Visitors, Sickness & Other Adventures....

Dear Friends,
Greetings! It has been far too long since I have written to you, and I am so sorry for that. Just last week (it seems like last year already) I finished teaching the Concentrated Course in New Testament Background. The next day the group of Presbyterians who I had been joyfully anticipating arrived from the United States. I then spent four of the next five days in their company, taking part with them in their activities. Finally, the last day I was with them, this past Monday, I began to feel ill and by Monday night I was quite sick. It was not until yesterday that I began to feel somewhat better, thus my lack of writing about the goings on here in my life in Khartoum.

With the group I took a bus to Elobeid and spent the night in a gracious Muslim house of hospitality, aka a guesthouse. It was very basic but it was clean. Along with the others in the group I was granted a photo permit for the touring and was able to shoot many delightful pictures, some of which I will share with you. There appears to me to be a definite type of Arabic architecture. This is the compound structure, a wall, or a gate, that is set down first and within this wall the buildings of the home are arranged. I believe this is what I also saw in Palestine. One of the things that struck me in Palestine were the beautiful doors in the gates and the ironwork on the windows. It is true here as well. The wall may be of mud, and yet nearly always, in the midst of the monotone line of walls, there is a metal door painted a vivid purple or blue or whatever color strikes the fancy of the owner. The doors are never wooden, they are always metal. I suspect that this has to do with the harsh elements.

There were what to my eye appeared to be neighborhoods along the way. Some of them were vast. Like the largest of suburban subdivisions in the states. Or what in the United Kingdom is called "estates". As we went West some of the dwellings were round in shape. I hesitate to call them houses because they aren't exactly that by my American eye. Which begs the question: what defines a house? A group of people living in something? A style of architecture? Whatever I want it to be?

In the enormous unpainted panorama of the desert in Sudan there were always the flashes of color; both the doors of the dwellings and in the clothing of the women and children. The men almost always wore the long white garment and turban, but the women and children seem to find life in the colors that flow from the beautiful clothes and thobes (pronounced tobe) that they are attired in.

The further West we went the more the landscape looked African and not Arabic to me. Someone else commented to me that the Arabic influence in Khartoum itself is very strong. I know when I stepped off the airplane from Nairobi onto the ground at the airport in Khartoum in October my breath was pretty much literally taken away. The airport was definitely Arabic, more so than anything I had ever seen in Palestine or perhaps even in Jordan. For me as an American there is such an air of mystique about Arabia. The Thousand and One Nights kind of thing....the question that comes up for me again and again concerning this culture is: can there be love without equality? I do know that I realized at the point of the landing of the plane that Nairobi was AFRICAN and Khartoum was not.

This of course will lead me onto a rabbit trail....there are African Arabs and there are Asian Arabs, and I am so very interested in finding out more about both of these groups. Of course, there are European Turks and Asian Turks as well.

I have now been to the pyramids! Not the Egyptian ones, but indeed pyramids. The cemetery of a proud people. To contribute to the lore of such a place there were hordes of Sudanese camel riders in traditional garb, which of course if probably what they actually wear. I can definitely say about Sudan that the people for the most part are not becoming Westernized in their outerwear. I appreciate that because I feel that in China a valuable part of their culture is being left behind as they shun their traditional garments.

Two of the people I was with very comfortable sat on their camels and took off with their guides. I on the other hand felt rather ill on mine. Of course it could have been the beginning of what would hit me full force later in the evening with feeling sick, but nonetheless I didn't feel safe at all way up high on that animal! So I stayed up just long enough to have a picture or two taken. I will say that in 1996 when I was in Israel and Palestine that I had a picture taken of myself on a camel in Jerusalem....if I can find that picture I can have a Then/Now comparison. I don't think I fancied the ride much back then either.

Since all of these adventures I have explored the Sudanese medical system much more intimately than I ever desired, just as what happened to me in China. The doctors speak good English and are certainly educated in Western medications and their uses. I found out that blood can be taken without using a tourniquet, the first time time it was done that way and I didn't come as close to passing out as usual. The second time the tourniquet was used and I had to as usual force myself to remember to breathe. There were copious supplies of clean single use cellophane wrapped needles in sight at both of the places I had blood drawn. I am beginning to get used to not lying down for the draws -- at least here in Khartoum I could sit, in China that was not an option.

The doctor's office and the two hospitals which I have seen now were both clean. This was in sharp contrast to the Chinese facilities in Nanjing. The European SOS clinic in Nanjing was clean to Western standards. I was not able to find an actual SOS sign hanging anywhere in the sites where I'd been directed from the American SOS telephone line. There is not the convenience of being able to use a credit card as I had in Nanjing. I am going to have to pay cash and be reimbursed for treatment -- which is okay unless something major happens and I have to be, say, hospitalized, at the tune of much more cash than I happen to have on hand. But I think that this is what most people in the world face, especially in a cash and carry health care system world.

I was impressed by the female doctor who talked with me at one of the hospitals. She asked me more questions than the male doctor at a private practice a few days before. She also ordered a CBC, Complete Blood Count, which he had not done. So I feel that she is more thorough. It turns out that malaria can sometimes present the same symptoms as severe stomach ailments and so I had been tested to be sure I didn't have malaria. I was relieved when the test came out negative as I have been taking malaria medications faithfully for several months now.

The Americans have gone home now. I was left with a wonderful supply of DVDs, purple pillow cases and other things which are hard to find here in Khartoum. Having realized that the key for not only surviving but flourishing here lays at least in part (for me) in having an enjoyable home to live in, I so appreciated the gifts that make that more so. Now I need to get back on track with grading student final exams, getting final grades calculated, learning how to cook properly here so that I avoid illness as much as possible, and investigating how to get regular exercise in this place of heat, ants, mosquitos and flies.

I am coming to a philosophical attitude towards my ability to adapt to a culture that is so very different from my own. I will do the best that I can, and give myself grace to realize that this will never completely be my own culture. I don't have the ability to live in the ways that some people here must live, not perhaps by choice. I will always be an outsider, if for nothing else because of my white skin. But as an outsider who respects the culture and wants to build relationships, perhaps part of what I can contribute is to become a bridge between my own culture and the culture here in Sudan and Africa and the Middle East. Isn't it fascinating how many cultures can be/exist in one place at the same time? Sudanese, Nubian, African, Nuer, Middle Eastern, etc., etc. etc. (As my hero Rex Harrison would have said.)
Blessings,
Debbie