Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The path ran through entangled bushes, down to a headland overlooking the river.
Standing at its pinnacle, where the White Nile rose from the south and the Blue Nile from
the east, we could see fishermen arrayed along the grassy bank, their rods projecting out
into the flow. At the point where the two waterways converged, the liquid was slow, the
brown water gently lapping against a muddy shore. The fishermen ignored us as we ven-
tured to the bank to dip our hands and symbolically wash our faces. This was a special
moment, and in an instant, I felt as if I was back at the beginning, stooping down to drink
from the headwaters with Boston in the Nyungwe Forest. Moez must have done this a hun-
dred times already, but he took to the ritual with such obvious relish that I liked him all the
more.
'I am Nubian,' he said. 'We're the people of the Nile. We wouldn't exist without it.'
'It looks so . . . ordinary,' I admitted. 'The water from one river's just the same as the
next.' I lifted my camera to take pictures of the confluence, and the vast sprawl of Omdur-
man on the opposite bank.
'It's different in the rainy season. The Blue Nile is usually much clearer than the White.
The White Nile should really be called the Brown Nile, but it doesn't have the same ring
to it.'
One of the fishermen laid out a rug on the grass and stood with his hands upturned. Fa-
cing the east, the Qiblah - the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca - he began to pray. Closing
his eyes, he began to recite verses from the Koran. It was a mystical vision and suddenly I
felt very humble to be in his presence. It seemed that the world around this man no longer
mattered. The city, the fairground, the sudden plop as a fish jumped to evade a fisherman's
line, the history of a city born out of slavery and destruction, even the constant surging of
the Nile - all of this was nothing compared to the thought of this man's God. To him, this
special place was just a piece of dirt on which to prostrate himself. I was watching him,
transfixed, when suddenly Moez grabbed me by the arm.
'Move!' he said. 'Let's go. Now .'
There was something in the tone of his voice that made me obey. Watched by the inquis-
itive eyes of the fishermen, I took after him up the bank.
'What's wrong?'
'Put the camera inside your shirt . . .'
I fumbled to hide it away.
'Now smile and look back cross the water.'
At the top of the bank, Moez pointed and grinned, beginning to talk loudly about the
beauty of the water and the greenery of Tuti Island, the three miles of citrus orchard, ve-
getable farms and arable land that sits in the middle of the river and provides Khartoum
with so much of its fresh food.
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