just happened to be:

Just happened to be in a seedy drinking den in a slum area of Omdurman, a dusty city on the other side of the river from Khartoum. The area was mainly inhabited by refugees from Sudan’s neighbouring countries, most of which had been or were suffering armed conflict or civil wars that had prompted mass exoduses to Sudan. It was said that about two million people lived in these shanty towns, in which there was neither water to drink or wash nor any system of sanitation or sewage.

I, money bags, was looking for Abdullah Bashir to offer him the stacks of banknotes I had been given the previous day. His cousin Ramadan, whom I had found with some other Kadugli people drinking coffee in a square in the city centre, had told me where I could find him. After a couple of hour’s walk and much searching in the maze-like refugee district for the right house I apprehensively went through a door in an earth wall. Inside was a compound in which there were two or three huts, a few chickens and goats and an old toothless Nuba woman called Suruma. There were also several young-looking heavily made-up women who stared at me and made no effort to cover their heads with their tobes (head garments worn by Sudanese women in public or the presence of men). It took me a while to realise the house was a brothel and Suruma was its manager. The women, unused to visits from khawajas (white people), giggled.

These women were from the Region of the Nuba mountains in central Sudan. Like the people from the south they had been forced to migrate from their homes because of the civil war. Many ended up in the slums of Khartoum where there was very little work, especially for illiterate one-time self-sufficient farmers who had previously tended land and livestock. Many of the children were orphans whose parents had died in or as a result of the war. One way or another, economic hardship drove a lot of homeless girls into prostitution.

Suddenly Abdullah appeared from one of the huts with a huge grin on his face.

“Khawaja!” he bellowed and both shook me vigorously and gave me a vice-like sternum-crushing hug. Although he had emerged rearranging his trousers, I was sure he had not been using the brothel service but had come in search of illicit alcohol. Officially, drinking was banned under Islamic Law. However, many people, especially from the non-Islamic south, were willing to risk the exemplary lashings they could theoretically have been dealt, and continued to drink Marissa, albeit furtively in drinking dens. Illicit activities go together. If whistling were made illegal, it would soon be associated with prostitution and banned drugs.

“How do you find these places?” I asked Abdullah.

He ignored my question and beckoned me into the hut from which he had just emerged.

Inside, we sat down on low stools and waited for our eyes to get used to the darkness.

“Wine?” he asked. When Abdullah talked of wine he was referring to Marissa, a slightly alcoholic drink made from red sorghum that tasted a bit like rancid cider. I usually forwent it because of the games it subsequently played with my intestines. However, on this occasion I accepted his offer. It might be the last time we saw each other.

The viscous, rectum-threatening Marissa was served in a gourd the size of a large bucket. Abdullah stirred it with a smaller cup-sized gourd, which he then filled and passed to me.

“Drink!” he commanded. I swallowed the contents and winced.

Outside Suruma shouted something in Nuba and a smiling young women appeared in the doorway.

“Suruma asked if you like the girl?” Abdullah translated onto Arabic.
“Jameela jiddan” (she’s very nice) I replied politely. This caused shrieks of laughter outside. The young woman’s name was Jameela.

“If you say that they think you want to sleep with her, “ explained Abdullah. “Better you say you don’t like her, “ he said and then added slyly, “unless you want to sleep with her”.

So I said I didn’t like her. Surumi, however, had every intention of cashing in on the visit of a rich khawaja. She popped her head through the door and asked me in Arabic whether the girl was too old and if I wanted another. I told her I didn’t want a girl.

Abdullah and I took it in turns to drink from the gourd and the Marissa gradually disappeared. More giggles came from outside and a few minutes later a teenage boy entered the hut.

Abdullah laughed loudly. “They think you don’t like girls” he explained, “and you want a boy”. I shook my head and he roared at the boy to get out. Shouting orders was something I did not come easy to me.

A few moments later a goat wandered into the hut while outside the women were howling with glee. The goat bleated.

-

Just as the Marissa came to an end I offered Abdullah the money. He accepted with no fuss. Although I suggested making our way to the hotel to pick up the bags, he said it would be best to sleep where we were and get the money the following day.