I hadn’t been back to Sudan in five years, since my mother’s twin suffered a violent, preventable death while trying to cross the street. My dad repeatedly warned me that coming to Sudan in May is a really bad idea. It’s the hottest time of year (between 106–108 daily), and the force of the mosquitoes is awakened. This means when night falls, when it’s still around 101 degrees, we can’t sleep outside and have to sleep indoors like bikram yoga sardines.
As much as I felt like dad was right, my timing wasn’t really by choice. My uncle’s kidney stone surgery became infected recently and given how common death is out here, I wanted to help my sister in law travel home with my three little nieces — 8 month old twins and a 2 year old baby dictator.
A Broken Grid
What my dad failed to mention is that there’s a problem with the electric load on the grid (my dad is an electrical engineer and used to work here), and the city cannot provide enough electricity for its people. This means every other day, Inshallah, the power goes out from around 7:45am — 6:00pm. They ration it out across the city, and you never really know when it’s gonna cut off. In the city, there’s no breeze. Just occasional dragon breath winds. This outage pattern will last for three years.
Ramadan is coming. Welcome to hell.*
Anyway, so Wednesday, at a peak of 109 degrees and after 3 showers and drinking 2–3 gallons of water (all sweat, no pee), I decided enough is enough, we will escape this heat and go to the one mall to buy anything they sell just to sit in AC. I rounded up mom, the girls, cousins and sister in law and we took off. We had a lovely time, ate at a cafe where a Syrian child no older than 5 years old praised Sudan and it’s people for how they’ve treated the refugees. First time I’ve been proud of Sudan in a long time.
That Sudanese pride didn’t last long. I went outside to flag a car to take us home, and as I was negotiating the price, a guy in a pick up truck backed his car right into me, hitting me from the back and trapping me between the two cars. All I could think of is a) did anything in my body break (no) b) why are so many people suddenly descending on me (to help, but still) and c) I gotta get out of here. I had apparently cut my foot and had no idea because it was one of those cuts that bleeds a lot and looks worse than it is. I called my family out to get in said flagged car to go home as quickly as possible. My cousin’s immediate thought was that I’d gotten in a street fight (I felt pretty cool that she really thought I could do that out here) but everyone was horrified to learn of what actually happened. I’m lucky to have escaped with a gorgeous bruise and a cut on my foot and grateful that car didn’t push me into traffic.
How to Fight for Power (On)
Sudan is a dying place. The people are being robbed of a reasonable life by the government. There are too many cars on the destroyed roads, too many people on their whatsapp, imo, viber chats while driving, complete lawlessness, confusion and hopelessness. It wasn’t like this before. We had more with less. People were happier.
Why am I writing this post? Because government matters. As an admitted hypocrite who hasn’t even registered to vote back home yet, I say this as my commitment to do my small part when I get home. I’ve got until 5/23 to register in CA and will do it ASAP when back, and I encourage all of you to do the same. No one should drive on crappy roads, no one’s power should arbitrarily go out (especially in this kind of heat), no one should be drinking poisoned water, no one should be afraid to go to a hospital or to suffer what happened in Katrina. No one here believes me when I talk about Flint or Trump. ‘But America is not like that!’ they say. And I’m like, oh yes it is.
It’s way more than just the presidential election that matters, and it’s really our responsibility to exercise our rights and make sure everyone’s right (and access) to vote is protected. Go register. Now.
Anyway. It’s Friday (our weekend) which means the government is kind enough to turn the power on. It’s still good to be home.
*It could be worse. Sudan has dry heat. If there was any humidity, I would have personally sacrificed my own life to trade with Jon Snow.
