behind a cloud of smoke

Going out in Khartoum involves a long casual dinner and freshly squeezed fruit drinks. We arrive at a Lebanese hotel/restaurant – the architecture and setting brings you back to what the middle east looked like in the 17th century. The appetizers and then food arrive which are all quite pleasing to the palette, and then the rain starts falling – few sitting outside make any attempt to seek shelter but as the drops became more intense, the prelude to a deluge, we grabbed our plates and scrambled inside. After dinner we throw back another freshly squeeze strawberry juice and order a mint, strawberry and grape sheesha or water pipe. Behind a cloud of sweet smelling tobacco, we discuss African politics and foreign AID – I always enjoy the perspective of someone from the country. You don’t get the regurgitated opinions of what the media pushes or governments try to convince you. You can step into the perspective of someone living in the middle of it all. Power sharing, oil money, the west’s failed attempt to force a democratic system and the foreign players – and that is just getting started. This is a very interesting country, with not many like it, on the main stage of international attention and many moving parts within it. The two part nation, held together by oil revenues of which peace teeters on these monthly paychecks – the third part (Drf) self destructing, but at least not claiming any share in the revenue. There is always so much more than what fits into a nicely package media line, so much more than a simple movement to save a region based on emotional fervor, religious affiliation. Neglected is the history, the nomadic cattle herders seeking green pastures, new boundaries and the non-conformist’s nature of a nomadic people. It can’t be boiled down to simple religious conflict as is often portrayed, simplified, utilized to instigate movements, drawing up for some connection. There are tribes here, there are cow herders that need green grass, there is not a lot of grass, there are lots of guns, there are foreign interests, there is a lot of oil and money and deep pockets with ivy league school bills to pay – the list goes on.