It-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named

On Lightening, Snakes & Mosquito Nets.

April 15th, 2023 10 AM

Afofa (mom): shima wake up, a war broke out…

Her beloved daughter & yours truly: can we talk about it later? I’m trying to sleep.

12 PM: *wakes up -startled- to what I can assume was a bomb?*

For the first 40 days of the conflict between the military and the Rapid Support Forces, I was at home, chilling like a villain, unbothered, oblivious as to what was to come. That is, until dad decided it isn’t safe anymore and it’s time to hit the road for his home village whom we shall refer to as "You-Know-Where" or "It-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named"… If you know you know.

Day 1

1:17 PM. Arrival.

Day 2

Water is delivered to the two taps in each household via a pump which requires electricity. There’s a power-outage. A day passes. Two. Your supply of water is depleted. Five days without electricity and water. Before you know it, you’re standing at the bank of the White Nile River, a washtub lying before you. You’re hand-washing your clothes. A ritual known to have been abolished a century ago since the invention of the electrical Washing Machine in 1920. This is a week in, and there’s already so much to take in. It’s not that you’ve never hand-washed clothes before, it’s just that you’ve almost never hand-washed clothes before.

Day 10

Question: how hard is it to adjust to a place where people do not believe in doors, privacy or the permission to come in?

Answer: hard enough.

Day 13

2:23 AM. You’re woken up by a donkey chewing grass next to your bed.

Day 15

4:21 PM. Apparently staring at people for extended periods of time is a cultural trend. It’s the norm. Staring back to hint that it’s uncomfortable for you will not reduce the gawking. You just have to deal with it.

Day 17

6:03 AM. Woke up to a lady who’s definitely fake crying. She came to pay her condolences. Guess her day was too packed up to pay a visit at a later hour. I completely understand.

Day 19

5:56 AM. You’re drinking tea with Alshareef biscuits, which are a pathetic excuse for tea biscuits. You can actually taste each ingredient separately. There are sugar crystals. There are salt crystals. And then there’s batter. They should be annihilated all together.

Day 21

Birds. No. You’re mistaken. Crickets. Did you know they flew this high? Did you know they grew to such sizes? With such colors? There are crickets. And there are crickets pro max. Have you ever been slapped by a cricket pro max? No? I thought not.

Day 24

12:30 AM. You’re sleeping outside, in the courtyard- otherwise known as الحوش. You’re awakened by the strong winds that precede heavy rain. Dismantle the mosquito nets. Take the mattresses inside. It’s raining cats and dogs on you as you lift the heavy beds and take them inside.

Day 26

Turns out to be productive, an air conditioner is a prerequisite. There aren’t any. Bummer.

Day 27

8:23 AM. Life is hard when you can’t immediately Google the questions that abruptly pop into your mind.

“Ebaa, Google this for me.”

Day 29

9:13 PM. Guinness World Record broken for the number of disappointments you can bear in such a small period of time.

Day 32

You’ve mastered the art of sitting still. You can now sit there and just about exist for extended periods of time, unbothered.

Day 33

3:04 PM It is absolutely okay for a herd of cows to drink water while you splash around in the White Nile River.

Day 35

3:12 PM. Two words: lemons and black market.

Day 36

5:00 PM. You head out two kilometers into the desolate wasteland to get your daily dose of internet connection. You climb up the empty man-made waterway otherwise known as التُرعَة. Sit down. Stand up. Wait for your phone to pick up a signal so you can send a WhatsApp message or two. Turn on melancholic love songs. Sit down again. It’s your first time watching a sunset. Watch as the sun disappears from the horizon leaving you absolutely mesmerized at the speed at which it noticeably descends. Remember when that good friend of yours who told you to watch more sunsets?

Day 37

Your business is everybody’s. Including the lady you never knew existed down the block. Fun.

Day 38

2:44 PM.

“لو في زول عندو دقيق قراصة جاهز يجي يحمرو في وشي”

ريم عبدالفتاح

Day 40

5:30 AM. Wake up. Take down your mosquito net. Take the beds inside. Make tea. Drink tea. Spill the tea about the two other families you live with. Abuse your daily dose of nostalgic reminiscing. About home. About the sacred spacious area you once called your room. And who knew you were this attached to a kitchen? Wrestle with your inner turmoil about an indefinite future. Resent your presence in a place in the middle of literal nowhere. Continue reading your book about time management when in reality you’re floating outside the realm of time, and the only thing you can manage is to barely live (though to live doesn’t mean you’re alive). Stare at the lemon tree for what seems like a good hour, learn by heart the arrangement of positions of its branches and leaves.

Reality check: it’s only 6:56 AM.

Day 47

11:13 PM. Do you know how hard it is to weep without making a sound?

Day 49

5:22 PM. Sometimes you’re fatigued but really all you need is a run across that man-made waterway.

Day 52

11:42 AM. A momma and a baby scorpion awoke and emerged after a long hibernation in the storage shack. Rest of the story is pretty imaginable.

Day 56

7:20 PM. Bats. (If you know, you know.)

Day 59

There’s qibly lightening (pertaining to the English word Qibla, yes, I’m making up adjectives now). You opt for sleeping inside because you’ve become proficient at forecasting the weather. By no chance is day 24 repeating itself.

Lightening in the direction of the qibla: imminent rain.

From any other direction: wind.

From two opposing directions, one of them that of the Qibla: wind (they cancel each other).

Day 64

5 days of no water. They decide to dig up the long buried water-well.

Day 65

9:15 AM. You’re staring at the lemon tree. You knew at a point, things would head south in life, you just never expected it to be this early, nor did you expect it to be this dreadful.

Day 68

You pay a visit to the local medical laboratory technician who works mostly as a pharmacist but is also somehow a doctor? He’s Nescafé 3 in 1. The guy prescribes antibiotics to be taken “when necessary” which is tantamount to prescribing antibiotic resistance. He also prescribes Ceftriaxone injections for anyone with WBCs in the normal range and claims that pneumonia can turn into typhoid fever if the WBC count increases. Join us for a course on “How to Get Creative with Medicine” at It-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Day 69

3:21 PM.

You: “Reem, what’s the difference between our house in Omdurman and a hotel?”

Reem: “Nothing.”

You: “False. We never had to pay to stay there.”

Day 71

4:42 PM. It’s the third time you’ve cried today and for a completely different reason than the two preceding times. You’re sure your lacrimal glands have officially اتحلجوا, and the English language doesn’t even have a word for that. Your chest is heavy.

Day 74

6:24 AM. Woken up by loud chatter. A thief had managed his way into the neighboring house. He didn’t climb a wall. He punched a hole right into one. Pretty gangster- if you ask me. The true manifestation of “if there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Day 75

7:03 PM. You’ve finished the 6th book. And you’re still here.

Day 77

You mastered the art of kicking any animal out of the house.

The Communication with Animals Dictionary:

Dogs: Jrrr

Cows: Hrrrrt

Donkeys: (ع)rrrr

Chickens: Ishhhh krrrrr

Goats: Tkkk

Day 81

9:45 PM. A snake was found next to the front door. They killed it and carried it around the village for show and tell.

Day 83

7:33 PM. You’re lying down in your bed, staring into the night sky that is well full of uncountable, shimmering, flickering stars. You’re exploring recesses of your mind you never knew existed, subsumed in finding meaning for all this suffering.

Rayan: “Reem, I love you despite the mosquito nets separating us.”

Day 88

Turns out the water well is haunted. No further questions asked.

Day 89

10:33 PM. You can’t sleep. Tomorrow you decamp You-Know-Where. You are cognizant of the fact that you probably wouldn’t be this elated even if you were graduating tomorrow. You can barely believe what’s happened in the past 3 months. The past 3 months seemed like 3 different lifetimes.

Day 90

All those prayers were heard. The nightmare is actually over.

Forward to Day 183

4:21 PM. *Flashbacks.*

You-Know-Where’s mere existence is still haunting you, you’re horrified of such a place’s existence. You thank god a thousand times. You’re even keeping a gratitude journal.

Man proposes, Allah disposes.

Based on true events.

Shima, a survivor of It-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named