Thursday, April 17, 2008

Pix From Bagrawiyah

God, you have no idea what I went through to upload those pictures, the connection is slow, and the uploading sites have been giving me some shit, Facebook kept logging me out in the middle of uploading process, flickr is useless, finally photobucket gave me a chance to upload some pictures out of the 1GB+ I have taken, I also added some to Facebook afterall, anyways, here are some, I'll add the rest later.. click on the pic to enlarge








































Friday, April 11, 2008

Shendi Yaaa

Al salamu alikom yall

I'm in Shendi, i've been here for 2 days now, and tomorrow i'm going to Bagrawiyah, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Kush,

I went to school in Shendi 7 years ago, studied 8th grade in Shendi North School, right after we moved from KSA, I was born here in Shendi, right next to Al-Sikka 7adid (The Train Station), I gotta admit, even though I lived here for a whole year before my family move again to Khartoum, I never seen how amazing this city is. but damn, I forgot my camera's USB plug back in Khartoum, so I won't be able to upload pics till i go back.

So yeah, the city is not the same as it was 7 years ago, it got more paved streets with lights, more multi-stories buildings, Atoz cars as Taxis, and a million raksha, so basically, it's not so diffrent from Khartoum, depends on where you're bike is taking you (my transportation in exploring the city is an old rusty bike that got the word Phoenix on it :D), "7ilat Al-Bahar" (a fancy neighorhood next to the nile, it's like Riad to Khartoum) is so amazing, specially at night, the lights and the trees and the clean paved streets makes it feel more like Khartoum, but what doesn't feel like Khartoum is the Copts. there are many copts here that you can actually see they have social classes, in Khartoum the only Copts I know are rich copts, here there's a whole neghorhood full of them and some of them are poor, and some are not, just like any other race, if they are a race.. I really need to know more about them. anyways, I went to their church, and I gotta tell you, it's mad nice, it looks like a mosque, only with crosses on it and a big ass satellite dish, I didn't get to see it from the inside though, maybe tomorrow when I come back from the ancient city.. man i'm so excited to see the pyramids.

I also wanna go cheak "Al-3ashwa'ey" (litterly: The Random), it's the neighorhood where southerns live, or forced to live I say, I don't know many "janoubi" people here in Shendi, even those who went to school with me I don't remember their names or where they live, but I still remember "Argaweez", she was my grandma's best friend, when she's not cleaning the house, or washing cloths, she just sits there in the kitchen chatting with my grandma, I wonder where she is now, maybe she'll show up when my grandma comes home, she's in Khartoum now, so yeah, the house is mine :D and it's crazy nice when you got the house and the stash, know what i mean? lol

I met a man today at the station, he looked like he's from South but i'm not sure, his name is Yousif, a really nice man, he's a soldier, he told me he came back from Darfur six months ago and now he's doing nothing, he didn't look mad though, I asked him if they were really killing people at Darfur because they're black, he tried to explain how it only started as a tribal conflict over camels and shit, something close to the government's official story so I didn't really care and stopped the politics crap. I hope he finds a better job, he is really a good man.

today's morning was so amazing, I even heared someone telling his friends "This is Sudan's spring", it was cloudy and breezy.. and if bob marley was with me, i'm sure he'd sing "Kaya" lol. so yeah, I went to the train station, but there was no train there yet, only a group of white people, men, women, and children sitting there like they're living there, I approached them with my camera up high and said hi, one guy, I forgot his name (I got my reasons lol) was so friendly so I asked him if I can take some pictures for him and his family, he was totally cool with, but not before taking the only 2 pounds I had in my pocket, I gave it to him cuz they really looked sad, I asked him where they came from, he told me they come from Palestine, yes, palestine, I was like wooo.they were really nice, I took some nice pictures too, but I stopped cuz the oldest one, probably their grandpa, took me aside an started some creepy conversation with me, he told me that "the eye got me" (the "evil eye" in islamic culture", I told him that I don't believe in this stuff, he told me about surat al-falaq and that Allah tells us in to seek refugee "from the evil of the envier when he envieth.", I told him it's as simple as that, we should be on the guard for the evil of the envier, envy is just a feeling, It don't hurt nobody, it's the actions of those who envy is what hurts.

he didn't like what I told him, and he told me some more things that i'm not gonna tell you, sorry but it's kinda private :), he pulled some psychic shit and told me some stuff about ME that I didn't like neither, so yeah, I left them and went back home.

later I went to the river, or as we call it here in Sudan "Al-Bahar" (litterly: The Sea), and it's the most beatifull bahar I ever seen, and the sunset was perfect. after that I went to "Al-Soog" (The Market), and bought a pound of "Basta" (sweets or desserts), and I gotta tell you, Shendi's basta is the best, it's not like the junk they sell in Khartoum, and you get to suck the honey out of the plastic bag :D .

damn, I typed so freakin much, I hope I made sense cuz I don't even remember what I said upthere lol .. but hey, I'll come back later and upload those pictures I took.. so peace