Scenes from Sudan’s Northern Province

Scenes from Sudan’s Northern Province

A Personal Tribute to Life in Northern Sudan, 1983-1989

Henna, Nubian Doorways, Dongola Market, Sesame Oil Making, Bread and Kisra Making, Perfume Making, Ziir Turning, and Nile Scenes

Above, setting sail at sunset from Kerma, Northern Province. Scroll down for more Nile scenes.

Below, henna paste for tattooing curing in the sun. Title photo and above, newly henna-ed hands of a dear friend’s son and daughter proudly displayed while dipping into a bowl of blood-red flowering hibiscus. For more on this beautiful flower and its use in art, see Coffee and Hibiscus Flowers.

Below, the freshly henna-ed hand of a dear friend. For more on henna see “A Open Hand will Encounter Henna”.

This is a cultural post for Women’s Education Partnership

Learn more about our literacy work in Community Literacy

From the early to late 1980s I worked as an English Language teacher in Dongola, Northern Province. The kindness and generosity of the Sudanese who welcomed me into their homes and lives there were both exceptional and humbling. This post attempts to do justice to their dignity and grace. 

Please do not reproduce any photos below of my Sudanese friends without seeking written permission first. 

Above, generous and honorable, dear neighbours in Dongola, mid-1980s.

Memories of Place

Above and below, Nubian doorways and village friends, north of Dongola, Northern Province.

If you are interested in Nubian women’s vernacular art and house decoration,

you might enjoy Inscriptions on Rosewater

Above, a traditional wooden Nubian door lock with elegant carved fitments.

Below, more village doorways and village scenes north of Dongola.

Below, Village scenes, with a ziir amphora or water pot in the foreground. Also an Abri potter making ziir. For more on the ziir, see Kindness to the Stranger: The Ziir. For more on Sudanese ceramics, see Giving Form to Clay Sudan’s Women Potters and Giving Form to Clay Sudan’s Women Potters 2.

Memories of Friends and Neighbours

Below, young musician with his rabaaba or Sudanese lute.

For more on the rabaaba or tambour, see The Sudanese Tambour

Below, a happy moment at home in Dongola.

Below, my landlady and village elder, from Irtidi village, near Dongola, bearing traditional tribal facial scars or shiluukh. 

Above a villager who sold baskets and dates door to door while sharing stories and dispensing wisdom with humour and grace to her neighbours. Below, Meroe restauranteur, mid 1980s.

Below, Ramadan preparations in Dongola – Everyone Included. For more on Ramadan see Al-Rahmataat. Children psoing for a photo after helping their mothers to make jars of hilu-murr flakes (soaked to make the drink traditionally used to break the dawn to dusk Ramadan fast at sunset), and a bowl of freshly made hilu murr flakes drying in the sun.

Above, winnowing grain in Dongola market and below, dried okra in a northern kitchen.

Below, more friends from the market in Dongola. For reminiscences on the Sudanese clothes presser, see The Makwagi – The Ironing Man.

Below, more friends from the market in Dongola – and fine coffee.

Dongola Coffee Shops – early 1980s. 

Below, Sudanese snuff and juice seller and kind friend from Darfur, Dongola Market 

Everyday Life – Bread and Kisra Making  

Proving bread to be baked in traditional clay, wood-fired ovens in Irtidi.

Below, making kisra on an iron hot plate or griddle, known as a dooka. For more on this famous Sudanese, wafer-thin flatbread, see Sudanese Fermented Foods Part 2 Kisra

Sesame Oil Pressing

For more on this ancient industry, see The Camel and the Sesame Seed

Sesame seed oil making near Burgeig, north of Dongola. 

Collecting palm “jareed”, used for roofing, firwwood and many other purposes, Abri.

Perfume making in Dongola, mid-1980s.

Below, making humra and scented dilka paste. For more on Sudanese aromatics, see Karkar, Dilka and Dukhan and The Clove’s Fragrance.

School Celebrations 

Washing and weaving tripe for school feast, Dongola Secondary School, and below –

Above, our gentle school caretaker with his pipe. 

Traveling Further Afield 

Somewhere between Dongola and Delgo – mid-1980s.

Below, Merowe, mid-1980s and changing a tyre in the desert. 

The beautiful town of Delgo, Northern Province 

Along The Nile 

Below, carrying palm, wood and water pots from Dongola Nile 

Nile scenes, including the Karima ferry sailing past Dongola

Below, seen on the wall of a restaurant wall, Ed-Debba, Northern Provence in the early 1980s.

This is a cultural post for Women’s Education Partnership