Giving birth in Sudan: customs and traditions

This post is dedicated to my dear friend Inga who is going to become a mum soon and asked me to write something about Sudanese birthing customs and traditions. Inga is always telling me to write a book about my travel adventures and I’m always never getting around to it. But maybe one day I will and then she'll have a whole book dedicated to her instead of just a single blogpost ... With thanks for all you do xx
 

Leila is an effusive host, eager to please even though she is preoccupied with her new baby, who is just three weeks old and suffering from a fever and chest infection.  

She speaks English at a breathless pace, her words heavy with sentimentality as though I were already leaving Sudan.  

“When you go, you will forget us,” she laments. “But we will never forget you”... leaving me at a loss to explain the impossibility of me ever forgetting Sudan or the friends I've made here.
 

Mona, a mutual friend and teaching colleague has brought me to Leila’s home to meet her new baby Mohannad.

Leila gave birth at home and has four other children. Her baby was born premature and has been sickly ever since. She looks lovely, but exhausted in her bright orange house dress and gold jewellery.

Laid out on a fluffy green mat and covered by a baby-sized mosquito net, Mohannad looks tiny and fragile. His breath is raspy and he doesn’t cry, so much as squeaks.

Discussions over lunch are centred on marriage and childbirth traditions - two inseparable and central tenants of Sudanese society.

Prophet Mohammad extolled the virtues of large families and the Sudanese have definitely adopted the bigger the better approach, with women typically bearing five or more children. Twelve was not unheard of in the past.

Leila shows me photos of her wedding - a fresh-faced woman, with a large, open smile standing at the side of her handsome new husband.

Now married for seven years, Leila concedes the passing of time and multiple births have strained their looks and relationship.

After five babies, she says she’d like to take a break from child bearing to focus on her own health and raising her existing children.

Rich in customs

As the afternoon heat fades, the conversation turns to childbirth customs in Sudan, and the traditional beauty practices still oberved by new mothers for their restorative, purifying and aphrodisiac properties.

Sudanese women are typically confined to their home for 40 days after giving birth to help them recover their strength. They will usually be cared for by their mother or other close female relatives. However, this custom is now less strictly adhered to as women increasingly take on more responsibilities outside the marital home.

During this period, the semaiya or naming ceremony will take place – in which relatives and friends join the family for a meal and the baby’s name is formally revealed for the first time. Male circumcision is sometimes performed at this time as part of the ceremony.

After the confinement period, women perform dokhan (smoke baths), a beautification ritual giving the skin a characteristic colour and smell of musk. New mothers will remove their body hair using a homemade wax made from lemon and caramelised sugar.

Her skin will be decorated with henna as a sign that the woman is refreshed and ready to return to her everyday life and duties.

Healing properties

Fenugreek, dried straw and hagel used to make medicinal tea

Sudanese women also follow a number of traditional healthcare routines during and after pregnancy.

Particularly revered among the Sudanese for its healing qualities is helba (fenugreek), with Leila's older lady relatives quick to recite the old Sudanese proverb to me: “If you knew what was in helba you would weigh it like gold.”

The seeds are boiled in water to make a medicinal tea, which is said to improve women's overall health and wellbeing after pregnancy. Helba is also used to treat stomach pain and stimulate milk production in new mothers.

Another staple is a traditional herbal tea made from hamarayb (dried straw) and the medicinal dried green leaves called hagel to aid women's health and improve appetite.

Pregnant women eat madida helba for strength

During pregnancy, women eat a simple homemade supplement known as madida helba, made from flour, fenugreek, sugar and water.

Fenugreek seeds are added to water and brought to boil. Flour and sugar is added to the mix and cooked until it becomes a thick consistency. 
The dish is sometimes served with milk and butter and is said to improve women’s strength and help fatten expectant mothers. 

Unlike the West, weight gain is seen as attractive in Sudan and many women actively seek to add to their generous curves.

Beauty and birth

Sudanese women keep themselves attractive and refreshed after childbirth with a number of cleansing beauty rituals. Key among these are a variety of skin treatments, as well as the wearing of handmade fragrant perfumes, especially reserved for married ladies.

Traditional perfumes

The most traditional Sudanese perfume worn after childbirth is khumra mahlab, which takes its name from the fragrant kernels of a small wild cherry found in Sudan and used as a key ingredient. A paste is made from various powdered dried ingredients, including mahlab, cloves, nutmeg, dufra, sandalwood and musk. The paste is smoked in a charcoal fire with pieces of sandalwood and other local aromatic wood and later infused with various liquid fragrant oils to produce the perfume.

A key ingredient in many Sudanese perfumes and cosmetics, dufra rather bizarrely takes its divine scent from the crushed shells of sea molluscs harvested from Sudan’s Red Sea coast. Proper cleaning is very important as any residual flesh will spoil the perfume. Women clean excess fat or dirt on shell particles using a razor, before soaking them in a mixture of either Pepsi or sorghum and water.

Mizeek, another typical Sudanese beauty product, is a fine yellow powder extracted from crocodile glands and used by women as an underarm deodorant. It is also sprinkled on clothes when ironing to give garments a fresh, fragrant smell.

To cleanse and exfoliate the skin, Sudanese women use dilka - a dark fragrant paste, which usually takes 3-5 days to prepare. The dough is made by mixing a number of fragrant oils and spices with sorghum or durra (durum) flour. Small chips of finely ground fragrant talih (acacia wood) are also added. 

The paste is spread around the inside of a bowl and placed upside down over a small dug hole, filled with a variety of different woods that produce a fragrant, sensual smoke when burnt. 

The time-consuming process is repeated at regular intervals until all of the paste has been added. Perfumed oils are added at the end, with the dough kneaded into small balls before being stored in an airtight container.

Dilka and deeheen ready for use

Used as an exfoliant, women mix the dilka with a small amount of water and rub it over the body, removing any residual paste with deeheen – an oily cream made from animal fat and perfumed using sandalwood oil or orange peels dried and boiled until the water evaporates. Performed regularly, the procedure is said to help women maintain clean, supple, fragrant and healthy skin. 

Leila says perfumes and other beauty rituals are used by women after childbirth largely for rejuvenation purposes, as well as to mask the smell of breast milk and remain sexually attractive to their husbands.

The alluring musky smell produced by such beauty treatments, particularly dokhan in which women smoke themselves with fragrant wood is enough to drive the average Sudanese man “crazy” with desire, I’m told.

 

“Sudanese men like their ladies very much when they do dilka. This because it make their skin more soft and smell beautiful. The lady become even more lovely and the man he come to her,” Leila explains before they both collapse in a fit of giggles.

As well as cleansing their bodies, Sudanese women also purify their home after childbirth by burning bakhoor – a fragrant incense made from soaking small woodchips in sandaliyya (sandalwood oil). The wood is burnt over charcoal in a traditional incense holder, with the thick musk-scented smoke seen as a way of restoring purity and positive energy in the home, as well as give blessing for the birth of a child.

Three weddings and a hidden bride

I strode across a dusty field set up with an outdoor marquee, acutely aware that all eyes were focused on me. In line with the segregation that pervades everyday life in Sudan, women sat on one side, while the men sat on the other – in an indistinguishable sea of white jellabiyahs and turbans. It reminded me of a high school dance, with the opposite sex eyeing each other shyly from a safe distance.

I had never met the bride or groom before and nor do I even know their names.

I had arrived as part of a mixed group, but in an apparent concession to our foreignness our hosts seated us together in a middle section so we could still chat. A small tray of sweets, popcorn and dates was immediately placed in front of us by way of welcome.

Let the dancing begin …

The music restarted and the guests got to their feet – the strict lines of gender demarcation suddenly blurring on the dusty dancefloor as women shimmied in their elegant tobes, clicking their fingers in time to the music, encouraging those that lingered on the sidelines.

The same women, who had looked at me with stony expressions when I entered now took me by the hand and dragged me to the dancefloor, but to tell you the truth I was happy to be part of the movement and celebration.

The older women are the most bold, cutting a path through the throngs with their considerable girth, clicking their fingers in my direction and shaking their shoulders in a sort of dancefloor greeting. The younger ladies are more sedate, shuffling on one spot, their eyes cast downward.

The ubiquitous wedding videographer manouvers his giant black camera in my direction, black leads trailing behind and in the next moment I'm looking up at myself in giant colour on the bigscreen.

Men in freshly starched jellabiyahs circle the perimeter in a coordinated shuffle, waving large sticks in the air at those sitting within the circle. Some wear sheathed swords at their hips and and others are carrying whips.

The men are fleet footed and graceful, leaping elegantly up and down like white gowned puppets on a string, hanging for a moment suspended in mid-air. It is a wonderful sight to watch.

‘It’s young, isn’t it?”

The car carrying the bride and groom arrives and is immediately mobbed. The band strikes up a gorgeous melody and the crowds begins to sway in time, surging closer and closer to the car until it is totally surrounded. They wave their hands, pumping their fists and sticks in the air above the chaotic crush  - it’s an intense moment. The women’s joyous wailing fills the air, carrying above the music. Even by Sudanese wedding standards, I’ve never seen anything quite like it in terms of sheer exuberance.

The song has almost finished when the bride and groom finally emerge from the car. The man looks happy, but bashful in his black, ill-fitting suit. The bride stares fixedly at the ground. She is wearing a modern-style wedding dress, with her hair hidden under an elaborate Islamic headdress. I am immediately struck by how tiny she is, her small body enveloped by her billowing white dress.

A women in a blue tobe next to me whispers to me in English “the bride is 14, the groom is 27.” It’s young, isn’t it? Too young”. I’m still digesting this rather disturbing news when she grabs my hand and we join the frantic procession behind the bride as she makes her way inside to her new husband’s family home.

When we enter the bride is slouched unsmiling on a lounge chair. Up close, the ghostly white makeup and garish purple eye shadow only seem to magnify her youth.

Breathless masha allahs emanate from her adoring audience. She looks like she’d rather be anywhere else than at her own wedding.

My companion pushes me through the crowd, urging me to greet the bride. I bend down close to her, “mabrook” (congratulations), I murmur as I offer my hand. She doesn’t meet my eyes and her handshake is so light our skin barely touches. “Young, very young,” my companion whispers in my ear again, shaking her head again for emphasis.

Hidden from view

The crowd closes around the young bride and that’s the last I see of her for the rest of the evening. I’m later told she comes from a particularly strict family and accordingly she must remain inside the house, hidden from view.

Outside her husband has lost his bashfulness and is waving a whip as he is carried around the circle on the shoulders of the men, the women trail behind clicking their fingers.

The groom passes by a line of young men, individually whipping them on their chests while they attempt to remain unflinching - a custom traditionally carried out as a symbolic test of bravery for male suitors trying to impress potential sweethearts.

The celebrations continue in full swing with more whipping, more dancing and wailing. At one point I’m pulled to the centre of the crowd to dance with the groom. He holds both ends of his whip in his hands and loops it over my head as we move in time to the music. My awkward movements again captured on bigscreen.

This was one of the most vibrant weddings I have attended so far in Sudan, but the celebrations are tinged by the hard realities of the occasion. It is not only the bride's youth and obvious reticence, but her invisibility.

I can’t help but wonder if she feels any sense of unfairness about her situation as she remains cloistered inside the house, while everyone else celebrates her marriage in her absence.

Marriage of contrasts

The following week I’m spontaneously invited to another wedding – my third in as many weeks.

Although the surroundings are more upmarket and the dancing more restrained, many details are almost identical. The segregation of the sexes, the finger clicking, the overloud band and omnipresent camera man.

On an elevated stage behind two disused car seats have been decorated with tinsel to form a sort of kitsch marital throne.

The bridal car arrives and is immediately mobbed by the crowd. But this is no early, arranged marriage. The bride is a 28-year-old working professional and her husband is in his 30s, her brother explains.

The couple emerge from the car and are embraced by their family. The band resumes playing.

The bride dances at her husband’s side, clicking her fingers lightly in time to the music. She wears white lace gloves, magnifying the elegant dark lines of her henna tattoos.

When her husband is carried off on the top of the men’s shoulders, she is immediately encircled by female relatives and friends eager to offer their congratulations and compliment her appearance.

Even as the bride stares downwards, avoiding direct eye contact with a mixture of coy shyness, there is no hiding her obvious delight.

The couple remain on their feet dancing until the celebrations are exhausted, their elaborate throne remaining unused.

The contrast between the two weddings couldn’t be more striking.

Friends in Ed Damer have told me that combined factors, including poverty, lack of education and high numbers of girls in the same family undoubtedly influence the likelihood of an early marriage. However, even teachers and well educated friends are at pains to point out that nowadays in Sudan women always have the right to refuse a proposal. This still begs the question though whether a teenage girl has the life experience to make an informed decision about her future or the strength to go against family pressure.

It was my friend Rahel who put it more succinctly than all: “Well, of course, she can say no, but maybe no-one is listening.”

Those sunsets, sunsets ...

Even as I stood alone on my balcony in the fading light, there was no denying the intoxicating romance of the scene before me.

The muezzin sounded the evening call to prayer as the sun slipped behind the black silhouettes of the date palms lining the River Nile.

The sky lit up in a magnificent multi-hued explosion of pink and orange, reaching a riotous crescendo before disappearing altogether.

What Ed Damer lacks in attractions, it more than makes up for with some of the most jaw-dropping daily sunset displays I've ever seen.

I am suddenly reminded of a refrain from well-known Australian band Powderfinger’s hit track 'Sunsets'.

“Sunrise building a reprise in my heart

Regret tight around my chest plays its part

Watching the sunset, sunset over the beaches”

I never really thought of Sudan as being a place of romance. With its dusty, daily realities it seems more like a haven for the romantically bruised in self-imposed exile.

For all the relentless obsession about marriage, there is a detached reserve to relationships here, exacerbated perhaps by current economic hardships.

With many men now working away from home in Gulf countries, their wives remain behind as virtual single mothers and many will not see their husbands for months at a time, even years.

Even couples not separated by distance seem to live almost totally separate lives.

My friend's sister, currently recuperating with her family in Ed Damer after giving birth to a new son, informed me recently her husband is coming from Khartoum in the next days to visit “the baby” for the first time. Noticing her curious omission of “us”, I add quickly “And you; He's coming to see you too”. She stares at me blankly and shrugs her shoulders. 

Some Sudanese men approach the concept with an almost teenage naivety, often expressed by spontaneous marriage proposals and poetic declarations of love in the first meeting.

Strict social segregation and a matter-of-fact approach to marriage means there is less opportunity for relationships to develop naturally. 

When it comes to marriage, there are also vastly different attitudes and cultural norms. While in the West we may idealise the concept of romantic love and finding 'The One', in Sudan this is often considered secondary to financial security and family duty.

Scratch beneath the surface, however, and Sudan does in fact have its own romantic side.

It’s there in the hidden love affairs, kept secret even from closest friends and family; it’s there in a stolen moment in a public place, the press of a handshake, slightly longer than is usual, the young couples sat at the back of a restaurant staring coyly into each other’s eyes – their fruit juices remaining forgotten in front of them.

Watching the magical Ed Damer sunsets have another quality: the seductive romance of home as viewed from far away.

I think of another time and another place, watching the sun set over a beach before slipping effortlessly behind the horizon.

I wonder what home will be like when I go back. Perhaps it will be just like falling in love all over again …