Culture shock (Sudan)

Sudan proved to be a huge culture shock.

Although nurtured by a surge of foreign investors scurrying for oil in one of the world's fastest growing economies, Sudan's infrastructure falls surprisingly far short of its economic potential--at least compared to the rentier states in the Persian Gulf. Large swathes of towns and settlements outside Khartoum remain underdeveloped, with no roads connecting Sudan and its important trading partner, Egypt, to the north. This is all the more surprising, since Egyptian cultural and economic influences on Sudan are strong, if not pervasive. Many food and industrial goods consumed by Sudanese households come directly from al-Misr (Egypt), not to mention the Egyptian soaps that are watched eagerly by Nubian and Arab families across the largest country on the continent.

While it is comprehensible at first glance that the North and the South should be less developed than the densely populated capital, the disparities seem to arise more from political machination than a dearth of resources. Roads had only been paved or graveled to the extent that allowed for the exploitation of petrol and the conduct of maritime trade through Port Sudan, although the country is now expending Chinese funds to construct roads from Dongola to the border town Wadi Halfa (the roads east from Dongola to Karima, and from Karima south to Khartoum, thankfully, are now sealed).

For decades, Sudan had been engaged in a protracted civil war between the Arabic-speaking Islamist centre and the black Christian/animist periphery in the South, long before the Darfur conflict had emerged. While it is common to speak of the Arab North as the instigator of the war and the black South as the victim of political and economic repression, the North technically speaking had been outside the purview of the pernicious power struggle that had left at least 2 million dead and millions more homeless. The North is, in fact, largely populated by the Nubians--a famous people who had developed a rich indigenous civilisation as old as Egypt's Pharaonic kingdoms, harking back five millennia. Yet, this same proud people have long been ignored by the British colonial and Egyptian regimes as well as Khartoum, with the result that much of Nubian turf remains impoverished in spite of Sudan's booming economy.

The South governed by Sudanese People Liberation Army (SPLA) had also been denied political access, but the two civil wars that combine to stretch nearly half a century ended Khartoum's monopoly on power with the signing of a peace treaty in January 2005. The South today enjoys relative autonomy and boasts a substantial number of appointed representatives to the central government, though relations with Khartoum remain unstable.

In short, the infrastructural gaps, the lack of tourist-friendly facilities, along with the tense political times could pose quite a major shock to travelers who had never set foot on Africa. In the days that followed my arrival at Wadi Halfa, I would not see very much of what Sudan had to offer, but would experience life in a way that I never would have had anywhere else.