"La shukran al-awajib".

“No thanks for duty”.

“La shukran al-awajib”, Ishmael pronounces as he resolutely brushes away my outstretched hand of money, determined that he will pay for my groceries, and the additional 4kg of mangoes and bananas he has directed the grocer to add to our bags.

This is the same grocer that each week lavishes us with discounted and ‘complementary’ vegetables, yet decisively deflects my thanks and gratitude with that same understated, unassuming utterance “la shukran al-awajib”, or ‘no thanks for duty’.

 This Arabic dictum always curtails my attempts to express gratitude, as though my feelings of appreciation and sense of indebtedness are unnecessary, even insulting to those who see serving me as their duty. ‘La shukran al-awajib’ is a sacred, almost unbreakable maxim of extreme hospitality.

 In most societies the traveller is equivalent to a ‘visitor’. Hospitality is extended only so far as contractual obligations compel; only so long as the pleasure of the host persists. The purpose of serving a visitor is essentially economic. Value derives from exploiting the visitor’s consumer mentality.

 It follows that travellers become engulfed by a tourist industry exclusively preoccupied with enticing them to buy into certain products or services. One is not compelled to be hospitable. Rather, the extension of hospitality is dependent upon the intrinsic, material value that a host may receive from choosing to be so.

 In contrast the Sudanese host sees it as a moral responsibility to be hospitable. The notion that this hospitality should be reciprocated, let alone paid for, is not merely alien but damn right rude. In this vein the traveller is equivalent to a ‘guest’ for whom every effort should be made to make life that little less burdensome, that little less costly.

 A visit to the market in Sudan is characteristic of this approach. In virtually every other country I have visited (with the exception of Pakistan) it is inevitable that I, as a white foreigner, will be charged a significantly inflated price, however vigorously I barter. Predatory pricing is common practice. Market vendors are advantageous, viewing travellers less as guests to be welcomed and cherished, than naïve and credulous fools primed for exploitation.

The Souq

 In Sudan the opposite is true: as a white foreigner I will (often) be charged less than the going rate. In fact it is commonplace for Sudanese friends to receive discounts when I accompany them to the market.

Tourism is non-existent in Sudan. Selfishly I hope this remains the case (although this is not to say that the lack of tourism investment and initiative is not a grievous missed opportunity). The total absence of a tourist industry, allows the traveller to enter into a far deeper, more personal relationship with Sudan and Sudanese people. Unfettered by the dollar signs which equate each traveller with financial gain, Sudanese people welcome you into their homes; not merely allowing but urging you to experience life from their perspective.

Mother of Ashes.

  Our trip to the village of Um-Ramad was testament to this spirit of generosity and sincerity. Meaning ‘mother of ashes’, the name Um-Ramad allegedly symbolizes the burnt coals of the ceaseless cooking provided by female villagers to passing travellers. As the duration of the journey from El Obeid to Um-Ramad passed 90 minutes - confirming that the 30 minute approximation had indeed been calculated by Sudanese valuations- and the heady smell of leaking oil was inducing delirium, this promise of food was alluring.

 Roughly an hour and a half to the West of El Obeid, our journey to Um-Ramad took us along dusty tracks linking the little known, oasis like villages of the Southern reaches of the Sahel. Heading in the opposite direction were nomadic camel and cow herds, aiming to reach Souq al-Nagar (the Camel Market) on the Western fringes of El Obeid, in time for the Saturday market. After journeying by foot from South Darfur for over three months, livestock in tow, the final destination must have seemed elusive, despite its relative proximity.

  At the journey’s half-way point the vast flatness of the landscape was briefly interrupted by the small mound of the Greater Nile oil pipeline, stretching from South Sudan, and the war-torn border regions, to Port Sudan on the Red Sea Coast. Crossing the pipeline I was struck by the stark dichotomy of this simple and bare region of scattered subsistence villages against the international significance of the oil pipeline. Soon enough the vast emptiness unravelled, revealing a few customary mud and stick houses that marked the near edge of Um-Ramad.

Um-Ramad

 Arriving in Um-Ramad, we were met by Mohammed , a colleague and friend who had kindly invited us to come to his home.  Quite possibly slaughtering a sheep to mark our coming, Mohammed and his family had gone all out to meet his village’s reputation for unparalleled hospitality. Joining us for breakfast were numerous cousins and neighbours, eager to both greet us and underline that we were free to visit their homes at any time. Exclamations of ‘Marhab’ (welcome) echoed from every direction and with each new visitor.

 After breakfast Mohammed and some male members of his family gave us a tour of the village. Considering its size, Um-Ramad has a large Souq selling many locally sourced products such as simsim (sesame) oil, cackadai (hibiscus), dried bamir (okra) and tomatoes. During the week the majority of these traders switch their operations to the larger market of Souq Wadi Keifa in El Obeid. Our progress negotiating the Saturday market crowd was slow; made yet slower by the relentless handshakes and small talk customary of Sudanese social etiquette.

 Escaping the throngs, Mohammed led us to the Western perimeter of the village and the ‘animal reservoir’ used by nomadic herds. Recuperating around the dwindling pool was a sizeable caravan of camels- perhaps 50 in number- owned by the Shanabla tribe. Understandably, the Shanabla ‘herder’ and his son, were initially reluctant to let us linger around their camels.

 Nowadays most of these nomadic tribes carry guns as a means to ensure the safety of their livestock in the increasingly lawless regions of West Kordofan, South Kordofan and Darfur. The sizeable risks they face inevitably encourages a mind-set of suspicion towards strangers. Nevertheless, once our Sudanese company had established that their tribes actually shared an amicable relationship with the Shanabla, the man’s demeanour softened considerably, such that he even ushered his son into our photo-shot!

'Shanabla' Camels

 Before leaving Um-Ramad, the women of the village had gathered to dance and wail us goodbye. Unfortunately Adam, our driver and security escort, was growing restless, worried that if we did not leave soon his lightless 1982 Toyota Pickup truck would not be able to navigate us home. Thus, loaded with us as well as 10 villagers looking to hitch a lift to El Obeid, the pick-up truck hastily started up again.

Romance in the desert

 Our race against the sun was a close run thing; we just about made it to the tarmac road, where we could hitch a lift back to town, before the darkness completely enveloped us. As a final gesture of generosity from the ‘Mother of Ashes’, the villagers handed us a sack of tomatoes; inevitably far in excess of what we could consume.

Conditional or unconditional hospitality?

Every effort is made to impress. Not only are we served up a feast at each new home  we visit, but our hosts, perhaps conscious of the overwhelmingly negative image of Sudan shown to the world, seem determined to reassure us that there is a kind, generous, welcoming, tolerant, rich, vibrant, traditional and youthful side of Sudan snubbed by the Western media.

 No doubt they have a point. Yet, the cynical side of me still wonders whether this hospitality would be so ubiquitous of our time in Sudan if I was not a (non-Jewish/ Israeli) ‘Khawaja’…. I am convinced that hospitality in Sudan is not always as unconditional as Sudanese people, and for that matter some non-Sudanese observers, like to think.

The kindness and generosity rendered to us embodies an unspoken acknowledgment of the Khawja’s pre-eminence; an internalization of an implicit racial hierarchy that frames the white man as the VIP. If one views unconditional hospitality as ‘supporting the transition of newcomers into the community without conditions’, I am afraid that I have received the red-carpet treatment while non-white travellers have been disregarded. 

Teaching in Sudan: challenges and criticisms.

Overwhelming expectation

Expectations can be overwhelming. The unrealistic optimism of ministry officials, teachers and students in the Khawaja’s capacity to cultivate English fluency in Sudanese schools bordered on delusional. It is fair to say that if these miraculous expectations constitute the benchmark of success, my results certainly fall well below par

At an abstract level the quality of spoken English has not suddenly improved over the course of the last six month. Moreover, there has been no tangible progress in establishing the intended ‘English Clubs’ and ‘Teacher Workshops’ (I put most of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the inactive ministry personnel). The weight of overwhelming expectation has the tendency to bring my inadequacies and inexperience as a teacher into ever sharper focus.

 Yet, observing the teaching of my colleagues such concerns soon fade into irrelevance. Complacently, I find confidence in their shortcomings. Not only does the question ‘how much worse can I be?’ seem reassuring, rather than an ominous tempt of fate, but my presence seems to have purpose as well as the considerable support of both students and teachers.

 English fluency, and critical thinking have fallen victim to decades of neglect and inattention. Teachers, whether bound or simply blinded by the existing English curriculum, curb student engagement in learning. SPINE led learning (Sudan Practical Integrated National English textbook- a title as mindless/ gobbledegook as the classroom instruction itself) has disenfranchised students.

Improving spoken English

We are part of a pilot program designed to improve the level of spoken English in Sudanese secondary schools. Under the leadership of the federal Ministry of Education, the program looks to reverse the damaging effects that aggressive policies of Arabization (since late 1980s) have had on the standard of English- particularly spoken English- in Sudan.

Some of our students

 The decision to change the language of instruction in Sudanese schools from English to Arabic made certain the deterioration of English. As an independent, post-colonial country, English was an invaluable resource that had the potential to set Sudan apart from many of its non-English speaking, developing country rivals. Instead, decades of neglect have left Sudan with its two youngest generations unable to communicate, and consequently compete, in an irreversibly global marketplace.

 While English still constitutes one of the core school subjects its teaching is plagued by incompetence and strategic failings. Teacher led-instruction, prioritization of accuracy over fluency and the neglect of speaking and listening skills, combines to leave most students (at least boys) in their last year of secondary school still unable to introduce themselves in English. The SPINE textbook is no doubt a considerable cause of this. 

 Teachers use SPINE as a kind of binding script, veering away from its text only for the purpose of translation to Arabic. The content is abstract, with chapters designated to such trivial garbage as ‘bird migration’. Reminders of Grammar are ever-present. Always, SPINE strives to be informative about Sudanese culture, ignoring the important association between a language and its cultural context.

 It follows that my main aim has been to improve speaking and listening skills among students. Interaction is at the core of these efforts. Where possible I have attempted to take a backseat role, giving the students the opportunity to speak and, importantly, think. Lessons have a functional focus that, devoid of the abstract drivel concentrated in SPINE, aims to utilize English through situational learning (eg. directions and invitations).

Abdul Karim end of year party

 In addition to my lessons I have taken a handful of English clubs. Due to scheduling difficulties, and a typical lack of urgency to resolve them, only one English Club has been fully established.  This is a shame as the relaxed, leisurely environment of the English Club prompts far more interaction than the more strict and rigorous format of my ordinary classes.

My school routine

My time is divided between three boys secondary schools: Ismahel al-Welli, Abdul Karim Hussein Jaffa and El Obeid ‘thanwiya beneen’. Over the course of the week I will teach about 15 periods to 15 different classes.  Given that one period is only 40 minutes it is unsurprising that progress can be slow. While the lazy side of me, euphemistically referred to as  ‘resourceful’,  recognizes that 15 different classes requires only one, maybe two, lesson plans; the earnest, hardworking side acknowledges that English advancement is limited with only 40 minutes a week to teach upwards of 60 students.

  Sudanese working life assumes a typically unhurried, leisurely pace.  The considerable time between lessons drifts unconsciously from one hour to the next. Amid the intermittent, two-way language lessons with my Arabic-speaking colleagues, discussions ebb and flow. Trivial conversations on football and WWE soon become consumed by engaging, sometimes impassioned, arguments on politics and the declining state of Sudanese society.

My colleagues at Ishmael al-Welli

 The time drinking shy/ jabanna, learning Arabic and lamenting about Sudan’s better days, drifts effortlessly by for the better part of the morning. Feeling as though the working day is yet to start the 11am breakfast has arrived. As is seemingly obligatory, the teachers and I once again stop for a protracted breakfast of fuul (beans) or adis (lentils) with bread.

 Unlike in the West, time in Sudan is infinite. It can be leisurely whiled away, unconstrained by the finite, Western bounds that see ‘time as money’. In Sudan time is never wasted. Rather, like the rich man who frivolously gives away money, the Sudanese teacher whiles away a few more hours. In this vein, my day takes shape…

*

One evening last week I received a phone-call from Ustaz Hussein, a colleague from one of the Boys Secondary Schools I teach at. Hussein’s phone-call, not unusually, regarded semantics; more specifically his planned designation of an English Summer School for students as a ‘Summer Concentration Camp’.

  Besides being considerably amused by this most unfortunate of gaffes (which is itself noteworthy), I was left astonished that Hussein, not only one of El Obeid’s most respected English teachers but also an English literature Phd student (albeit a Sudanese Phd…) , could be so oblivious to the connotations and context of this term. Over the past week I have come to view this bungled experiment with the English language as indicative of the wider failings of English language instruction in Sudan.

Unengaged and uninformed

 An Inflexible obedience to the curriculum, manifested by unyielding adherence to the SPINE textbook leaves the students and teachers completely detached from the cultural base that carries the English language. Whether by intention or not, the SPINE curriculum supposes that English can be taught without the ‘cultural baggage’ that accompanies it. Not only does this leave English lessons’ devoid of creative and engaging content but, more worryingly, consigns students, and teachers alike, to the perils of systemic ignorance. The consequences of this are that terms such as ‘Concentration Camp’ are lifted from their appropriate context, translated literally and ultimately, used erroneously.

I am under no illusions about the unfailingly low levels of English I have had to contend with in my boys’ secondary schools. Yet, it is not so much the low level of English as the interactive and communicative method of instruction that has presented my biggest classroom obstacle. Classroom utterances  of ‘ma inglesi…Arrabi! Arrabi’ leave me frustrated and perturbed rather than sympathetic or reflective. Exasperated I urge the students to ‘switch on their brains’. I let the long silences persist, determined not to spoon-feed the students appropriate words or dialogue.  It is such that the role-play on ‘directions’ becomes a battle of wills.

 On the one hand I obstinately persist, insistent that my class will instil at least an inkling of the creativity, critical analysis and assertiveness which is so thoroughly lacking in other classes. Thus, I wait; urging my students to at least attempt to utilize the newly gathered vocabulary to guide their partners around the fictional town outlined on the blackboard. Encouraged to ‘think’, the students are out of their comfort zone.   

 Thinking has become an alien concept in Sudan. In Sudan the teacher is the transmitter of knowledge; the students their passive recipients. The existing classroom environment prioritizes rote learning and memorization over student engagement and understanding. As one teacher trainer in El Obeid said ‘the students know nothing’.  Despairingly she anticipated the coming of age of a generation of leaders deprived of the ‘real knowledge’ necessary to navigate a more promising course for Sudan.

 Class time is overwhelmingly dominated by the teacher. With the duration of the lesson spent religiously regurgitating the content of the SPINE textbooks and simplified English novels (eg. Treasure Island), the teacher leaves little time for student involvement. Exams, simply in a reading/ writing format, are based entirely on memorizing this content. Teachers lack both the will and capacity to bestow their students with skills that go beyond the meagre ‘one word’ ‘fill in the blank’ demands of the exam curriculum. Learning literature by rote and grammatical accuracy are prioritized. Fluency is overlooked; creative impulse stunted.

An exception: dressed for their self-made English language play

 It follows that guiding a classmate around my blackboard town is beyond the passive student. Unable to flawlessly memorize either the teacher’s exact expression, or the abstract grammatical explanations misleadingly emphasised in SPINE, the student is frozen in his footsteps; incapable of solving the unexpected, undetermined problem that confronts him.

 Almost a fifth of my lesson has been consumed as I determinedly wait for my student to come to an answer of his own making. Neglected, the 79 other students in my class have become rowdy. My obstinate will to persist gives way to the spoon-feeding strategy. It seems that the classroom is a battle of wills that I will always lose.

A question of resources

Perhaps it is not so much the method of learning as the dearth of learning resources that blights English language instruction in Sudan. Hussein’s Concentration Camp gaffe seems insignificant when teachers are regularly misapplying fundamentals. During my time in El Obeid, I am yet to find a teacher who can correctly tell the time in English. Half past four, for instance, is ‘ four and a half’. Likewise, I have found no teacher who has mastered the word ‘ago’. Instead of ‘two years ago’, teachers will always say ‘before two years’. The language proficiency of English teachers in El Obeid falls far below any presumed minimal level of competence.

 Thus, far from being an asset to students’ comprehension of English the majority of teachers are, regrettably, a liability. Saturating students’ minds ‘with incorrect English- to the extent that teachers regularly interrupt students in order to ‘falsely correct’- the teachers are instilling flawed English in a whole generation.

 Communicating with the majority of English teachers entails a struggle that betrays their job title. The simplest question must be rephrased multiple times in order for its premise to be grasped. Quicker than anticipated, conversations reach a point of exhaustion. “Zuzu” represents the most worrying example of this dearth of competence within the English teaching profession. It is no exaggeration to say that even a question as basic as ‘Where are you from’ was beyond her understanding.

Teaching a class of first year girls, Zuzu was, predictably, out of her depth. Metaphorically, she drowned. I felt sympathy for Zuzu; bemused that someone so obviously incompetent and under-qualified had been permitted to teach a class of 70 girls. She spent the entire class incorrectly reciting the text book, only modifying her instruction to briefly, and inevitably incorrectly, write some misspelt ‘key words’ on the blackboard which the class would then recite. The rolling eyes of her students as well as their superior English ensured that the lesson was an exercise in her humiliation.

 The teacher-dominated classroom is in some ways inevitable given the enormous class sizes teachers must contend with. In a class of 80 teenage boys it is infeasible to expect to give each student the attention and supervision necessary for real progress to be made. Unfortunately I am left with a ‘greater good decision’: teach some students something or all students nothing. As such, I decide to leave the raucous back-rows (often those students whose parents lost out in the competition to render their children front-row seats) to their own devices; only intervening when their disorderliness threatens the remainder of the class.

  The six schools we teach in are all ‘Model Schools’. Enjoying model status entitles a school to a greater concentration of financial (higher school fees) and material resources than non-model secondary schools (although these resources are not apparent in the model schools).  Supposedly, the model schools are composed of the more academically gifted students, empowering them to acquire a reputation of excellence that other schools lack. However, the link between academic proficiency and model status is not straightforward.

 The make-up of the model school directly parallels that of El Obeid’s more affluent communities. Naturally, the more academically gifted emanate from educated households, more likely to be found in richer neighbourhoods. Conversely the less academically gifted originate from less educated households, more likely to be found in El Obeid’s poorer neighbourhoods. The model school is a clone of the most prosperous families

 Perversely, public resources are concentrated in communities most financially and socially able to acquire them. Communities which lack these means are left perpetually under-resourced. In order to retain their model status schools, not so secretly, manipulate academic statistics.

 Those students who achieve sub-standard results in their second year (of three) of secondary school are grouped in the same class. Although still receiving their education at the model school- and required to pay the higher school fees- these students are not permitted to undertake their Sudan Certificate Exams (the Sudanese equivalent of British GCSE’s) under the name of the school. Instead they sit the Sudanese Certificate registered as attendees of ‘evening classes’. It is therefore misleading and overly simplistic to say that model school students are academically gifted students. It would be more accurate to conclude that the model school is the domain of the (relatively) wealthy.

 Manipulating exam results ensures that the façade of the model school, with its heightened reputation and resources, is maintained. Yet, in reality the level of excellence implied by the title ‘model school’ masks the wholesale deterioration of secondary school education in Sudan.