A big day for me on Saturday! After Friday laziness and lethargy I arranged for a friend to go with me to the market again. This seems to be the only outlet of activity for a person like me here. There are only two small lanes with stuff for tourists who want to buy some souvenirs and the selection is extremely limited. The other parts of the market offer daily necessities mainly made in China. There is also a jewellers\u2019 section. Shops full of gold and silver stands seem to be congregated on the outskirts of the market. You see bench jewelers stationed outside bigger shops at a little portable counter with their torches mending gold and making silver pieces.
\nOne area has loads of men sewing bedding and clothing; they are all hunched over their machines but always lift their heads when I appear. There are not many tourists in this section and they are all curious.<\/p>\n
Generally you do not see any women working here. I have seen very few exceptions. The merchandise is very limited and all shops sell the same stuff. The thing I am interested in are the coupons of fabric; the women wrap it around their bodies. Some of the patterns are fabulously wild and I have bought some on the first occasion I had. This is what I like about Sudanese culture: the women are wrapped up head to toe but there is a certain charm about it and the patterns are incredibly vivacious and add a real character to the place.
\nPeople re generally very nice and curious about visitors. I am a bit shy though about taking pictures and socializing. Barrier number one is the language; I really feel incapacitated, as their English is rather limited at the local stalls. Maybe I should try Chinese? As I walk by with my Asian friend some vendors shout \u201cMi Hao\u201d at us. I am completely perplexed thinking: how do they know I speak Chinese? My friend explains it quickly saying it was addressed at her. We laugh. So yes, maybe trying Chinese would get me somewhere?
\nThe place is full of Chinese; they have built a few hotels and lots of other buildings. You see them at the market and in shops. There is no escape\u2026
\nAnother thing to marvel at is the taxi stand. It is a huge dust field with haphazard lines of cars in a bright canary colour. Most of them remember three regimes past I reckon. Some have bullet holes through, some have just marks of a hundred collisions dating back to just after when the car was manufactured. They must have been all painted recently and it is a funny sight. I always laugh seeing one get past me. You have them just as people carriages or for cargo as well. Incredibly, they are in two separate lines.
\nYou also see families or friends congregating in shaded areas, always in a circle and usually sharing some food. It all looks unbelievably scruffy but everybody seems rather happy.
\nThere is a lot of activity at the local part of the market but their mentality is miles apart from ours. Often the clothes on offer are stained or faded and usually all they have is displayed on the racks. They do not seem to have much stock. Some of the robes are so incredibly tattered that in my mind there is really no point in hanging them to attract anyone. Apparently, the stains can be washed and nobody really cares much for quality.
\nThere are tea ladies at corners or in narrow corridors, making it hard to pass. They offer hot tea and coffee in local flavor. They seem to be rather popular. The stands are mobile, like everything here, and they consist of a base with a large tray on it holding the kettle, jars with spices and little glasses. Next to it there are two or three buckets: one for coffee grounds or tealeaves, and one or two for rinsing the glasses. It is all rather grim and I can only imagine the colonies of bacteria germinating in these moist and warm reservoirs. One glance puts me off completely. But the locals do not mind and the ladies seem to have quite a bit of business. You see quite a few people sitting on little plastic or wire stools sipping their freshly made hot beverages. I sometimes envy their their ignorance and simple way of life.
\nThat said, when a driver took me to one of the markets he felt he had to come with me to ensure my safety. At a certain point he asked if I was hungry and I was so, he found a little fast food place serving a Sudanese burger equivalent. With the burger in hand I was looking around the place. The walls were blackened from the ubiquitous dust, the seats were plastic chairs misshapen, beaten and discoloured, the drinks fridges were ancient and filthy and the people there were just having their food. Many of them women. The most orthodox one had to lift her face cover for every bite so I could get an idea what she looked like.
\nI wondered how later on I had to pay in physical discomfort for this culinary folly. Astonishingly, nothing was wrong with my stomach that day!<\/p>\n
It was a big day as I decided to drive to the market myself. I had my friend for moral support. I knew Saturday would be busy and the market area would really be rather mad. I knew the way roughly but around the market many street are only one way so it took us a bit to get to the right place but it was not too complicated. Getting out was easier geographically but there was much more traffic in the afternoon. The roads have all sorts of potholes, unexpected humps, and other obstacles of anthropogenic origin. Additionally, the drivers do not use their indicators and they seem unfamiliar with basic rules of traffic. The craziness is compounded by the tuk-tuk drivers, who do not seem to have any sense of cooperation with other users of the roads. Add to this the donkey carts ofren driven by emaciated 12-year olds and you are sort of getting the picture of what driving through Khartoum is really like. Oh, and the pedestrians do not make it easier either. When they decide to cross, that is when you have to watch out for them. Once they are on the road they seem to believe they have the full right of way even though they are un-vehicled! I have to confess: I jaywalk. A lot. But when I do this I plan it carefully. I do this only where it is really necessary and if there are any cars in my field of vision, I simply run across to the other side. Here nobody is in a hurry. People are slowly shuffling down the road right in the middle of busy traffic. Infuriating. Frustrating. Silly.<\/p>\n
Amazingly though, with all these difficulties, I made it home safe! This was like a baptism, the kind of sink or swim kind of initiation. I do not want to feel overly victorious as this would build my confidence to ignorant levels that might only end up in a sorry situation for me. Driving here requires constant undivided attention, which was confirmed only a few days later when I had to cover one of my Sudanese colleague\u2019s classes as when he was driving to school in the morning he crashed his car and totally wrecked it\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A big day for me on Saturday! After Friday laziness and lethargy I arranged for a friend to go with me to the market again. This seems to be the only outlet of activity for a person like me here. There are only two small lanes with stuff for tourists who want to buy some … <\/p>\n