It was August 2019 and I’ve been in Khartoum for a few days already, visiting his family. As luck would have it, I came just in time for rain season which also meant floods.
“The one time I come to Africa, and there’s too much rain,” I’ve been texting my friends back home.
We stayed inside the house in the beginning, it was Eid time anyway. But I was longing to go out, at least for a walk. So with his eyebrows raised and the never fading smile, for I was there with him, we went. Slow and premeditated pace in muddy streets was definitely a first for me, but Sudan brought many firsts in my life that month.
Rickshaw rides through flooded pools rather than streets. Showering with a bucket. Wearing hijab. Traditional Sudanese dishes. Sudanese henna. A wedding …
One year later I find myself across the Red sea in Jeddah where I miss the rain too much. I look very fondly on that month in Khartoum, when Toto’s song was stuck in my head for days on end. You know the one.