Saturday, October 9, 2021

Khartoum, Sudan


 Khartoum 

It has been a hectic week of briefings and meetings and my head is bursting with humanitarian jargon, contextual  instructions and the slightly uneasy stage that typifies the start of a new assignment. I’ve lost track of who is Aziz, Hassan, Ahmed or Hamid and seem to be making heavy weather of memorising even the most basic of Arabic greetings. The briefings outline all the various operations and support services from water and habitation to premises to security and the vibe in the delegation is friendly and welcoming. Even my driving test is somewhat entertaining and jovial with a friendly chat with an humanitarian veteran of more than 30 years, who recalls to me his journey to Europe to be celebrated for long service.  

The situation in the country seems vague and tense with the previous president in a Khartoum jail and a precarious interim alliance of politicians and military forming the transitional council. The country seems to be drifting precariously.

Austerity measures and removal of subsidies, in place in an effort to attract IMF funding,  have resulted in record inflation which has steadied out at about 400%,  making life brutal for most and crime starts to climb. 

Africans are resilient though and the heat seems to pacify, as prayers drift from the minarets and people make the most of what they have.

We spend the morning crisscrossing the city and the wide brown Blue Nile, guided by our expert driver who does his best to show us some of the sights and explain the complexities of this broken city. Litter and decay abound, and construction sights seem abandoned and skeletal. We stop at a luxury hotel and watch expats feasting on decadent buffets and paddling in an aquarium like pool or straining in the magnificent gymnasium. We sip an expensive coffee in air conditioned luxury, sucking up free wifi. 

The evening is spent in the company of two Palestinians who explain to me the turbulent history of their small entrapped homeland, where prospects of freedom and independence seem impossible. We hire a motorboat and cruise on the fast flowing Nile as the sun slips behind a murky horizon. 

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