shapes; some of which look like naturally carved pyramids; others in black granite stood in contrast against the tan desert sand and cloudless sky.

We retraced our route south toward Khartoum for around 150 km just east of the Nile, until we saw a small green sign, I think it was for the village of Diabeen. We turned off the main highway and on to a gravel road, heading west toward the river. Tariq and I were filled with anticipation as we saw, through an opening between the hills, the palm trees lining the glistening water.We passed the village. A second green sign appeared, in Arabic and English,spelled in a way I haven’t seen, announcing our arrival in Sarkamatto.

I’ve heard this word all of my life. My grandfather Abbas and grandmother Ruqaia were born in this village. Until she departed this world in 2013, probably around 100 years old (I say probably because no one actually wrote down the year or day she was born) she probably told 10,000 stories about life in Sarkamatto. I thought it was a myth; now we find ourselves walking through the very home of her childhood, and in fact the village lives on.

My grandfather Abbas was the son of a farmer, Hassan, a hard-working man of faith, who was the son of a farmer, Mohammed. I imagine that before the fajr prayer at dawn, Abbas rose in the dark to help his father till the soil, pull weeds, feed the oxen, tighten the ropes around the water wheel, just as Mohammed had helped his father Anno Hassan, and Anno Hassan had helped his father Yusuf (Joseph), and Yusuf had helped his father Daud (David) back in the nineteenth century, and so on over centuries.

And so they worked the alluvial soils on the mighty river winding down from Ethiopia, Eastern Sudan, Lake Victoria, Southern Sudan and Uganda, that started as a trickle in the hills of Rwanda. Together with the other villages up and down the Nile they drew life from this river, with respect, as it made its way to Egypt and on to the Mediterranean and to all that it touches.

We pulled up and found two ladies walking, and they direct us further down the road. We find Gornas Abdu Ali Shelabi. We explained who we were and the purpose of our journey. He immediately recognized the names of our family, which brings him nearly to tears. He offers to show us around the village. What was in my mind cluster of small houses next to each other along the river was transformed, as in fact the houses were spread out, each having a large vegetable garden and were at some distance from the Nile. Closer to the river were the large working fields, planted in lubia beans, behind which were the palm groves, and then the Nile.

I want to see my grandparents’ house. We walk on, another 10 minutes or so. Tariq is followed by a donkey, probably amused to see Tariq holding a book over his head to create some shade.

There we found Suad Ali Himmat, who was just heading out with her daughter to tend to the field. We asked her if she knew my grandparents. Immediately, she replied “Of course I knew them! How could I not know them? They were great, may God rest their souls. How are you, and how is your mother Loula and your brother and sister?” She has a bright smile, as the wind whips her scarf, and she holds the hand of her daughter as well as a small scythe for her tasks ahead. I am amazed by her vivid recollection of someone who hasn’t been to that village in nearly half a century.

She points to a particular house, deteriorated but standing proudly. It has a grand entrance, three arches, and the walls all around the compound are carved with a series of triangle openings. The entrance way is carved, one could imagine flowers lining the entrance. All of the walls are intact, but there are no windows, and the plaster that covers the walls has faded away. The roof is in patches, exposing the beams and the thatch, but the structure of the house is intact. It was a large house; I had imagined my grandmother to have lived more modestly for some reason. After the entrance where visitors were greeted, there is a large courtyard. Opposite the courtyard is a series of rooms from left to right with windows facing inward. Tariq walks through an arched doorway and finds himself in the bathroom. We see what must have been several bedrooms. We step back outside, and take note of the view; looking out over the farms and toward the river.

Grandmother's House — Grandmother’s House

I recall some of the stories Nena would tell us of her childhood in this village. As a child, she had explained, anyone could walk into anyone’s house and drink from the water aman horki cooled in the tall clay containers; eat of their food; get scolded by the parents of that home if need be. Everyone knew everyone else, so a mother could straighten out someone else’s kid and would expect another mother to do the same with hers if the need arose.

After school (for boys at the time), or a day on the farm, the kids would run through the village, play with a ball made from wrapped up rags and leaves, while the young ones played with the goats or puppies, or build little model houses from sticks and mud. All of them, boys, girls, young and old, almost always end up with a swim, korkid, in the river. Before doing so they would gather some eggs, Kombo, from someone’s yard, and bury them in the sand to cook while they swam and played. When they returned from the river, the eggs would be fully cooked and they would enjoy them.

She told us of her fall from climbing one of the date trees, and would complain of it whenever her shoulder gave her pain.

She told us stories of coming in to play one day, at the age of six, and being told that she was promised in marriage to the only husband she ever knew. They did not live together until she was older, when he took her to a life they built in old Cairo.

My thoughts return to the village. Gornas, Amir and Tariq are taking pictures in front of the house, and I join them. One of the pictures is the cover photo of this blog.

We follow the path out toward the river, through the cultivated field, through the grove of date palms, and to the edge of the water.

Kerma, Nubia, Sudan

500 Miles, and a 5,000 year detour: Kerma

February 4, 2015February 5, 2015By Magdi 3 Comments

African cities, particularly in countries touched by conflict, tend to sprawl as waves of the innocent, dislocated and displaced seek refuge along its borders or new lives within it. As we approach Khartoum, it is hard to tell if we’re actually in the city, whose outskirts have been growing for decades, until we’re in the middle of the chaotic traffic, fast food places, neon lights, and see planes descending into one of the world’s few downtown airports.

Having been to the place to which Nubians were resettled, our aim is to see the land we’ve heard about since childhood but never seen, the place where our grandmother used to swim with her friends in the Nile as her mother and father worked the land. I’ve seen pictures of the top of the minaret above the waterline, holding its head above water for a last breath before succumbing to the flood. We’ve spoken to those who took those fateful trains to their new land. But we’ve never walked on the land or breathed the air from which they were removed.

Wadi Halfa is 580 miles to the north. Khatir wisely decides to change the tires, oil, and brakes. We adjust our plans and join Wagdi for breakfast before heading out. He also sends with us food for the journey for which we are grateful and later enjoy. Tariq stocks up on Doritos, which amazingly are found in Khartoum.

As we head north from Khartoum, we are immediately are immersed in the traffic that is in part a legacy of the British, who thought it best to lay out Khartoum in the form of Union Jack. We cross a bridge near where the Blue Nile, which has descended from the mountains of Ethiopia, meets the White Nile which has meandered slowly up from Lake Victoria through South Sudan. The two rivers marry here and begin a journey as one to give life to Northern Sudan and Egypt. We head out through Omdurman, the center of so much of Sudan’s history, including the headquarters of the descendants of the Mahdi who led a nationalist uprising against Egyptian and British rule in the 19^th century.

As we emerge from Omdurman it is already past noon. We take guesses as to the time we will actually arrive at the Wadi Halfa milestone 924 kilometers to the north. Tariq, more of a realist than I, guesses 20 hours to my 14. Amir, who guesses 10 will be the closest.

Whereas the road to New Halfa went through farms and villages, the scenery on the road to Nubia is dramatic in its stark emptiness. The black asphalt road stretches out in front of us, straight as an arrow. The sun beats down intensely. The milestones alternate, left and right, and count out each kilometer like giant footsteps. There are no herds of anything except high voltage power lines and mobile phone towers powered by the sun.

Due to the late departure from Khartoum we decide not to stop at Meroe, the site of 64 Sudanese pyramids I visited maybe five years ago along with Ibrahim Elbedawi, Musallam, and Alan Gelb in the photo. But I’m determined to see Kerma, one of the world’s earliest organized cities which flourished from around 2,500 BC. Kerma is one of the three capitals of the series of Nubian kingdoms that vied for control of the Nile Valley.

Tariq asks for a “nature break” and the rest of us, who had been holding back, readily agree. We step out into the wilderness. As far as the eye can see, it is the tan sand of the Nubian desert; a barren landscape with dramatic rock formations jutting into the sky. The wind-whipped air is pure, clean and dry.

As I return to the car, the shadow is of an elephant.

We are passed by a series of trucks carrying camels in the back. For centuries this route has been taken by camel traders who ride for forty days to sell their livestock in Egypt. Now they ride in an open truck, appearing to enjoy the journey, staring off into the distance. Two are clearly arguing over space.

After cutting through the desert for hours, we see that the road has approached the river. This is evident because of the groves of date palms that grow on its banks stand in sharp contrast to the surrounding desert. Where there is water, there is life.

We stop to refuel and find a group of German tourists in a convoy of land cruisers who are touring the archaeological sites of Northern Sudan. They have stopped to have tea in a roadside open air café. Some of the Germans are having an animated conversation with the waiters. I have some sweet aromatic coffee, spicy with the taste of cardamom and clove.

We pull off the main road into a village to start asking directions. Amir, who has joined us from New Halfa, starts asking directions in the Nubian language, and there is a connection. Each villager points us further down the road, deeper into the village toward the museum. We see kids going home from school, others playing soccer, neighbors on their doorstops talking to one another.

Finally, we arrive at the museum at Kerma. It is near sunset, and the guards are closing the museum and getting ready for the evening prayer. The doors are locked, but through the glass we see the statues found in 2003 on this site by a Swiss archaeological team led by Charles Bonnet; statues of the most famous kings of Nubia, including those of the 25^th dynasty Nubians that conquered Egypt and became Nubian Pharaohs. But the museum is not the main attraction, it is the site itself.

Kerma is remarkable. It was the capital of ancient Nubia, known in various periods as Napata or Kush from 2500 to 1500 BC. As early as the sixth dynasty (2,300-2,400 BC) there were diplomatic, cultural and economic relations between the ancient Egyptian capital city of Memphis, near modern Cairo, and Kerma,

It was a trading city, with homes for the wealthy traders and dignitaries that helped move the product north, east and west. Bonnet’s team found hundreds of seals that were remnants of concluded trade deals.

Over the next millennium, Kush’s power grew along with that of Memphis, a co-existence that included periods of cooperation, rivalry and conflict. Ancient Egypt and Kush vied for supremacy for millennia; Kush grew more powerful when Egypt was weakened by invaders from the north; Kush in turn grew weaker through its conflicts with neighbors to the south.

This site itself, Kerma town, is just over the fence, now closed.

Deeply disappointed, we explain that we have been driving for seven hours to see this site; I explain that I would be happy even to look over the wall and taking a photograph, as you see above. With no argument at all, the guard casually mentions that the door 50 meters to the west is still open.

Tariq, Amir and I virtually sprint to the door, and run into the compound, a wide open space with what looks to be a large carved hill in the middle, with geometrically-patterned short mud walls throughout the area.

We climb the Deffufa, or main temple, and from above the view is astonishing: everywhere we turn, we see the outlines of the complex city that existed nearly 5,000 years earlier. It was organized hierarchically by a government that enforced urban zones including a religious sector with temples to worship deceased kings, royal residences, defense systems, and sectors for work, government and residence.

By 1750 BC, the kings of Kerma were powerful enough to organize the labor for monumental walls and structures of mud brick on which we stand today. They also had rich tombs with possessions for the afterlife; furniture, perfumes, pottery and food. On the death of a king hundreds of cows, and possibly some humans as well, were sacrificed to accompany the king on his journey.

The sun begins to set, and we imagine what life might have been like in 2,400 BC from this site, looking down not on ruins but on a thriving royal city. Thrilled and grateful for the experience, we return to the vehicle to resume our journey.

It quickly gets dark, and we our pace slows for our safety.

Near midnight, the sign for Wadi Halfa appears.

We have finally arrived.

Uncategorized

A frayed social fabric

January 26, 2015January 26, 2015By Magdi No Comments

We woke up knowing that we had a long journey ahead of us back to Khartoum. Word had gotten around from our evening visit that we were interested in knowing more about New Halfa and old Nubia from the elders.

Ustaz Rushdie came to see us again, and was far more emotional than the evening before, explaining that we had provoked in him a longing for home. Madame Amina came back wearing the traditional Nubian dress, the jirjar, so that we could photograph her as we had asked. In a few hours we manage to see five or six more families.

We went to see the farms and the water supply that we described in an earlier post. With a lot of blessings and well wishes from the elders, the best kind of blessing, we were off.

On the route back to Khartoum we stop in Gedaref, the agricultural center of Eastern Sudan. It is a busy day at the market, despite it being a Saturday, since the sesame crop has been harvested, and many sacks of it are being exchanged. It was a few days before Mawlid al Nabi, the birthday of the Prophet, and the markets were full of colorful decorations and sweets. We stop momentarily to meet the lovely family of the driver in Gedaref. It is a brief visit, and it is clear that the children miss their dad. A few tears were shed.

We spend a little time in the town, seeing people meeting and greeting, and getting ready for the holiday.

Seeing this town reminded me of a trip I had taken as a 20 year old. Back in 1987, as university student, I had won a small scholarship to travel to Sudan in order to research my senior thesis comparing traditional and modern agriculture. I had spent a few days in Gedaref with Wagdi in 1987 to better understand the more modern parfo The question was whether the semi-mechanized model in the rain-fed agriculture sector around Gedaref would flourish as an alternative to the traditional agriculture that was practiced among the Sudanese who lived in scattered villages.

Later that summer I wanted to see what traditional agriculture was like. I decided to go to see a small town called Umm Ruwaba, which is half way between Khartoum and Darfur. My relatives did not want me to go alone, so they sent an older cousin who is now a school teacher. But there was only one seat left on the bus. I had nowhere to sit since a merchant was transporting six large jerrycans (five gallon plastic jugs) of cooking oil on the bus that he wanted to sell in the village. Feeling a little guilty for taking all of the space, he offered me to sit on one of his large plastic containers. I sat down and grabbed a pole as we made our way to El Obeid. As the road bumped along, I held on to the roof of the bus and bounced on the large jerrycan.

The city gave way to the greenbelt, which in turn gave way to the dusty desert as the long path of asphalt stretched forward to the West. Abruptly, after two hours, the asphalt simply ended. Undounted, the driver slowed down, eased the minibus off of the asphalt, and pressed on into the desert. At this point the road became a roller coaster, lifting me off of the plastic, into the air, and back down on to the plastic jug. I became dizzy, my head throbbing, nausea growing as the minibus drove over sand dunes. After another hour I looked down and saw a patch of darkness on the edge of my thigh. I turned to look at the source and saw that my pants were fully soaked in oil, as well as the back of my shirt and my body.

After hours of this we finally stopped. I stumbled out into the dusty street in a daze, about to collapse. I became ill in the street. I found a faucet and washed my face. I had a piece of paper with an address on it, and I asked someone to guide me there. It was easy to find, since everyone knew everyone else. I knocked, a little kid opened the gate and let me in. The mother of the family, seeing what a mess I was in, led me to a guest room; they showed me a bathroom and shower and I promptly changed and fell asleep until late the next morning. I woke up, and my clothes soaked in cooking oil had been laundered and were folded next to me. They gave me a wonderful breakfast, only a little of which I could eat. He suggested we see a doctor. We went, and under a dim lightbulb the doctor drew a drop of blood, spread it on a glass slide and examined it under a microscope. He gave me the news. I had Malaria. We got some medicine and went back home at he insisted that I go back to bed, which I did because Malaria makes one very sleepy. At that point, before I dozed off, he had a question he was longing to ask. “Who are you?” he asked. His family had taken me in, saved me from a deeper illness, fed me and washed my clothes, without ever asking my name. When I told him, he was quite happy. I stayed for days until I was strong enough to do a little of my research. But it was a sign of the strength of the social fabric, and the depth of relations between people, that one could literally trust your life with it, and that he would have done so much for me without ever asking my name.

In the 28 years since that summer, the Sudan has changed dramatically. The population was around 18 million then, and now it has more than doubled to around 37 million. At that time the Sudanese Prime Minister had been democratically elected, but the government was struggling with the economy. A coup ended the regime and the brief second try at democracy. Wars became the norm. In 1983 Southern rebels led by John Garang resumed a war that had been in hiatus since a 1972 peace agreement, and other conflicts emerged in the East and West. Agriculture was the central focus, and the country had just come out of the devastating droughts in 1984 that were the subject of various concerts around the world.

During the 1990s the new regime, at the time a combination of Islamist and military, largely isolated from international lenders, had deeply cut subsidies and public sector wages to bring budgets under control. To its credit, it stabilized the economy, but this broke the back of the middle class as consumers of staples that had become dramatically more expensive, and as teachers, doctors and civil servants who could no longer make ends meet.

Late in the decade Sudan started to export petroleum and, for the first time in recent memory, the currency strengthened rather than fell. As a result, business started to focus on imports and consumption, Khartoum grew both because of the spending in the capital, and because Sudanese living in the conflict zones fled there for safety. Khartoum for a short while became one of the biggest markets in the world for passenger vehicles. But an oil sector might support increased consumption, but it does not create many middle-class jobs. It tends to concentrate a lot of wealth in a few pockets and in the government. It can help the country develop, and indeed the countries roads were far better. But far too often it can fuel conflict by shifting more resources to security, create opportunities for corruption, make governments unresponsive to society, and create more inequality.

In Sudan, it seemed that the newfound wealth created a new elite, but one that didn’t seem to be fully accepted by society, and a new set of values that don’t seem to fit the people. It seemed that the social fabric of the country had been torn up and sewn in a patchwork pattern; you could recognize the individual pieces of the old Sudan here and there but the overall texture, look and feel of the cloth had changed. Many of the pieces are frayed and tattered.

So it was of great pleasure to see as we passed through the market in Gedaref, and a sesame milling plant that was at capacity; agriculture was back. It is again creating jobs and livelihoods for ordinary Sudanese, as well as migrants from Ethiopia and Eritrea. People were working.

As we drove the five hours back to Khartoum, I wondered if the succession of South Sudan would have a silver lining. I had always seen it as both a victory for self determination and a failure of imagination – a failure for ordinary people to see each other’s humanity, and a failure of leadership to help them see it. Without oil income, and with a return to agriculture, would the older egalitarian values that come from hard work return? Would that torn social fabric begin to heal itself?

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In their own words

January 12, 2015January 21, 2015By Magdi 2 Comments

A series of three videos in Arabic filmed in New Halfa. All are of Nubian elders who are reflecting on their lives since the Hijra.

Ustaz Rushdie, an educator, reflects on his longing for home, and how after fifty years he still dreams of the life he had.

He married in the new country and raised his family. His children have not seen Old Halfa, yet in his dreams they only appear in the old country. Nothing in the new land resembles the old, whether the trees, the agriculture, the houses. Also, old Nubia was isolated from other tribes. Conflicts may arise from use of land between pastoralists and farmers, which in older times were easily resolved because everyone knew each other.

The land that was provided is larger, but requires mechanized farming and is less productive. In old Nubia, the plots were smaller but more productive. He commented on the loss of the language, especially in the towns between the villages.

Abdel Aziz Shelabi talks of being betrayed and fooled by the authorities in 1964, and compensated at a fraction of what was lost in the flood. He talks about the unrealized plans, and that agriculture worked well initially but that the land has grown tired. He complains that the project really is for the benefit of others and not the Nubians.

Hassan Abdel Halim talks about the neglect of the village and its infrastructure, including an unfinished road.

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New Halfa

January 1, 2015January 3, 2015By Magdi 1 Comment

After driving east for six hours from Khartoum, our driver Khatir, Tariq and I arrive in New Halfa. We meet my cousin Amir in the market, and he guides us to his home.

Each of the 25 resettlement villages is known by a number, not a name. Each has 250 houses, a school, mosque and some shops within a communal area. Our destination is village No 18, representing the village where my father’s family was relocated. Each house is a yellow-brown color, walls of molded concrete blocks formed into four rooms, a slanted asbestos roof, and a courtyard surrounded by a fence. There were no kitchens in the original homes, many homes have been modified. The traditional Nubian decorations are absent from the gates, but some are painted brightly.

We arrive at around 3 pm, and are greeted with a wonderful Sudanese lunch by cousins, Amir and Mohamed Abdel Bashir. We have never met before, but it is like a long-awaited reunion. We share our condolences, since their mother, my aunt, has recently passed away. We see old pictures, including one of my sister visiting the common grandmother that we share, another of my mother in college around 1960. There is a painting of the train that took them on their exodus. They are extremely hospitable, and we will stay with them.

My cousins work the land that the families were allocated in the resettlement. Mohamed was elected by a people’s committee to manage the water supply, which is unfiltered and used for everything from agriculture to human use. Every day he goes to the well, which is fed by an irrigation canal from dam and puts in 30 water purification tablets to reduce the chance for water-borne diseases. The same happens in all 25 villages. An electric pump elevates the water so that it can be distributed to the houses.

30 of these tablets are used every day in the water well that supplies village 18.

Neighbors in Wadi Halfa were resettled together to the extent possible. We set out to visit to the neighbors, taking time especially to talk to the elders who are old enough to relate the experience of “Al Hijra”.

It was an emotional day. The conversations with the older Nubians evoked a deep sense of loss over a world and community that they loved. Amina Hassan spoke about a place with no diseases, with easier agriculture, of date palms and orange trees, gardens, fresh water and clean air, the closeness of people to one another, and peace.

“Even if I go to heaven,” said Abdel Aziz Saleh Shalabi, “I will still long for the Nubia that I lost.”

“When I dream at night, the world I see is the Nubia of his youth 50 years ago,” Hassan Abdel Halim explained, “My children are there with me, although they were born in New Halfa. The new land never appears.” Ustaz Rushdi, a retired educator, was brought to tears by his own reflections of how life was, and how it is.

It is hard to express the deep sorrow that resides in the hearts of those that experienced the exodus. The hearts of the older generation, those who carry forward the culture, have simply been shattered. There is no other way to put it.

They sense that they were betrayed by fellow Sudanese and Egyptians, and that no one cares about their fate today; that they were fooled by many promises that went unfulfilled.

They explained that the Sudan was newly independent and unprepared in the years ahead of the exodus. The President came to visit the Nubians after signing the agreement that sealed their fate, only then realizing the value of what he lost. The President promised them that they would choose their new home. The Nubians formed a committee, visited all of the sites and selected one. But the government chose another. Many chose to relocate to the capital, Khartoum, or like my family even further. We visited the house allocated to my father. Two guava trees grow in its courtyard; one bitter, one sweet.

Father's house, in which one date palm and two guava trees grow — Father’s house, in which one date palm and two guava trees grow

As Tariq explained, agriculture is different. In Nubia, families were able to get high yields from small plots because of the fertile soil and water, and the weather that allowed year-round rotations of crops. In New Halfa, plots of land are very large, and required much more labor. After a few good years, the land now requires frequent fallow and is less productive.

Some of the younger Nubians who were born after 1964 did not know the old country and don’t see the need to look back. There is value in this – those who look forward seem more ready to build a better future, and there is clearly opportunity in this productive area. But among others is a clear sign of a lack of hope; young men standing around without purpose.

Anyone displaced must feel a sense of injustice. The Nubians chose neither migration nor their destination. Words were spoken at the time of the migration to put them at ease. There was the idea that the Nubians were sacrificing their homeland for the greater good of Egypt and an Arab nation emerging from a long history of colonization. The unity of the Nile Valley resonates with many Sudanese. Winston Churchill once said that the Nile is as a palm tree, with its roots in Africa and its fronds and fruit in the delta. But to the Nubians I met, those words must now seem as hollow as the reeds that line the Nile.

It is clear that the culture is dying. The language is rarely spoken, replaced by Arabic. The traditional dress of Nubian women, the “jirjaar,” a long black dress with a train behind, is gone. A train was possible in old Nubia because the ground was sandy and would fall off easily. But in New Halfa, they tried to shorten it to account for the more muddy soil, and then gave up. They still enjoy Nubian music and weddings, but this is rare now.

Only 85 of the original 250 houses in Village 18 still belong to Nubians. As this generation of older Nubians pass from this world to the next, I sense that the idea of Nubia will go with them. Only then will have realized what we have lost.

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Khartoum and an overland journey

December 30, 2014January 3, 2015By Magdi 1 Comment

Arrival in Khartoum was unexpectedly pleasant. The weather in December is cool, and my cousin Wagdi and his son arranged a nice arrival and put us up in a new apartment at his mother’s house. From one of the important Nubian families, he treated us in an extremely generous and kind way throughout the trip.

On our first day in Khartoum we visited relatives. Visiting is a time-honored tradition; almost an art form. It can be entertaining, especially with someone with a good sense of humor. Visits reinforce the social network, which is built around the large extended family, by spreading news about weddings, births, graduations, illnesses or deaths, and general well-being of the whole family. The visits help maintain friendships over generations. An aunt in Port Sudan, far from our route, asked us to visit. She grew emotional when she found out that this was not possible, explaining through her tears that my visit would be like a visit from my father, who she dearly missed.

As a sign of hospitality, one is offered a sweet and a glass of cool water at the start of the visit. One might be offered tea, one of the Sudan’s traditional drinks, made from hibiscus flower or baobab, or mango, grapefruit or guava juice. Sudan has the best of these, despite what Indians or Filipinos may tell you about their mangoes. Greetings ensue, which include blessings of various types, checking on the well-being and news about brothers, sisters, cousins and their children. There may be two rounds of greetings. Then conversation begins, sharing perspectives on the US, and we learn about Sudan.

However important, Tariq was dead tired of these visits by nightfall.

In the morning we visited the national Museum. The entrance fee was two pounds each, something like 30 cents. The museum contains colossal statues of the great Nubian Pharoah Taharqa, who unfortunately lost the empire by taking on the Assyrians in support of Jerusalem. Nubian jewelry, paintings from the Christian temples, and Kerma pottery that would make any artist proud are on display. But what we came to see were the Buhen and Semna temples, built by Queen Hatshepsut and Pharaoh Thutmose III, that were removed from Nubia at the time of flood, and rebuilt in the garden of the museum. Tariq and I were able to walk through, and enjoy walls full of hieroglyphics, some still painted in their original colors.

Supervision was lax. Similar temples at the Louvre or the Metropolitan Museum in New York are behind glass. Here, nothing prevents you from touching the raised hieroglyphics, 3,500 years old, bearing the original paint. It is painful to see the carved inscriptions of Turkish, Greek and British soldiers who left their marks in the 1800s, and modern visitors who leave their marks in Arabic, English and Chinese.

We then visited what Tariq used to call the “egg building” while it was under construction, a modern building in the shape of a sail. Now the Corinthia hotel, we went up to the 18^th floor and got a panoramic view of Khartoum. He had a thick mango juice and I had a spicy Sudanese coffee in a traditional clay pot.

I have mixed views on this building. When it was started the only large hotel was an ex-Hilton, with seven star rates and a three-star facility. Something better was needed. Col. Ghaddafi of Libya decided to finance a hotel costing around $100 million! The government removed the national zoo to make way for it.

It was developed in a moment of euphoria in the wake of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement with Southern Sudan, and a partial agreement in Darfur. I would have appreciated this hotel more if Libya had diverted some funds in parallel to projects, such as livestock exports, water or electricity that might have created jobs, better lives, hope, and a greater chance that the peace would have been sustained. The euphoria and the peace didn’t survive. Neither did Ghaddafi.

The next morning, after the dawn prayers we set out to visit New Halfa, where the Sudanese Nubians living in the flood zone were resettled.

The sun rises, the crowds are already at the various bus stops. We pass by factories, auto dealerships, markets, and more bus stops. Gradually, the sights of the city give way to the scenes of the countryside. Three girls walk chatting, each with a dark dress and different colored headscarf. An old sheik stands by the side of the road, his arms crossed, waiting. A soldier tries to hitch a ride. The bus fills up, slowing down traffic, we pass. Across a field a boy rides on a cart pulled by a horse, it tosses its head and gallops along.

We pass a village called Kamleen, another called or “Heesa Heesa”. Three ladies cross the road, each carrying firewood. Five hours pass in similar scenes.

Mesquite trees line the horizon. Introduced by German donors who spread the seeds to combat desertification, the trees spread quickly and now the government has spent millions to eradicate this tree. As we get closer, Gum Arabic trees line the road. Native to Sudan, the trees provide income to poor farmers, fodder for animals, and improve the soil. Sometimes we need to appreciate local solutions.

The mud brick houses look tenuous, as if the next big rain might take them away. We turn off the main highway around Kassala, and approach New Halfa.

A shepherd guides a bull toward some pasture, a herd of cows follow. A group of boys Tariq’s age swims in the irrigation canal, laughing, and another warms himself sprawled out on the black asphalt, until the last second, when he springs up away from incoming traffic.

Heavy traffic on our path to new Halfa, we wait patiently.

The land is green, irrigated farms on either side. A donkey stands in the middle of the road, undecided.

It is said that when the Nubians were resettled, they found a large herd of donkeys milling about in the agricultural area. The British had used them in World War II in mine clearing operations against the Italians and then set them free. They multiplied. Each Nubian family took one to use to help cultivate their plots.

A pool of irrigation water to the side of the road, and a flock of white herons drinks. The land area is simply massive, there is flat earth in all directions as far as the eye can see.

The outlines of the standardized housing built for the Nubian migrants start to appear.

We’re approaching New Halfa, the resettlement area that the government chose against the will of the Nubians fifty years ago.

	Magdi on Lessons from the First Climate…
	Ahmed on Lessons from the First Climate…
	Magdi & Tariq on Lessons from the First Climate…
	Luiz Maurer on Lessons from the First Climate…
	Darryl on Salah Abdel Halim

After the flood

Exploring Nubia 50 years after the Exodus

Sudan

Lessons from the First Climate Refugees

The Lost Water Wheel

Sarkamatto

500 Miles, and a 5,000 year detour: Kerma

A frayed social fabric

In their own words

New Halfa

Khartoum and an overland journey

Exploring Nubia 50 years after the Exodus

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