Letter from Sudan # 4

- 4-

There are three years in El Messelemiya Higher Secondary School for Boys; each year having two classes, making six classes in all, with rousing names like Mahadi and Awad, Science and Art. The third year classes – Art and Science are full of tall, nineteen year-olds. Some of these will go to the University of Khartoum where all the lectures are given in English. Others, whose English is maybe not quite so good may be heading for the Islamic University in Omdurman where the language of instruction is Arabic.

Their aspirations are many; some want to study agriculture to return to the fields of Gezira which surround them and have fed them for the whole of their lives. Others want to study engineering or Medicine – all want to be involved in the development of their beloved Sudan.

Passing the High School certificate (the Shahida) is a must and all the boys are keen to do well. Of course, not all will be successful and perhaps only a few will go to the hallowed halls of Sudan’s four universities. Some will inevitably help their fathers on the farms, some will go into the Army to fight the SPLA in the south of the country. Some will leave for lucrative jobs in the rich Gulf states, and some will spend their lives in the backbreaking job of picking cotton, one of Sudan’s main exports, going, in former times, to the mills of Lancashire.

At two, lessons thankfully end, ustaz and student alike are beginning to feel unbearably hot, attention wilts and the last bell of the day is rung by Abdul Hafiz. Schooldays might well be the best days of our lives but that last bell is always greeted with high glee, and with shouting, laughing and furious running to the green gates of the schoolyard.


Robert L. Fielding