Between Expatriation and War
Dr. Fakhraddin Awad Hassan Abdelaal
Most Sudanese leave their country out of necessity. Their ultimate dream is to return, live, and be buried in their homeland. Hence, even those who migrated to Europe and the Americas buy land and build houses in Sudan, with their greatest aspiration being to return.
For me personally, exile was a train journey with stops at various stations. I found inconvenience in bathrooms and everything. My dream was to reach my intended station, embrace my parents, siblings, and neighbors, take a shower in our old-fashioned bathroom, even if it was with laundry soap or Sudanese clay soap, and use a miswak (tooth-cleaning twig) after its sunset use until bedtime, and then pray in the makeshift or leather prayer rug from the last Eid Al-Adha. Then, I would head to my aunts house, where the scent of the humbarib tree would surround us... and my mother would call out: Bring a pillow from inside for your brother.
Then comes the coffee break followed by incense and relaxation, and after that, evening tea.
My mother hands the key to her closet to the storyteller to fetch me a khabeis box, and they laugh and say to her, Why Fakhraddin? and she replies, You are my son, Fakhraddin.
During Ramadan, I lead them in the Maghrib prayer. I remember my father and pray for him, tears flow, and my mother and siblings pray behind me. I smell his scent in every corner of the house. Here is where he used to pray, and here is where he used to read his Quran. In this bed, he used to sleep. When I visit him, I always sit next to him in the same bed. Since childhood, I have been accustomed to sleeping in his arms, reading the newspaper and stories with him. When I became the head of the family, things did not change. I sit next to him and distinguish his scent. He rejoices in my presence and dislikes my departures. He hopes for the day I settle back home, and he repeats: You know, Fakhraddin, you are younger to me than your son Amr, you are also my little child. He would refuse me leaving the house without having my breakfast.
In the train, you feel anxious, and you want to reach your home and take a long bath and drink from the zeer water until youre hydrated. Everything at home has a distinct taste, which is why exile feels like a train or a truck or a long and exhausting journey.
War forced our people to leave their homes. Now they are passengers on the train, just as we were during our exile. Someone might say that we left voluntarily, while those forced out of their homes by war had no choice. However, the truth is that we were also compelled to leave, albeit not in the same manner, speed, and circumstances. What is truly painful is that there are strangers who didnt settle for looting our ancestors and parents homes, but they occupied them, and in them lies the scent of our fathers and all our heritage and memories.
