Sudan: Do I belong?

(Painting by Betsy Castelman Damez)

I left Sudan in 1998. Both my parents and I had severe times dealing with how the education system was ruined and Arabised by the self-elected government of reprobates, the Inqaz government. I was receiving British education all my life, and at age 16 after finishing school with difficulties due to a sudden language switch, I wretchedly attended Ahfad University for women for two years. My mother and father would have never sent their daughter to Europe to study alone, at such a young age.

We left Sudan to daily and hourly electricity and water cuts, policemen roaming the streets to terrorise women by forcing them to cover their hair, to Ahfad girls getting whipped for wearing trousers, and to army officers entering our home without permission to claim that satellite dishes were forbidden and blasphemous to the name of Islam. I was happy to leave the country, but distraught to leave our home, our garden, and the cage of 100 non-flying, and over-fed pigeons that my father was extremely fond of.

In 2008, I was in love with a man I was set to marry and live with in Sudan, where I belong. I visited Khartoum to attend a friend’s wedding, and to plan my own. I had to go to a beauty salon to have my hair done, and once I did, there was neither electricity nor water in the place, and the hair dresser used a bucket and jug to wash our hair. Sudanese women are not known to have soft hair; Vaseline was used to straighten and soften their logs. I was flabbergasted at the scene, knowing that my hair had to be blow-dried, and not knowing other salons to go to.

Misery was my first thought after looking in the mirror. My hair was blow-dried with a brush beset with tons of petroleum jelly and eventually looked like someone had poured a bucket of goo on it.

Consequently, after being disappointed with the whole experience, but inspired to enlighten some Sudanese women on how to treat their crowns, I compiled a plan to establish a professional local chain of Elisabeth Arden Spas. I was so excited.

I took my plan to some family members, some of which mocked the idea, and to the man I loved. Others grimaced on just the thought, and to my dismay, the idea was mocked by my husband-to-be. They had all mocked how I, a descendant of such a renowned Sudanese family, would consider becoming a hair dresser. ‘Nada, you will be a Couifera?’ they said.

Is that where I belonged and belong? A place where people refuse the mere thought of advancement?

I have concluded that it’s pointless to try to figure out where I belong, whether it’s in a place that is 700 years backward, or 1,000 years forward. I don’t feel I belong in Sudan and I unquestionably don’t belong to where I am currently residing. I imagine I belong with people who want to do more for their country, more for themselves, more for society, more for the ones they love, and more for the generations to come. Those people don’t come from the Sudan I have grown to love and still do – unless proven otherwise, unless I can become a Couifera.