A distant voice is heard, amplified by a megaphone – chanting verses of the Koran. Tonight is Ramadan eve and tomorrow begins the month long fasting for the devote Muslims, as well as for those who decide Allah might look favorably on them if they jump on the bandwagon and perform the acts for the following month. The driver didn’t eat dinner with us, instead is going to wait until 11 in an effort to synchronize with the oncoming fasting requirements – by eating late, he will skip breakfast and make it through the day with tonight’s nourishment. Around 7:30 tomorrow evening is when one can break the fast, and this is typically done by eating a few dates, as was reportedly done by the prophet himself. So the markets are flowing with stands of dates.
The evening air is still and hot, surrounding the skin in an oven like feeling. On the day of arrival, it had been much cooler, due to the passing rain storm, but today and tonight, the temperature soared into the 100 degrees F. Bugs swarm the yard light, confused by the man made light and a pile of de-winged or injured bugs pile up on the ground. A faint smell of burnt wood wafts over the concrete wall, remnants of someone’s dinner fire. A faint drone of the generator compete with the ongoing prayer coming from the mosque down the street. Refreshed by a cold shower, the day’s dust now washed off. The compound is simple and the living is basic, but all you need is here. Water is delivered by a tanker truck that collects it at the city tank – which originated from a series of wells that are 15 kilometers out of town. The truck fills an underground concrete storage tank; of which the contents are pumped to a few small elevated tanks.
Each day the cook buys food from the market and prepares a tasty meal of chicken or some other meat that I think is beef; boiled eggs and flat bread is the morning food.
The flight on the Marsland Yak 42B was one and a half hours to El Fashir, complete with a tasty meal in the first class seats. The interior of the plane looked like it had been put together in a high school shop class, screws not flush with the surfaces, jagged edged to the siding that goes around the window, latches that looked like they came from a mom and pop hardware shop. At least the Ukrainian pilots landed the plane safely. As I was walking down wobbling ladder, I noticed a line of military types with pickup trucks full of men armed to the teeth. This welcoming was not waiting for me, but some other guy that just arrived with us on the plane.
We board a bus that takes us to the domestic terminal, a square tin shelter with a chain link fence. The tin looks like it will blow off in the next strong wind and a man with a ledger pad sitting on a metal table is waiting to great us. He asks for my passport and permit and releases us in what was a really painless experience, I was expecting much worse. Then we wait about one hour, as the gate out of the airport is chained shut and locked. Finally the luggage arrives, about 4 trailers, piled with a teetering pile of suitcases, bags and boxes – pulled by a small white pickup. As the luggage arrives, people rush the trailers to claim their possessions and someone finally opens the gate. Having only carry on luggage, we just spent one hour waiting. But, waiting is common in Africa. You don’t complain. There is no one to complain to, because no one is really in charge, at least those in charge are not present. No one seems to complain in Sudan. Except for on the roads when shouting is common place.
We pile into an old land cruiser and drive off into town. My first glimpse of military – but not the last, as they are teeming around town – the camouflage pickup truck has a large gun mounted in the back, with a belt of bullets flowing to the bed of the truck. Men are sitting around the gun, each holding their own weapon of choice; an rpg, an ak47. Someone is holding onto the gun as the pickup goes speeding down the road, forcing others to move over. They own the road and who is going to contend with that fire power?
The town immediately reminds me of Juba, but with more pavement and even more buildings. A crowded market place, complete with all the cheap Chinese junk you could ever wish for, a few blocks of construction and building materials; plenty of places to find housing goods, and wheel barrows of oranges. Horse draw water carts, which are two fuel drums welded together and stuck on an axel, slowly climb the hill, selling water. Large trucks with merchandise exploding from the top and sides are parked, having just arrived in a convoy from Khartoum. From about the midpoint between El Fashir / Khartoum, the trucks wait for a military escort to make it through that last stretch that is plagued with bandits and rebel groups.
This afternoon we decided to check out an IDP camp – Internally Displaces People, fancy way of saying refugee. We drove along a road, with the IDP camp on our right. Thatched huts for as far as the eye could see. Suddenly the driver stopped due to the car we were following had stopped at a fork in the road. In the distance, directly in front of us, I saw an army tent and a few men in camouflage; they stood up and were staring in our direction. We were stopped for about a minute and then the car in front of us turned around and we were going to follow suit – except the army guy now had his hands raised motioning for us to stop and then there were two shots fired into the air. The driver stopped! He continued to motion at us while walking in our direction with three other men. Two were carrying automatic guns and started to walk, one to the left and one to the right. The other two men kept walking straight at us. I was sitting in the back seat and didn’t really know how serious this was going to be. I was with two Sudanese so left them to attempt to negotiate our way through this mess. The guys with the guns were now standing, ready for action, at the 2 and 10 o’clock positions – doing the flanking maneuver. The two men in the middle approached the car and ### got out and started the endless greetings they always do. Peace be with you, hello, how are you, God bless you, how are you, I’m fine, peace to you, on and on and on, hopefully this time peace would resound louder than anything else. There was exchange of words and waving of arms as ### tells of what we were doing here and why we had stumbled upon their check point. Apparently we were in a military zone and they were going to fire on us. At which I am glad we had not tried to turn around and drive off quickly, I’d probably have a brain full of lead right now playing a harp on some cloud. Once the fiscal had been quelled, ### got back in the car and we quickly drove off. “that was a close one man!” “they would have shot if we tried to drive away, these guys are trigger happy and have no patience”. The adrenalin never materialized for me – I think the years of dealing with greedy Zairian military who were a joke, only hitting you up for cash. I realized suddenly that out here we are in a war zone and the stakes are much higher – I should start taking these guys seriously. Note to self. I remained sitting in the back seat and sneak a few photos of the passing IDP camps, of which I had just erased incase the army guys were going to search the car and find these pictures on my camera. The pictures were nothing but thatched hut, looks just like parts of Juba.
The speed at which the driver is going is much much faster than he had driven the entire time since he picked us up from the airport. I laughed to myself. What a day!
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