El Messelemiya Higher Secondary School for Boys: # 10

Leaks

For me, the rain presents another problem; my roof leaks and it is all I can do to keep my belongings out of the dirty water that pours in through holes that need fixing. I have been told that every roof leaks in this kind of rain – I presumed they meant ‘wet rain’ but didn’t ask.

Leaking roofs are nothing to write home about for the Sudanese teachers next door. It is the will of God and is stoically accepted. Besides, what if the roof does happen to let water in, there is nothing to get wet. The contents of an average Sudanese home wouldn’t fill a teenager’s bedroom in Bradford, Buxton or Birmingham.

There is nothing to get wet – except skin, and that is soon dried. In the howaja’s house it is different: he has four suitcases, a typewriter and an expensive camera to keep dry, he has ten shirts, four pairs of trousers and a check jacket to save, he has ‘Ulysses’, ‘Moby Dick’ and ‘Catch 22’ to cover, he has the portable remnants of a Western life to put into black poly bags and the rain is a problem.

It quickly passes, and I mop up, cursing my sieve of a roof. Perhaps I should be more like Salah and the others but Rome wasn’t built in a day and changing the habits and attitudes of as lifetime cannot be done overnight, particularly when that night is a wet one. I am trying but it will take time. A change in my attitude to life, a change from a Western orientation to a more relaxed pace that suits both the climate and the temperament of the Sudanese would certainly be to my advantage. My lesson in the Ministry of Education was a salutary one and I am learning.

In a land where change is at most gradual, and at least, almost non-existent, failure to adapt to the traditions and customs of its people, could and would make life more difficult than it need be. You might say that the average Englishman in Sudan needs to lower his sights regarding his surroundings, and raise them in his dealings with his fellow man.
Robert L. Fielding