The Nile River BBQ
A strange picnic on the earth's longest river
The Nile River is an earthly icon. It conjures up imagery of sand dunes and oases, old movies of Moses and Nefertiti and arduous explorations to find the river’s source. It’s extraordinary history gives the Nile an aura of reverence.
Feeder rivers flowing into Lake Victoria provide the headwaters for the White Nile that dissects Uganda, enters South Sudan and traverses the full length of Sudan and Egypt, before running into the Mediterranean Sea. The Blue Nile emerges out of the Ethiopian highlands, slices an angular path through Sudan and provides the bulk of the water supply.
The White Nile and Blue Nile converge in Khartoum, Sudan to merge into the single, dominant Nile River. This is where I found myself wondering about the majesty of this ancient river, on a motorboat ride on a sunny afternoon.
[Photo: Shannon1, CC-BY-SA 4.0]
Strange things happen in remote or different places. This is a wonderful theme that highlights living outside America. The normal rules are dismissed and the opportunities to venture outside the norm increase in probability.
I spent eight months in El Obeid, in the middle of the desert, on an afforestation project. It was meant to last for two years. But when a military coup d’ etat overthrew the elected government, our USAID project was abruptly discontinued.
The aid community in El Obeid represented a hodgepodge of international assistance. There were Finnish foresters, Irish and American nurses, German road crews, United Nations health officials and assorted others.
Manal worked as a rapid rural appraisal specialist for one of the outreach programs. She was a twenty-something Sudanese college graduate with a passion for her people and a strong character that made you want to pay attention. We became intermittent friends in-between treks to Khartoum, her home, and El Obeid.
Relationships with Sudanese women, even friendly ones, took on an eggshell quality. As a single professional woman, Manal, who wore a loose fitting white headscarf, was always being over-watched by her Muslim cohorts. It was a constant dilemma, especially when working with western expats. In El Obeid, there were no after work coffee shop talks or walks in the park.
I often went to Khartoum for supplies or a few days off in the capital city. On one trip, I arranged to meet up with Manal to have dinner at her parents home. I waited in the lobby of the Acropole Hotel and she arrived with her usual smile and zest. We walked outside and jumped into the back seat of the taxi cab.
That’s when the trouble began.
Before the driver turned the key, an undercover policeman lowered his face to the open side window and spoke in loud, questioning tones to Manal in Arabic. He thought he caught a prostitute. But he caught hell instead. Manal was incensed. She tore into this plainsclothes cop like scolding a child who failed his school lesson. She demanded that we all go to the police station to settle the matter.
I was impressed. She didn’t miss a beat .. down. At the station, she gave the superior officer a tongue whipping over Sudanese manners and the disrespect afforded women with foreigners. She was on fire. I was starting to fall for her. How could you not!
We finished dinner with her parents and she asked me to met again the next day. She had a friend in town with a motorboat. Sudan spreads over a massive landscape filled with sand, dust and camels. So who the hell has a motorboat?
The next day was bright and sunny, as were nearly all days in the Sudan. I took a taxi to met Manal at a place near the river. She wore slacks, a pullover long-sleeved blouse and a scarf around her neck. I wore jeans, a t-shirt and a baseball cap. When going out in public, I never wore shorts unless playing sports.
We chatted about work for ten minutes and walked closer to the river’s edge. On a sandy spot filled with small rocks was a man waiting near a boat. It was a simple aluminum fishing boat with two rows of benches and a single outboard motor. Manal’s friend, Bashir, an older Sudanese man closer to the age of her father, greeted us and helped us get on board. We pushed off the flat bank and headed upstream on the White Nile.
As the wind blew against our faces, Manal wrapped the scarf over her hair, while I sat in wide-eyed silence. I was boating on the Nile River. Are you kidding me! I never even liked going to Lake Arrowhead back home in Texas.
But the atmosphere did not met the moment. It was too serene, too surreal. The motorboat cruised over the placid waters without a hint of historical sensitivity. I just kept thinking about how important this water source was to the economies of Uganda, Sudan and Egypt. I thought about how civilization sprung up along fertile lands arising from silt deposits of river overflow. It was not just a day on the water.
We floated on the stretches of the White Nile, about 50 meters wide, below the convergence point with the Blue Nile. Maybe our small craft could not handle the agitated waters where the two rivers meet. Bashir scouted out a sandbar near the bank and guided the boat to ground out. This soft, sandy landing was our picnic spot.
We took off our trainers and waded ankle-deep in the river water and silty sand. Bashir carried a shoebox-sized tin box and some supplies from the boat and laid them out in the sand. He opened up the top, flipped up the sides and popped the wire legs out. This was our BBQ grill. From a plastic bag, Bashir shook out some charcoal into the grill basin and added a splash of kerosene. He lit the pile with a match and started to prepare the fixings.
Manal and I chit-chatted away and checked on Bashir’s cooking from time to time. Soon after, Bashir said the food was ready and handed us each a piece of what looked like chicken. There were no paper plates, no plastic forks, just fingers. That’s the normal way in the Sudan anyway.
The chicken was hot and crispy, only small in size. It was tasty too. Manal and Bashir gave me a look to see if I liked the BBQ. My curiosity peaked and I asked Manal why the chicken was so small. She said it wasn’t chicken; it was pigeon. Oh, OK. I’ve never eaten pigeon before, but I’ve never sat on a sandbar eating BBQ in the middle of the Nile River either.
Bashir smiled and I asked for another piece.
Simple moments offer up grand memories. Eating pigeon is just an oddity. Spending the afternoon in a motorboat drifting along the White Nile, away from prying eyes, policemen, dogma, prejudice, interference, moral codes and other human stigmas is real freedom.
It was a day in my personal history that seems to honor the grandeur of one of the world’s most remarkable rivers.
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- Rick Scobi (@rickscobi)