Ahmed's Personal Essay

In the late spring of 2011, my siblings, my mother, and I all moved to Al-Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan. Both my parents decided it would be best for them to have a divorce, completely forgetting about the impact it would have on my siblings and I. We were already going to the Sudan for the summer and they insulted my knowledge and said that we have to go now since there aren’t anymore tickets available in June and the tickets would also be a lot cheaper.

I played along even though I was already fully aware of the situation. I already knew my parents were going to get divorced but I was always scared of my dad so I had no choice but to play along and act stupid and unaware of what’s going on, especially when it comes to grown-up stuff. So we landed in the Sudan and everything seemed very normal when we came in contact with the family whom I haven’t seen in 2 years. Everyone was happy to see us, my grandmothers, and aunts showered me with kisses, they carried our luggage to the car, and of course, asked us how we were. Like every other time they see us.

About one month later I started attending Al-Mughtaribeen school, which means the school of the Expatriates. A school where almost every student is Sudanese from a country outside of the Sudan. At that time I didn’t know that much Arabic. But after 2 months in that school, I’ve learned to read and speak Arabic fluently and that’s when I started loving Sudan. I became very interested in the Sudanese culture and history.

I’ve always loved the kind Sudanese people and loved them more and more by the second. The Sudan has over 200 different ethnic groups all over the country and Khartoum is the city where these people from different parts of Sudan come to because it’s a tourist spot and a modernized city, the new world basically. My ethnic group is called the Shawayga, so I’d be a shaygy. Shawayga are from northern Sudan and carry on the bloodline of the original Sudanese, Nubians. There are over 50 different tribes today in the Northern state of Sudan, Al Shamaliya. Every part of Sudan excluding Khartoum belongs to the ethnic group and each land has many different cities which are the territories belonging to the ethnic groups’ leader or nubian prince/princess. I am a shaygy from Al-Barkal, which was one of the greatest parts of Sudan, known for its pyramids, nubian temples, and the great mountain of Al-Barkal. Both my parents are from there but my father was in Khartoum since he was a toddler after his father moved to khartoum to find a better job.

Because of our heritage, I visit Al-barkal almost every holiday and break. I stay with mother’s family and I enjoy it very much since everyone in the village is family and everyone is kind, caring, and amusingly funny. But there is one exception. Many lands in the Northern state of Sudan, Al-Shamaliya is filled with Syrian, and Egyptian refugees which we call Halab.

In Al-Barkal, the elders of the village decided to allow them to stay in our village and built many homes for them to live in but they were all built in the very end of the village to help avoid any problems.

After a while, the halab have gained the trust of the shawayga of Al-barkal and the elders allowed them to start buying crop lands to grow their food and leave their farm animals there. After some time passed, many reports of stolen crops and farm animals, such as chickens, and sheep have arised. The elders then decided to have night watchers all over the farmlands to catch and make sure it was the halab.

The first night was a success. 4 halab tennegaers all around the age of 16 were caught. They were brought to the Barkal Conferences’ room building-similar to a Cubical building, and all the elders and men who are involved with these type of situations were called to the conference room and the matter was handled then and there.

After that incident, the people of the Village were raged with anger and disgust and there have been many fights and arguments between the halab and the shawayga have raised. Within one week, 50 reports have been made. This caused a lot disturbance and stress to the people of the village. One day, 4 men proposed to the elders of the village to allow them to assassinate all the people of the halab. There was a little discussing between the elders but they came to a final decision to not allow that to happen because that was not the way the people of Barkal handle things and murder is against the religion of Islam which the people of Al-Barka followed. They decided to have a meeting with all the adults of the halab and then peace between the two has achieved through peaceful negotiation and this was the way the people of the Barkal handled things.

I visited the summer after I first moved to Sudan, which was also 20 years after the peace between the halab and the shawayga was agreed on. I stayed there for all of Ramadan and another 2 weeks after. 3 days after Eid-Al Fitr, my cousins who lived in Al-barkal all went to school along with the other villagers in school. The village was quiet in the daytime like always.

Me and four of my cousins who were also expatriates- two from Dubai in the UAE, Mustafa (13) and Adam (15), one from London, Ali (14) and the other from Qatar, Ismael (13)- decided to go the Nile river for a swim. We all put on our swimming shorts and took out the horses that our friendly neighbor who is also family told us to take if we wanted to go somewhere.

We raced on the long road between the beautiful fields of mango trees, guava trees, and date palms to the very end before the sharp left turn to Karima, a big city 15 minutes away from Al-Barkal. We rode our horses slowly on the small pathways of sand between the plants and trees heading towards the river, and out of nowhere my older cousin Adam stopped.

“Did anyone hear something?” he asked us.

“Shut up! You didn’t hear anything, you’re just trying to scare us.” Ismael yelled.

We laughed and continued moving forward slowly towards the river. When we arrived, We all dived straight into the water but Adam and Ali went to go tie the horses. A couple minutes after they left, as my cousins and I were swimming and enjoying the cool water in the burning sun. 3 halab teenagers the ages of 19 and 18, started throwing rocks near us in the water, making us backup deeper and deeper. We seen them wearing green stained thobes and each were holding long, sharp sickles in their hands. We all got scared because we were moving towards the middle of the Nile river where the water was running towards Egypt at a speed over 25 miles per hour. If we were to end up there it would’ve been over for us. We were all short and skinny anyway which would’ve got us swept away even easier. We dived into the water and started swimming as fast as we could to the land but they were persistent.

They kept throwing rocks and boom Mustafa was hit with a huge rock right to the head, and fainted. He started floating on the water and we all swam to rescue him. He was a couple feet away from guaranteed death.

I thought it was over. I started to think of how life would be if he were gone.We were too far out. There was nothing we could’ve done. My cousin Ismael started to cry as he swam persistently to save Mustafa and out of nowhere Ali, who was an extraordinary swimmer dived into the water from the cliff and and lifted Mustafa from beneath. Adam, who was the oldest and strongest out of us hit two of the halab in the back of their heads with two giant bricks knocking them both down.

“I knew someone was tailing us from earlier but why? Why are you doing this? These are little kids. What could you have possibly been thinking?” Adam asked raged with anger.

We started swimming to the land as we helped Ali take Mustafa to land. We got to land and Adam told Ali to go bring all of the horses to that very spot we were at. He gave him one of the halab’s sickle.

“We know about the staff at Al-barkal Elementary and Middle School teach to the kids. They tell you all these lies and rumors about us halab so guys could hates us then decide to kick us all out. We have nowhere to go and our parents and other adults can't do anything because of the peace treaty, so we’ll do something.” the halabi man said.

“Listen we’re here for vacation we don’t even go to school here.We don’t even live here. And even if we did, this is not something anyone should do. The people of this village allowed you to live here in our land and allowed you to buy farm land properties, and the point of that treaty was to achieve peace at last. Everything is finally peaceful here in this village but what you’re doing is the complete opposite.” Adam yelled.

“There can’t be peace here if there is still discrimination and racism towards us halab. This is the only place we can live in in peace...or that’s what we thought at least.” said the tall halabi guy.

“Why are you still talking to him Adam? He’s talking out his ass. We came here to swim, and he’s over here talking about some other shit.” I yelled.

“Yeah seriously, just drop him dead already.”  Ismael agreed.

Ali finally arrived with all 5 horses. Adam punched the halabi man then Ismael and I ran to assist him in the fight. He ran. The two who were dropped by Adam were still knocked out laying down on the hot burning orange sand. Ali and Adam tied the two halabis up and carried them on their backs. We got on our horses and went to our grandfather. He was one of the elders of the village. We told him everything that happened and he conducted a meeting right away.

“Ok. I’ll take care of this. Go eat.” he said as he handed me a $20 bill. “Pass me my             cane. Adam drop me off there. We’ll take your uncle Asaad's car.”

My cousins and I went to the shawarma restaurant which was a block away from the house. My cousin was fine as were eating and chilling in the restaurant. We enjoyed each other's company while we were chewing on fries and shawarma sandwiches. We left the restaurant to go to the house. As we walked in we ran into my grandfather if he was ok. My grandfather we assured us the situation was handled.

In that moment, I realized that my grandfather's words would haunt me for the rest of my life. He had said “You children shouldn’t worry about adult issues of enemies and finding peace. If finding peace happens it won’t happen now.” Whether my grandfather knew it or not our enemies weren’t into peace and neither were we looking forward to it. The relationship between the self and the changing world is that there can’t be a world of peace if the people of this world can’t reach peace within themselves. In today's world peace is always the best answer, but in reality, peace can never be found.