04 Khartoum 0144 -- Meeting President Bashir

Journal Entry for January 31: Visit to Sufi Mosque

Last evening I went to a Sufi mosque in Omdurman to watch part of their worship service. The Sheikh of the Summaniyya sect invited me when I first met him last year. The Sufis are a major tradition in Islam going back several hundred years. There are many Sufi “schools”, or sects, each founded by a particular sheikh (teacher). Sufi sects are various disciplines of worship usually seeking some sort of mystical (or inner) union with God (Allah). Some achieve this through music and dance. The “whirling dervishes” come from those Sufi sects that find mystical transport through dance. Sufism is popular in Sudan and fits the mostly gentle and tolerant approach of the Sudanese people. Sufism is pretty much the exact opposite of Islamist extremism.

The three largest sects in Sudan – the Mahdiyya, Khatmiyya and Summaniyya – are Sufi. Sheikh Hassan Qaribullah invited me to attend part of the prayer ceremony that actually started in the early afternoon and went on until late night. I arrived at 5:30 as they started the chanting phase and left – after a cup of tea with the Sheikh’s son – as they went into quiet prayer and discussion.

The ceremony took place outside of the Mosque on a street closed for the event on every Friday. The ground was spread with carpets and I took my shoes off to enter. Carpets were hung also on the fences and walls. Younger men were on one side and the sect’s elders on the other. They were chanting and bowing when I got there. Summaniyya is popular in Islamic Africa and I can see why. The chanting and movement was very African. The men did not dance in the sense of moving around but they did in place every dance step I’d ever seen in Africa or from Africa. There was even a brief moment I thought I was watching a long line of The Four Tops. The rhythm was African and there was even a touch of blues and jazz. The Sheikh or one of the elders led the chants – invocations of Allah – using microphones to be sure to encourage others in the neighborhood to join them. One of the younger men also had a mike to emphasize the various vocalizations they made along with their movements. There was no music per se but it was quite hypnotic and though I sat there for almost two hours, I didn’t want it to end. But at sunset, an elder called evening prayer and – after the Sheikh formally thanked me for attending -- I was invited inside for tea. Everyone was very nice and quite pleased the American Charge attended their prayers. They were also anxious to tell me that they are not political and like America. They don’t understand why America doesn’t like Sudan. I assured them that while we had problems with the fundamentalist government of the 90’s, we want better relations now. It was a very pleasant and moving evening. 

 Ascending....

Bits from January 2004 Journal

January 27: Well, no snow or ice here except for the cubes in my drink. Just came up from having a nightcap with my visiting Marine BG. Nice evening talking pro to pro. Evening is quite nice with pleasant chill in the air. Turns out too that his Marine bodyguard was the deputy commander of the Marine contingent in Brasilia. He remembers the day we took the picture of Andy in full regalia!

 

Shit happening in and about Darfur. Washington is ready to jump in head first and I'm trying to point out that the pool might not have as much water as they think.

January 28: Last night was quite cool but had to get up early to see off my guest. Tonight I am too tired to write or open the windows. Day ended with 3 1/2 hour intense meeting with Assistant President. Was supposed to be at pizza night with staff. This weekend will last 8 days with Eid. Rest then.

 

January 30: The weather has been quite nice since I got back from holidays. The evenings are cool and the temperature falls to the lower 60 by early morning. Over the weekend, we are supposed to hit the 50s. This is open window weather and I do. Even during the day, in the office, I open the windows and the breeze makes it comfortable all day. (I'm on the 6th floor and can see to both Nile Rivers.) Not for years have I been able to open the windows in the office. Very nice.

With windows open, the air cools nicely in my house. I also get the smells of the city. Most every night, this includes the smell of burning garbage but is bearable and passes quickly. One morning this week, it was so bad it woke me and I put on a face mask that I has been reserving for the sand storms. But windows open is too good to pass up. Locals say it'll only last to February.

With the windows open, I hear lots of things. At night I hear sometimes the bass rhythms of Arab music. This morning as I was waking, I heard several different kinds of birds singing. The early morning sounds start earlier. I hear the night trains and their whistles as they pull into Khartoum Station. The first call to prayer is around 5:30. I can sleep through that but usually stir and then go back to sleep. For some reason, not all the mosques use the same schedule and there seems to be a second call around six. This week, perhaps because of the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), the first call to prayer also seems to come with a chorus of some kind. There is much I don't know about Islam.

A boy's school sits just down the block from me. The boys all wear green pajamas (they look like pajamas to me). They start school pretty early. Well, the morning sounds include what I have taken to calling the Daily Harangue. Remember the school assemblies of old? Well, these may be like them. A voice, on a big load speakers, starts speaking something that sounds like the call to prayer. Very pleasant to listen to, almost like singing. But then he switches into the voice I imagine the Ayatollahs use to excite the faithful to slaughter the infidels. This goes on for some time and actually has convinced me not to go outside during it. Then as suddenly as it began, the harangue stops and the voice assumes the tome and cadence of your high school principal. When the daily is over, I know it's time to get up. Sort of a Khartoum alarm clock. I'll miss it when it's time to go back to AC.

Journal Entry for January 24, 2004: Trip to Juba

Just back from visiting Juba. Juba is the furthest south of Sudan’s Nile cities, about 800 miles as the bird flies and a good distance further as the river flows. Juba is also the edge of the north’s furthest reach. Juba itself is less than 100 years old but each empire that has tried to rule Sudan has put an outpost in the vicinity. The Turks, Arabs and the British have done it. The Juba area sits at the point where the White Nile enters the plains after dropping down from the Mountains of the Moon (the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda). The empires have all wanted to control it in order to control the gateway south and north. But the outposts have always been too far from the north and too difficult to defend. Juba sits well south of the Sud, the great swamp that chokes the White Nile and has always presented an almost impassable barrier to going up river. The border between Arab Sudan and African Sudan is another 300 miles north of Juba but the government and the SPLM have fought most bitterly over this one city and the province – Equatoria – of which it is the capital.

Juba is closer to Uganda and the Congo than to Khartoum. It took our US Air Force C-12 just under three hours to get there. It is dry season but it was clouded most of the time. Rain sprinkled us as we were touring the military hospital. Juba is not really a city but a very humble and over-crowded town. The government has 12,000 troops to control the town and a bit of the surrounding territory. (They seem in no hurry to leave.) About 500,000 people live in government-controlled territory. Most of the 2 million southerners who live in the refugee camps of Khartoum come from Juba. (My cook and houseboy come from there.) Even though with a ceasefire, the countryside – fields for crops, roads – is heavily mined and unusable. In an area that could feed itself, most everything – food and fuel – has to come from Khartoum. The barges can only use the river during the dry season and the town has electricity only for the 3-4 months a year that fuel can reach it by barge. Food costs four times the monthly wage; that means those with jobs can feed themselves from their pay only one week out of the four. Then they “make do.”

The SPLM repeatedly attacked Juba because they wanted to make it their capital. But the government used all of its resources to hold it. They have several towns in the south but the SPLM controls the countryside. This stalemate has made both sides willing to try a peace agreement. The people of Juba have been so brutalized by the war and by oppression by the Arabs that they don’t believe in peace even now. I met with the auxiliary bishops of the Catholic and Episcopal Churches. They have carried alone the weight of helping their faithful survival. One told me that every day that people survived made them thankful but they could never tell about tomorrow. Imagine waking up facing the job of finding work, shelter, the next meal while also being afraid that if you complained or said or did anything that the security people didn’t like that you would disappear and never be found. And the next day, if you survived the night, the same thing all over again for 15 years. The Catholic Bishop spoke of the people having been traumatized and I could see in his eyes what it had done to him. They were glad that the US had not forgotten them. I brought my USAID person with me and we listened to them tell us that they needed help. The people of the US know nothing, nothing about all of these places where other people have nothing, not even hope.

Juba is dusty, dirty – filled with that scourge of mankind, plastic bags – and very poor. But it also is indisputably Africa. The mud huts with straw roofs, the chickens, goats and dogs running loose. The smiling faces, all the children waving and wanting us to take their pictures. That wish to have their picture taken always makes me wonder. They’ll almost certainly never see them. It is that somewhere, somehow they want their lives to be recorded, remembered by someone outside? I always feel at home in Africa. We stayed at the USAID compound, now occupied by the International Red Cross. The ICRC team includes doctors and nurses who run the local hospital. They work 18-hour days, six days a week. The Sudanese staff won’t help them because they don’t care about the local people. The Red Cross people, mostly Europeans, are the most dedicated I’ve ever met. Rough living in Juba but they all can’t stop what they are doing.

I had 15 minutes between meetings – that included with the local army commander, who gave us dinner – and took a swim [in the USAID pool]. Reminded me of Harare. In the evening I sat alone by the pool for a bit and smoked a cigar. I watched the smoke disappear into the night sky and thought of paradise.

04 Khartoum 0119 -- Trip to Juba

04 Khartoum 0098 -- EU approach on Sudan

Note:  Visiting Ministers were from the Netherlands.

04 Khartoum 0075 -- Darfur Policy Recommendations

04 Khartoum 0065 - Meeting Jaafar Nimeiri

Journal note for January 20: Been back one week. I called on former President Nimeri today. He was most cordial and we had breakfast and talked.

Journal Entry for January 17, 2004

Got up early this morning after another night sleeping with the windows open. (It is gradually warming but still in lower 60s during night.) Went down to the shore of the Blue Nile to take a waterbus across to Tuti Island. Tuti sits in the middle of the conjunction of the Blue and White Niles. Until 20 years ago, the three Arab tribes that lived there didn't let anyone visit their island, not even other Sudanese. It is easy to understand why. In the middle of a desert, they have great soil (silt carried down the Nile) and a steady supply of water. They grow fruits, vegetables and sorghum year round. They only "import" from Khartoum cooking and motor oil and a few other things like softdrinks. They even make their own bricks from river mud, dung and Nile water. (I saw several places where people were making bricks by hand as they would have thousands of years ago. One of them appeared drunk, as I might well be too making bricks all day. Expert brick makers can make up to $8 a day.)

They now let people onto their island and there are a large number of southern and western Sudanese that do much of the labor. I walked around with my bodyguard Hashim. He had scouted ahead and led me across the whole place. The sun was a winter sun but intense nevertheless. We walked for fours hours steady. I returned beat and still am. But I had to do an interview with the editor of a local Arabic newspaper this afternoon. He asked me questions for 1 1/2 hours. He started by telling me be was invited to be with the US Marines in Lebanon many years ago and ended by assuring me he likes America. We'll see what he does with my answers.

Note:  I had spent the holidays back home with my family and returned after the New Year.

03 Khartoum 1091

Note: Cardinal Wako was the target of a failed assassination attempt in Khartoum on October 14, 2010.