On Friday we saw the Sufis. They have a party, technically its not a a party, its a ritual worship frenzy, with drumming and dancing, every Friday for 45minutes before evening prayer, and apparently it then continues after prayer until 10pm.
Sufism is manifest here as a deviant branch of Islam. Focus is on mysticism and a direct communion an
d experience of the divine. I've heard that Islam arrived in this part of the world via the Sufis, peacefully, rather than via the sword as happened elsewhere, and that here the Sufis are quite well respected and hold positions of power.
The Friday ritual is a lot of fun. There are smiles all round. A free-for-all of dancing and chanting and whooping and waving hands and sticks in the air and encouraging each-other to dance and chant with more vigour. There is a definite party atmosphere.
The Sufis wear bright green, with various other bright colours, as opposed to the uniform white of Orthodox Islam.
There was one old man in particular, who looked like a Saddhu from India, with his long grey beard and long hair. There was one guy that looked like many a government minister or something, seemed to have a clique around him, and wasn't wearing the green garb. There were several people with huge smiles and with a slightly crazy excited look in their eyes.
We only stayed until prayer time, as we had to get back to see our friends. Next time we will stay and see how the ritual progresses.
The Sufi ritual is in Omdurman. Khartoum is divided into segments by the three lines of the river: Khartoum, Khartoum 2, Omdurman.
Our taxi took us to the outskirts of Omdurman, to an area called Libyan Market or something like that, and beyond. We were looking for the camel market. I realised it was going to be a sad affair, as the camels are sold for their meat. We found them, and other animals, under makeshift shade on desert ground. Donkeys carry huge cannisters of water for t
he other animals. It is the first time I saw baby camels. Cute of course, and very stubborn like their parents. We took some photos, and then later we hassled for money for the photos (SDP10 they wanted!). We felt like aliens arriving there on the distant outskirts, on the fringe of the desert, just to look at the camels, not even to buy one.
After the Sufi ritual the taxi weaved its way back to the other reality, on the other side of the river, to the far other side of town, Riyadh, land of the rich where we pretend to live. In the Chinese supermarket we found tofu! Good quality, nutty taste, and cheap. We've eaten tofu every day since.
At our friend's flat, on a projector, we watched 'District 9', the sci-fi movie about Aliens in Johannesberg, which is entertaining but rather cheesy; Swiss cheesy, with all its logical holes, vague plot designed around action scenes, but good if you suspend analysis. After watching so many Werner Herzog films, almost everything else seems rather vacuous.
Not as funny as the Southpark Gooeybacks episode, where people from the future travel back in time looking for a job, they save a little money, put it in the bank, where it gains interest for a thousand years for the benefit of their family back home.
The UN has hundreds of cars parked that nobody uses. Norma's team have to share one car between three people. Who gets the car for the weekend?...that is negotiated by the hour. So we had the car on Saturday morning, then a colleague needed it in the afternoon, then we had it again in the night. We had time to go to change some money - there's one shop that gives a better rate - to buy another 50litres of drinking water - and to buy some veggies from a shop not too far away. We weren't confident we would actually find the proper market on our own, and anyway this shop turned out to have even some prices lower than at the market. There are good tomatoes here (SDP7/kilo). Nice apples (SDP1/each). But we are missing the rocket -- at the market they sell big bunches of spicey rocket thats really good.
In the evening we went to O-Zone. A local billionaire bought a traffic island and turned it into the latest chic cafe experience. Circular garden, with grass -- thats the only grass I've seen here, everywhere else is dust -- surrounded by a sprinkler system spraying a fine mist. The clientelle, mostly groups of young rich girls, site underneath the mist spray, presumably getting quite wet judging by the puddles on the floor. This is a new concept for me, a restaura
nt where you can have a shower while sitting at your table. We picked a dry table.
I've got a cold; again; I had one in Cairo also; this one is worse; I blame it partly on the aircon on Friday night. A blocked nose could ruin our diving plans next week. I tried diving with a blocked nose in Malysia, it was extremely painful, something ruptured in my sinus, and my mask filled with blood. Reverse block, where you cannot surface because of pressure block in the sinuses or ears, is a nightmare.
Four more days in the Khartoum then we're off to the sea.
Norma on the phone...
Some impressive horns...
Photo of Sufi ritual...
Photo of Omdurman Libya neighbourhood...
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