Letter from Sudan # 12

-12-

It is a hot afternoon in the Gezira. Afternoons are always hot in Sudan. Nights in Gezira Province provide no exception. Likewise, the mornings, evenings and nights are hot, only the degree varies.

A cool evening chat turns to the question of the temperature. Our host, Ustaz Yassin, brings out a thermometer to settle the argument.. I personally would rather not have had the chance to look at its little column of mercury; it reads 95 C and I have lost my argument. I had said that it was no more than the mid 70s F.

The discussion turns to how hot the afternoon must have been if this pleasant has been wafting in the mid 90s. The general feeling is that it must have reached something like 110C between one and three o’clock. Our acclimatization must have reached a pretty advanced stage for 95C to feel ‘cool’ to the native of a far off land where people uncomfortable if the temperature reaches 80F.

We have certainly acclimatized to the heat of Sudan; it really does not feel anything like 95C is supposed to feel like. The abnormally high temperatures do take their toll though. Everyone I know suffers from nausea first thing in the morning and learns to live with it.

A Sudanese dawn lacks the freshness of an English morning. There is no dew to wipe away the dusts of the night before, and the smells linger to sicken. On the hottest summer’s day in Britain, the morning allows sufficient time to rise, wash and breakfast before turns all thoughts of food repulsive.

In our little hosh, catching any coolness there may be is a matter of stumbling in the dark and hearing the prolonged wails and chants as the Muazzin calls the faithful to prayer at four, his microphone crackling to announce his forthcoming recital from the Holy Koran.

The robust health of England all but gives way to dreary, melancholy disability and mental resources as well as physical strength must be called upon to overcome the feelings in the pit of the stomach that would make life a trudge if they were allowed to.

Some have been less fortunate. A mild feeling of nausea is quickly shaken off. The first cup of tea puts that feeling to flight. For some, it will take more than an early morning cuppa to shake off their ague. Several of my colleagues have had debilitating bouts of malaria, amoebic dysentery and other sundry unidentified doses of something akin to diarrhea, vomiting and feverish sweats that render the victim a pathetic bundle of weak humanity as it may ever be your misfortune to meet.

Out of three or four people sharing the same water supply, eating the same food, working in the same stifling classrooms and trying to sleep in the same warm nights, bathed in seat, one will develop some scourge that keep him awake long into the night, make his days torture and take away his appetite.

Should he stop drinking the large quantities of water that are vital to his general well being, his condition will ultimately deteriorate and he will need the doctor, a week off and a course of antibiotics. Why one individual should fall foul of the lurgy under conditions that entirely suit the other three is difficult to say.

Various answers are proffered in layman’s terms ranging from those that condemn the drinking of too much Pepsi Cola at all hours, to others, more serious and altogether more deprecating diagnoses including the clear signs and symptoms of a psychosomatic disability that might bode well for a buckshee ticket home.

Whatever the reason for the ailment that right now is real enough in its outward manifestations, the overall effect of such a harsh climate as the one peculiar to Sudan and presumably to all lands between 12 and 14 N, is bound to be detrimental to the wretched sufferer from the Home Counties, whose only previous experience of hot weather has been a fortnight in Torremalinos or a summer in Weybridge.

In a country such as we live in, it is easy to forget the forces of Nature and their effects on our health. Before irate English people with crippling arthritis, bronchitis or rheumatism feel forced to pick up their pens in anger, I shall qualify this outrageous statement regarding our apparent immunity from the more elemental effects of the blue planet upon which we dwell.

Granted, the climate, or more properly the weather in England does take its toll on our health. Ailments such as those already mentioned: arthritis, bronchitis and rheumatism all seem connected to the damp and the cold that we endure living in Britain.

With the demolition of poorer quality housing and the advent of central heating, double glazing and the like to make a life in England more bearable, I think we have sanitized, humanized, and tamed the physical conditions under which we live so that they no longer dominate our lives in the same way that they possibly did a hundred years ago or more recently than that.

It almost goes without saying that things are very different in sub-Saharan Africa, and Sudan in particular. It is easy, for instance, to forget or take for granted the part played in our lives by the land drain, the gutter and the grid, as well as the subterranean pipes and tunnels that lead unwanted water away to our rivers and to the sea.

Even all but the heaviest, most prolonged downpours leave no sign of having occurred at all a short time afterwards. The effects of heavy rain are only felt by most of us during the time between leaving home in the morning and arriving at work, and the reverse journey in the afternoon of each working day.

I know that children and cricketers, and lovers strolling out detest the heavy shower of rain that interrupts whatever it is they are doing, but those inconveniences are of a hugely different order to those experienced by the population of a country whose drainage systems are rudimentary or non-existent.

After the deluge, transport by whatever means is either a chore or impossible and can remain so for days afterwards. Sudanese homes do not have carpets on their floors, and for a very good reason; mud. In the aftermath of the rain, it is so plentiful that any movement ensures its presence in every home, on every sandal, and in between every toe on the soggy way home from wherever.

Like winter snow that stay through January and February, or used to, on the pavements of our High Streets when all but the remotest road within five miles of a motorway exit is as clear as a leafy autumn lane, the mud is put up with, swore at and slipped on until it disappears. People adapt to the conditions in which they find themselves; Lawrence wipes his brow, Scott wraps up and Aldrin and Armstrong deal with their weightlessness.

To the ‘howaja’ who has previously lived with Nature in its tamed, controlled form, who has had s gas fire to turn on when it is too cold and Wellington boots to put on when it is too wet, the nearness of the elements and their effects all too clearly illustrate man’s vulnerability and serve as a timely reminder that we are not after all the centre of the universe, that the Earth was not created so that we may do what we please with it, and that, in the grand scheme of Nature, man is fairly insignificant.

The lesson is a salutary one and humility rather than arrogance, understanding rather than crass ignorance, and a healthy respect for all things natural, including our fellow man moght help to make our brief stay on Earth a more pleasant one.
Robert L. Fielding