Letter from Sudan # 8

-8-

An evening spent listening to the Rolling Stones or the London Symphony Orchestra, an hour or two in the company of my good friends, the Sudanese teachers, or fifty pages of the most enthralling best seller are no substitute for the company of another native speaker.

After eight weeks of pidgin English punctuated by Arabic to fill the gaps, after eight weeks of struggling to say something intelligible in Sudanese Arabic, after eight weeks of broken conversation, the sound of an English voice has become something I yearn for.

I have spent my hot evenings wondering if anybody out there has written me a letter, if anybody still loves me or even cares where I am and how I am. Then suddenly, as if to emulate Oldham buses (none for ages then three at once) the mail magically arrives and I receive not one but four letters, and overnight the total En glish population of El Messelemiya trebles.

An organization called ‘Project Trust’ has sent not one but two English teachers to the higher Secondary School for Girls. Speaking English to English people is something that has to be almost re-learnt; it takes a real effort to speak at a normal pace again, to remember that your words can be fully understood without constant backtracking to explain the meaning.

It s a real luxury to be free to use less formal English, to relax into the easy talk of the coffee bar. I had almost forgotten the knack, but like swimming or riding a bicycle, it soon returns.

Now, just knowing that there are some other English people to speak to makes the Rolling Stones sound fresh, even after the third rewind today. The next fifty odd pages of my bestseller will fly by and Arabic won’t sound all that difficult. The knowledge that I can pop round and talk to somebody who is able to understand and respond is enough. The well that had run dry is full of water again.

All the things that are in short supply in Sudan, and it is no short list, can make life so much easier when they can be found. Water, electricity, or an English voice are all sorely missed when absent and all too quickly taken for granted when there is a surplus. This never missing the water until the well runs dry seems to apply to all sorts of things: money, jobs, peaceful streets, good friends, all sorts of things. Perhaps I swill stop taking things for granted from now on.

In the quiet of a warm Sudanese night, staring up at the stars, my thoughts dwell on such things; maybe the heat is getting to me, maybe not. With time enough to see the world turning, to see Orion move from right to left across my field of vision, to see the Moon rise in the sky and fall again, gives me ample time to ponder on life’s mysteries.

I think that is the one aspect of my life in Sudan that I will remember and cherish. In England, time has to be made for the quiet times when old and thorny problems can be thought out and possibly solved – in Sudan, that quiet time just comes along. The afternoon siesta or the nights spent under the stars and a mosquito net provide this time for reflection that can be so elusive back in England.

There seems to be a tendency to try to fill our days and nights with noise and activity, to remove those quiet minutes that reflection needs. Do we miss them, these quiet times? If we have never known their value, the answer will probably be that we don’t. Perhaps reflecting is too painful and we would rather not have the opportunity or the time. Perhaps the mirror is cracked or the reflection too horrible for us to contemplate.

I have no answers, only questions, lots of them. What I also have is the peace and quiet of a Sudanese night in which to think things through, and this, thankfully, is not in short supply. If it was, then I might find the shortages unbearable – they only impinge on physical, bodily comfort. It seems after all, doesn’t it, that besides the enormous gains to our lives that science and technology have undoubtedly provided, that something more important has been removed, made scarcer; time.
Robert L. Fielding