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.

Let's talk about marriage

Marriage is everyone's favourite topic in Sudan, followed closely by food, football and WWE.

Yes, you read right .... the popularity of the theatrical and kitsch world of professional wrestling may have waned elsewhere, but here in Sudan it still reigns supreme. 

Much like the flamboyant displays of wrestling prowess, Sudanese weddings are also a spectacle to behold.

Bound by a fascinating series of rituals and unique traditions, weddings are a central element of life here and unsurprisingly one's marital status is the first line of enquiry whenever meeting someone for the first time.  

Usually you're barely past the shaking hands stage before someone fires that blunt, inescapable question:

“Married?” 

Since arriving here I have been subject to an odd variety of marriage proposals - some joking, some half-serious - often accompanied by spontaneous confessions of love within days or even moments of meeting. 

One colleague told me that although he already had two wives, they displeased him and were too lazy to help him tend to his henna bushes. 

Would I be interested? 

On another occasion one ministry official lamented long and hard about his search for love in Sudan and his inability to find 'the one'. 

After dropping none-too-subtle hints throughout the conversation, he finally asked if he could
“enjoy” me.

I later discovered that the man in question already had two wives and several children - a fact strangely ommitted from his soliloquy on love. 

It is a tiring - and at times annoying aspect of life here that discussions with the opposite sex often centre around probing marital questions laced with awkward sexual undertones.

Local women on the other hand are more likely to embrace me in their conspiratorial girly fold, confessing heartache, romantic ideals, seduction techniques and secret loves.

This has afforded me a fascinating insight into the often complex protocols that go along with marital arrangements here in Sudan. 

Many women I have met are pragmatic about the notion of marriage. They want children and financial security, and romantic love is not necessarily a priority.

“There is freedom in marriage,” one young woman tells me.

A recent university graduate, she says that she has been unable to find work in her hometown. 

She wants to travel to Khartoum and search for work there, but her family has forbidden it as they do not want her moving away or abandoning her domestic responsibilities.

“A lot of Sudanese women want to get married because they are chasing the money - and I am one of them,” she says frankly.

She believes that once she is married she will be able to work and live more freely.  

“I want to be able to travel. It is my dream; at the moment I am trapped in this house.” 

Curiously she dismisses my questions about the possibility of marrying an unsuitable match or that marriage itself may also limit her personal freedoms and ambitions. 

Her elder unmarried sister, who is sitting nearby, concedes that she is increasingly worried about her own marriage prospects as she becomes older. 

However, unlike her sister she wants to marry for love and is not willing to compromise on that. 

“It is my life. If there wasn't love, I couldn't live with him,” she says. 

When it comes to marriage, many families literally prefer to 'keep it in the family', arranging unions between cousins or other near relatives. 

At the very least marriage should be between members of the same tribe and social class.

In rural areas in particular, marriage outside this close-knit fold is frowned upon or at best considered highly unusual. 

Marriage negotiations are typically carried out by the parents of the couple and it is the man that must make the initial approach.

One friend of mine fears that she will ultimately be prevented from marrying the man she loves as his family is pressuring him to take a female relative as his bride. 

She keeps the relationship a secret from her own family and constantly worries about the future of their relationship.

Another friend met her husband-to-be on a bus while returning to her hometown. A devout Muslim, who wears the niqab, exposing only her eyes, Nagla refused his request to give him her phone number even though in her heart she wanted to see him again. 

In the end, he gave her his phone number, but on the advice of her family she never called.

Despite her reticence, Nagla continued to think of him and nine months later he finally tracked her down. 

The engagement was finalised after negotiations between the families and Nagla revealed her face to her suitor for the first time.

She concedes that her engagement is unusual in that her husband-to-be is from a different city and the two families were unknown to each other. 

However, despite this rather unconventional beginning, she says her family have been largely supportive of her decision.

“A lot of girls are too shy to admit to their fathers that they love this man and that this is what they want,” she tells me. 

“I have always been honest. My father respects my decision and didn't try to stop me, but he said I had to be sure because at the end of the day, I will be the one who will have to live with him.”

For all of her obvious affection for her husband-to-be, Nagla has seen him briefly just a handful of times since theat first chance meeting on the bus and they have never been alone in each other's company.

According to Sudanese custom, the man is required to pay a sizeable bride price before the wedding can go ahead. This covers wedding costs, jewellery, bridal accessories, perfumes, makeup, shoes and clothes.

“The woman brings herself to the wedding; that is all,” a male colleague tells me wryly.

For this reason, men tend to marry at an older age when they are more financially secure, while women can marry much earlier - even in their teens. 

It was a shocking revelation to discover that some of my students included teen brides - some of whom were married off as young as 12. 

All the Sudanese women I have spoken to have told me that women now have veto rights over any marriage proposal, however, that being said, I can't help wondering how much awareness a teenager would have about the realities and possible impacts of such a decision on their future. 

Ed Damer remains an incredibly insular society and contact with the outside world is scarce or via textbook and films. 

For many people the existence of different languages, cultures, faiths and lifestyles is a completely abstract - even alien concept. 

Many of the teachers were openly surprised when I told them that in the West near relatives are hardly considered a prize catch - never mind the fact that adult-teen relationships are a criminal offence. 

I find personal discussions about marriage and relationships particularly tricky in Sudan - I am torn between being open about myself and attitudes in the West and staying silent for fear of offending or shocking. 

Sometimes I wish I could speak more freely, without the need for constant self-censorship, but more often than not I find myself opting for the latter approach.

I briefly attended my first Sudanese wedding in Bagarawiyah during Eid celebrations in October. 

I had never met the bride and groom before, who were relatives of a friend of mine - but that's of minor significance, because in Sudan at least there's no such thing as a gate crasher...it's more the merrier!

We arrived late, but just in time for the dancing - or rather shoulder shaking and finger clicking. 

Wedding celebrations in Sudan generally continue for about three days, but preparations begin months in advance.

Women are subject to a punishing beauty regime prior to their 'big day' - the most unique of these rituals being dokhan - daily smoke baths, which a bride continues for up to two months. 

As part of the process, the woman must cover her naked body with a blanket and sit over a small hole in the ground containing the burning embers of talih a fragrant acacia wood that gives the skin a yellow glow and alluring musty smell.

The bride's body hair will also be removed using a special mixture of sugar and lime juice heated to form thick, caramelised paste, rather like a traditional body wax.

The Sudanese equivalent of the hen's party is the El-hinna or henna party. 

Friends and family gather to dance, eat sweets and sing traditional wedding songs, all to a soundtrack of women's celebratory wailing, known as zagreet.

The occasion marks the first time the woman's hands and feet will be decorated in henna, which is the symbol of a married woman in Sudan. 

Covering the bride's fingertips and the entire soles of her feet, the elaborate designs often continue on her her ankles and forearms. 

After marriage it is the woman's responsibility to continue this procedure and ensure the henna remains fresh. 

A friend once told me that if a married woman allows her henna fade for reasons other than a family bereavement, people will start to gossip that there are problems in the marriage or that she is unhappy. 

Although I initially found the constant marital banter intrusive and irritating, I have come to accept its central position in the fabric of society. 

I even enjoy learning more about the intricate customs of marriage - snippets and small details revealed during conversations with friends over a cup of tea or meal. 

Although, as they keep telling me, I'll have to fatten myself up first if I'm to have any chance of having my own Sudanese dream wedding.

Apparently big really is beautiful in Sudan!