Abu Hamed, Sudan

Atbara, Sudan

 

The first indication that maybe Abu Hamed wasn't the best place to get off the train was while I was still on train, talking to my fellow cabin mates. One of them asked me what I would do if I could not arrange transportation from Abu Hamed to Kareima. It never really occurred to me that I couldn't get from one place to another, just that it might be a long or maybe I'd have to wait a day or two.

 

The train pulled into Abu Hamed around 6pm on Thursday. One of the people that I was sharing the cabin with knew of a fellow traveler who was getting off at Abu Hamed in hopes of arranging transportation to Kareima. In the end, myself, and two locals, Waleed and Mosseen, walked around trying to figure out if there were any buses or lorries going to Kareima, but it quickly became apparent that we'd at least be spending one night in Abu Hamed.

 

We all checked into the Nile Hotel, which happens to be right beside the train station and actually kind of nice. And by nice I mean that it had floors, a room on the second floor, and a huge deck/veranda that you could lounge on. It felt very old-school British, I'd say Colonial but frankly I don't really know what that means, but I'm sure you can get the idea.

 

Also checking into the Nile Hotel, were three archaeologists that I had sort of met on the ferry, who were trying to get to a town about 60km west of Abu Hamed. There's not much to Abu Hamed. The town is basically divided in half by the railway tracks with the market on one side and houses on the other. It's not very large so there's little traffic and in fact the local town square, if you could call it that, had the donkey carts out numbering vehicles on many occasions. I spent the first night just wandering around, exploring what little there was to see and getting some dinner at a local "restaurant".

 

The following day I was up early with the archaeologists because for some reason they thought there might be a bus to Kareima at 8am, but no such luck. The bus at 8am went to Atbara, not Kareima. With Waleed and Mosseen also exploring options, it became clear that there wasn't any transportation to Kareima available. It being Friday, which is a holiday in the Middle East, most of the shops were closed and the town was eerily quiet.

 

The few people that I did run into all wanted to talk and invitations for tea were plentiful. In one case, I entertained a group of locals with my iPod, as music seems like a universal topic. (Normally I don't have my iPod on my, but in this case I ran back to the hotel to get it after some of the locals asked if I knew "Shakira". I did, but didn't have any of her music on my iPod, so we had to settle with 50 Cent and Ja Rule, two groups that I had heard on the train and who's beats went over well in Abu Hamed.)

 

The other somewhat humorous anecdote from spending time with the locals in the market is when one of them starting asking me if I had any "news". He kept saying, "Do you have any news?". I'd reply with "News on what?". He'd elaborate with what sounded like "News at six.", which seemed kind of odd, so I had to keep telling him that I didn't understand. After a few more attempts, I realized that he was actually saying "News on sex", which, when translated means "porn". Surprisingly, this wasn't the first time I had been asked for porn, it also happened while on the ferry (I also got asked if I had any Whiskey by a local on the ferry as well). In all cases, I had to politely tell them that sadly, I didn't have any porn or Whiskey on me. From what I've been told, Sudan is a strict Islamic state so technically alcohol is banned and I can only imagine that getting a copy of Playboy or Penthouse can't be done in the local souq.

 

One of the locals also wanted me to try out his motorcycle and was quite insistent that I drive instead of him. While I do have my motorcycle drivers license, it sure didn't look like it as I stalled the bike three times just trying to get it going. I'll blame the loose clutch and flaky throttle controller for now...

 

I never really strayed all that far from the hotel, mostly in hopes that Walleed or Mosseen would come running up to me telling me they had found transport. With the boksi and lorry options seemingly out of the running, we were left to wait for a cargo train that apparently goes up from the south and then heads west to Kareima. Rumour had it that the train was scheduled to depart for Kareima at 9pm, so my hopes were high, but as night fell, it became clear that the train wasn't going anywhere, so I ventured back outside and quickly ran into Ahmed and Ahmed.

 

One of the Ahmed's spoke pretty decent English and wanted to bring me back to his room to show me some visa paperwork that apparently the Canadian Embassy had sent him. Particularly in Sudan, people have been asking me for help in getting a visa for Canada. Sometimes it's tough to explain to them that I have no way in really helping them and frankly don't know what it takes to get a visa for Canada, but that doesn't always get across.

 

In Ahmed's case, he wasn't able to find the paperwork but he did proudly show off to me his BSC (Honors) degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Khartoum. He was currently working on some water project in Abu Hamed and wanted advice on how to get a job in Canada. It's tough to talk about specifics like that with the locals because the reality of the fact is that if you're asking some random stranger how to get a job in Canada, chances are it's not going to work out for you. The best I can offer is general advice and to point them towards the Canadian Embassy. Oh, and trying to explain how much money you make in Canada is fruitless. They all want to know what a "job" pays, but don't really seem to grasp the notion that not all jobs pay the same and that even if you make what sounds like a lot, little of it actually makes it into your pocket. The best strategy is to say a number that would put you well below the poverty line in Canada but is still orders of magnitude higher then a local salary. That way they can see the improvement you get in Canada, but don't get all starry eyed when they convert $50,000 Canadian to Sudanese Dinars.

 

I headed back to the hotel to check up on the train, but of course there was still no news. Seems the hotel "lobby", if you can call it that, is the local place to watch satellite TV at night as around a half dozen or so locals all stretched out on the map to watch some Arabic show. Even watching the pictures, I had no idea what they were watching, but after about an hour of it, they switched over to an English news channel that had an interview with the Ethiopian prime minister, which I found rather interesting. (There is a huge conference taking place this week in Khartoum between all the African nations that represent the African Nations Union.)

 

Around 10:50pm, everyone started to get up and head out, with one of them telling me that at 11pm the power would go out. Well, when they say the power will go out, they really mean the power for the entire village will get turned off. Sure enough, at 11pm, the entire village went pitch black. With the exception of a few lights off in the distance, presumably powered by generators, the entire area was in blackness except for the light from the moon and the stars. Just standing on the deck of the hotel, you could see thousands of starts that you couldn't moments before. The place was also silent, with no traffic or noise whatsoever to speak of. It was amazing, like nothing I've ever felt before.

 

Kenny