My dad enjoying his tea in lekemat on the road to Medani
Our first house and the kind current residents who allowed us to visit them
The gate to my own primary school, where I completed my entire primary education
In front of my mum's first school in Sudan - I spent many days there before I started school
Maha and I in Osama's rickshaw - I finally got to drive it Linda!!!
Two Sudanese gentlemen out for an afternoon ride - on the road back to Khartoum
The week in Khartoum was an interesting combination of attending Plan meetings with my dad (the goings on of an international NGO in Sudan), going to the licence office and finishing off my qualitative essay. I could not contain my excitement on Friday morning as we set off to Wad Medani - the place where I have spent the longest period of time in my 29 years around these parts.
The Khartoum to Wad Medani road has a bad reputation for speed and traffic, but my dad and I were free rolling as we left Khartoum at 8 on the bright sunny day. We stopped in El Kamlin for tea and legimat - yum yum. My heart was pounding as we arrived in Medani and all the sights and sounds came rushing back to me. I had to catch my breath with the over whelming rush of emotion. First we did the geographical tour, visiting the old houses, my primary school, my dad's old office and my mum's first school as well as the University were she worked for the majority of the time we were there.
A nice little anecdote from the tour is when we stopped outside our very first house in Sudan, where we moved to in 1983. I was taking a picture of the door when a lady came out, I apologised and explained my actions; but being Sudanese she was all smiles and insisted we go in meet her family and have juice with them! The house had not changed a bit since the days when I ran naked around the yard.
The rest of the time in Medani was spent catching up with old family friends, where I was suddenly 10 years old again and then I was a grown up lady of the house running around helping to cook dinner. We tried in vain on Saturday morning to find my best friend from primary school and also found out that Dara's friends had moved to Khartoum. The disappointment here could not however, dampen my overwhelming happiness of just being in Medani. Tears streamed down my face as my dad and I drove out late Saturday afternoon on the road back to Khartoum. I made a silent promise to myself that it would never again be 14 years before I came back again!
3 comments:
wow coooool! supercool! how was it to drive?!
excellent! finally CNG driver extraordinary!
It was too much fun to drive Tawila, but I think Osama was afraid I was going too fast :-) You must try before you leave the desh!
Post a Comment