Gatecrashing the Ed Damer boys’ club

Rooftop shisha den in Ed Damer.

Since returning to Ed Damer after an almost two-month absence, the time has passed in a whirlwind of social events, lunches, invitations and even a random wedding. I’ve barely had time to catch my breath.

While my visiting my friend Inayat today, we were joined by my teaching colleague Ahmed, who is also her relative.

As we sit down to a light meal together, Ahmed urges me to eat quickly as he wants to invite me for a coffee. I was slightly intrigued, but assumed he was bringing me to his family home as Ed Damer isn’t exactly over-run with cafes and the tea ladies that frequent the souq are off-limits to women.

Bidding Inayat farewell, we take off at a brisk pace towards the centre, with Ahmed’s small talk at almost the same speed. I’m having trouble keeping up on both fronts when we enter the gate of a nondescript white building. Ahmed pauses finally and explains that we are entering a Naadi (men’s sports club). He tells me that although Sudanese ladies cannot enter, it's no problem for me since I am a foreign woman. 

Although I’m hesitant, the idea of entering a forbidden zone is somewhat beguiling.

We climb a narrow, darkened staircase, arriving at a rooftop 'bar' serving juice and the usual assortment of tea and coffee. The only other women are two Ethiopian tea ladies. Men sit in large groups, smoking shisha and chatting. Inside a small adjoining hut, football blares from two TV screens.

It's decidedly downmarket; the outside bar furnished with little more than a haphazard assortment of plastic chairs, low tables and large, glass shisha pipes, positioned on the grimy floor next to each group.

Ahmed points out other neighbouring shisha dens from the balcony, explaining that such clubs operate under semi-legitimacy, as smoking shisha is periodically banned by the government and is still frowned upon by some sections of society.

The other men almost fall off their chairs when I enter. In fact, for a moment, I think some of them actually will. They look like they couldn't be any more surprised if a green alien had suddenly sat down in their midst and ordered coffee. Although it's not overcrowded, I cannot remember ever feeling more conspicuous or scrutinised than I do at this point.

None of the men make any pretence to hide their stares and when I move closer to the balcony for a moment to see the view, I feel every pair of eyes follow me.

Ahmed is one of the few male colleagues and acquaintances that I have met in Ed Damer that I feel comfortable around, with others tending towards veiled advances. In fact, if anything, he behaves with an almost exaggerated politeness and formality towards me.

I wonder aloud whether my reputation in Ed Damer will survive in tact after being seen in a place of such ill-repute, but he waves away my concerns.

“Anyway, you are a foreign woman. You shouldn’t mind for such things. You are quite free”, he says.

Foreign or not, I have to admit that it feels good to throw off the shackles of what I ‘should’ or shouldn’t be doing and, despite the intensity of attention I’m attracting, being in that half-forbidden place, suddenly feels liberating.

I tune out the eyes boring into me and start to enjoy the atmosphere around me. Although it is still light, the sun is beginning to dip below the roof tops and somewhere in the distance the guttural evening call to prayer rumbles to life. A mute Palestinian man with matted dreadlocks passes the tables, begging money with a bizarre imitation of a sideshow clown. As part of the act he tweaks his nose, earlobes and nipples, emitting a high-pitched squeak as he does so. I'm rather relieved when he moves on to the next group.

At the same moment, Ahmed conversely bemoans the lack of entertainment options in Ed Damer, saying the shisha bars are among the few social outlets available.

Although he’s a regular at the bars, Ahmed tells me it is the first time he has brought company. He says his close friends don’t approve of shisha smoking and that he prefers to sit alone from the other clientele – a rough and tumble mix of construction workers, desert nomads and camel traders.

Ahmed orders jebana for me - the sweetly spiced coffee sipped from tiny cups - and settles back in his chair to smoke.

“Since you are my friend, I want to speak freely to you, to tell you about my problems,” he begins by way of conversation, before launching into a detailed explanation of his latest marital woes.

Ahmed’s first wife and love of his life died in childbirth and he later remarried a second time to a woman he had three children with and is now divorced. He has another two children with his current wife.

Coffee with a lot of attention

Having recently reconciled with his second wife, he has decided he wants to remarry her so that he can bring his children together under the same roof. This news infuriated his third wife, who promptly packed her bags and moved back into her mother’s house with their children. He has not seen or spoken to her or the children in three weeks. 

He tells me he is shocked by her “bad” behaviour and angry reaction and asks for my opinion on the matter. As I explain to him that for most women the idea of sharing a husband is an untenable situation, regardless of what religion or tradition dictates, he listens intently, ruminating on my words as though I am offering him the holy grail of a happy home and marriage. But I wonder if he can really be that clueless about his wife’s feelings.

In any case, Ahmed tells me he still wants to forge ahead with plans to remarry in June, even if his idea to bring his families 'together' means the destruction of his existing relationship.

The story only adds to my general confusion about the nature of Sudanese relationships, which seem to be conducted at turns with an idealistic romanticism and a staggering business-like impersonality.

I sip the last of the coffee, feeling the delicious hot liquid go straight to my head, like an electric jolt. We head back down the same darkened staircase, leaving behind the men's stares and the billowing, perfumed smoke. On our way out we pass a uniformed guard asleep on a rope bed near the front gate still clutching a half-full cup of shai in his hand ...

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 …