Relax - Tales of bravery draw deejay to war-torn Sudan

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KHARTOUM’S swirl of red dust envelopes me. It reminds me that I am far away from home.

From dawn’s first prayer call at 5.30 am to the afternoon,whenthe baking sun burns the city to temperatures of 45 deg C; even when minarets illuminate the landscape at dusk, the dust never settles.

I am in the capital of Sudan and headquarters to the United Nations Mission in the African country, where I volunteer as a radio producer.

Hardly a picture-postcard scene of paradise discovered.

Why then has the desert seduced me?

It is the stories I hear from my Sudanese friends that have captured my heart.

The Sudanese have survived a 22-year war that has left scars on everyone. The effects pepper conversations, creeping in casually, as if war is another life obstacle to overcome.

My colleague, Kimy, shows me photos of his son. A young boy not yet a year old, sleep still showing on his face, posed for his father in the morning sun.

Kimy tells me that his son is called Pakjok, which means “a gift from God”.

I tell him I wish my name means something too, and observe that the Sudanese must be sentimental people.

Kimy tells me his name means “I will visit you”.

His father was a soldier fighting in the south when he was born. He got word of Kimy’s birth in a letter.

The war in Sudan estranged families – fathers would be separated from their children for years.

His father picked the named Kimy and returned two years later to finally hold his son.

There is Hitham Makawi, the senior IT technician who is also a doctor. He tells me that all dying children have a particular smell.

When still a doctor treating malnourished children in Sudan, he’d know if there was hope for any child merely by their scent.

“It’s hard to find a vein to start them on drips, so we have to cut them open just to find one,”he said.

“But every time I smell a child with that scent, I know they will probably not survive. I’ve never been able to save one.”

Children living in remote regions devastated by drought and with no access to medical services waste away until help comes.

“Most of them arrive too late to the hospital so they die within a few days,” Hitham tells me.

“Is the smell bad? Putrid?” I asked, my morbid curiosity getting the better of me.

“They smell like sweet apples. Only a dying child smells like that – a strong, sweet smell,” Haitham says.

I am clueless in this country; its language, cultural nuances and codes I still cannot understand.

I have not yet scratched the surface of Africa’s largest country, yet I know a deeper knowledge of Sudan will also bring me more personal tales of war’s tragic effects.

Yet my Sudanese friends are not broken people.

They have engagements and marriages to plan, friends and family to visit and most importantly, it’s a country rich in petroleum reserves that presumably will fund the necessary infrastructure for national recovery.

Though I am excited to be in Sudan, I still miss home and I’m counting the days to Christmas.

This time, when I board the plane, I know it will take me 11 hours and not two years to hold my son.

And as I watch him play soccer this Christmas, like many Sudanese children who play soccer all day in the dust, I’ll know he will have access to an education and a future with options.

The polite Sudanese may not have told me much, but I have learnt a lot in my first month living in their vast country. Though I have many questions, I will ask them beraha, beraha (slowly, slowly).

What I do know is that though many tears can make an ocean, many hands can build a bridge.

And one of those hands could be yours.

This Christmas, when you count your blessings, remember the world has countries that are welcoming you to makea difference – not just for them but more importantly for yourself.

Tales of bravery draw deejay to war-torn Sudan

By Suzanne Walker, The New Paper | Mon, Nov 23 2009

Former 91.3FM radio deejay discovers that amid drought & death, the people cling to life.

Tales of bravery draw deejay to war-torn Sudan

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culture