Heron on the Nile
picture gallery >>>
<<<< >>>>
  El Obied Dia Situation Thu 13 Jan 2005  

Thu 13 Jan

Sewing-up sacks of karkady
Sewing-up sacks of karkady
Dia is well-meaning, welcoming and keen to be friends. He's the one that met me at the airport on the first day and took me to the university. He was sad that I spurned his invitation to live with him in favour of the University guesthouse. To make up for it (in some way) I agreed to stay tonight at his place and we'd spend Friday together.

I meet him at the crop market shortly after 6pm. He needs to stop off at one production centre to see the men who are sewing-up that day's 20kg sacks of karkady. Then we drive around to another production centre to drop off his mate. Just after we pass a fully loaded lorry heading in the opposite direction. We turn around and chase it. Once we're on our way again we wait for a long train at a level crossing and then stop for fuel. Dia is hungry; I suggest we collect my baggage now rather than having to come out again later. At his house we eat, a reasonable spread, but I'm not sure whether it's a late "rhada" (late lunch) or an early "asher" (late supper).

Obied mosque at sunset
Obied mosque at sunset
We're invited to visit a neighbour who's soon to be married. The preparation party amounts to six men sat around a dining table, all but one of whom are smoking cigarettes which is unusual as men tend to imbibe snuff inside their lower lip. Before them are 1000 invitation cards and a couple of school exercise books of names to be invited. Some are faithfully copying names to the "request the pleasure of" line, while others are carefully folding and creasing. It's a boring job. Apparently only men are invited in writing, women are invited by word of mouth. The happy couple will marry in 10 days time. He is 35, an economics teacher and she is 32, an engineer in Khartoum.

Back at the house, I discover "bachelor" Dia shares the men's section with at least two brothers, and a colleague. There are beds in two bedrooms, the living room and on the balcony. It seems that no one considers a particular bed their own but I still get the feeling that I've displaced someone.

Bored out of my mind, I seek entertainment from the 230 satellite TV channels. I settle for an hour-long TV-special of Nancy Ajram in concert. It's disappointing but I stick with it anyway. She sings well but by and large she's rigid for the whole performance and clearly clueless about what to do with herself when she's not singing. I wonder if she's suffering from the excesses of her success; it's as if she's seen better times. She's accompanied by a full orchestra with conductor and about eight backing singers. The tunes are familiar but the production is way over the top. This is a long way from pop music yet obviously lacks the depth of a classical performance.

<<<< >>>>