Letter from Sudan # 3

- 3-

Schooldays, so they tell us, are the best days of our lives; they are undoubtedly that for the boys of El Messelemiya and its surrounding hamlets and villages. Two hundred and odd lively boys line up when the bell is rung at 7.30am by Abdul Hafiz, the retired soldier. School uniforms are inspected by the duty master for the day and the boys stand smartly to attention in the manner of the British who left in 1956.

The school yard is dry and dusty with a flagpole in the middle surrounded by sunflowers bending in the morning breeze. It is winter, the middle of February and the wind is cold and dry like a knife. Some of the boys wear scarves wrapped around their heads while others shiver under the bright sun that gives little heat or comfort at this time in the morning.

The bell, a piece of steel girder hanging from the branch of an acacia tree, is rung again and the boys troop off to their classrooms on either side of the square of brown earth. The ustaz enters the classroom and all the boys quickly stand up to greet their teacher and show him the respect he is due. Just as quickly, they sit down on the steel chairs covered in strands of plastic vinyl. The lessons begin and the school day has begun.

After three lessons, at 9.55am, the boys run to the Mess Hall for their breakfast. Some wash their hands and face at the tap at the foot of the flagpole. Breakfast is cooked on charcoal stoves in the kitchen that adjoins the dining area, although there are no chairs, or knives and forks – only long tin benches with brightly coloured plastic bowls full of beans and long, thin loaves that the hungry boys grab to scoop the food from the bowls.

Each bowl holds enough for three or four boys so they quickly and noisily devour the food. Some boys break their bread and throw pieces of it into the middle of the bowl, then one of the others mixes the beans and the bread until each piece of bread is thoroughly moistened with the water and gravy from the beans, the beans are mashed with the bottom of an empty Pepsi bottle until the whole lot resembles a brown pulp. It looks a bit offputting at first, until you taste it – it’s absolutely delicious.

Afterwards, the boys laugh and joke with each other and then wash their hands again before standing in turn to drink cool water from one of the six earthenware vessels (zia) that had earlier been filled with water. Tin cups are tied to the frames supporting the weight of each zia, the cups being made out of old tins that once held powdered milk, their jagged edges only smoothed down.

The boys who live in the village have gone to their homes for their breakfast, and for once the school is half empty. Only the asatiza (teachers) chatting away in Arabic, and the boarders remain. The workers, dinner ladies and the old soldier are still eating in the kitchen.

Mjuktar, one of the workers, arrives in the staffroom with a tray full of glasses half filled with sugar, holding a kettle full of tea without milk. At 9.45am, the bell rings again and the day boys troop back through the bright gates of the schoolyard. Five minutes later another bell rings and lessons begin again.
Robert L. Fielding