The Voyage of Destiny: 7 Masterpieces

By Adam Ahmed

Cultural differences are important in our world, can improve knowledge, and build bridges between ignorance and understanding. This book contains seven short stories that describe Darfuri village life and presents a people before conflict. It is a testimony of traditions and customs that disappeared because of war. The author believes that writing these stories helps keep traditions alive and preserve a way of life stolen by the ongoing conflict that started in 2003.

Understanding peoples cultural backgrounds is especially important now after the recent wave of immigration and the growing population of refugees around the world. This book aims to present those different backgrounds as cultural wealth and help people avoid conflict through understanding and human connection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514452400

Adam Ahmed

Adam Ahmed, or Adam Darfur, as some friends call him, was born in the village of Dissa, 170 kilometers from El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. Like many Darfuris, he does not know exactly when he was born. He, like many of his countrymen, was forced to leave his home in 2004, when the Janjweed killed more than five hundred thousand people and forced more than two and half million to live in IDP (internally displaced person) camps and refugees outside their home country. Adam wrote his book to tell the world about what happened in Darfur and the continuing crisis there. He is currently studying to be a social worker at Walden University and plans to work with displaced refugee women and children once he receives his degree. He hopes to visit Rwanda one day to learn from them and understand how they overcome their own conflict.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Adam Ahmed.

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-5144-5242-4

Softcover    978-1-5144-5241-7             

eBook         978-1-5144-5240-0             

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/20/2016

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CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter I:   Haj Sabor

Chapter II:   The smile of the deprived

Chapter III:   Moshrat

Chapter IV:   In your silence, a word

Chapter V:   Prisoners’ dreams (6*6)

Chapter VI:   Hawaya

Chapter VII:   City farmer

PREFACE

This book contains seven short stories of fiction most about Darfuri life. I wrote this to share the Darfuri character with others in hopes of educating people about this culture. Understanding our cultural differences can create compassion and respect, particularly for this population that has been scattered around the world after enduring genocide and civil war. I hope that people read this book and better understand the lifestyle and stories of the Darfuri people.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank everyone who supported me in making this book available. They have not just helped me, but they have helped Darfuris as well. 30% of this book’s proceeds will go to Darfuri refugee camps to help children with school supplies and help women who have survived sexual violence.

I appreciate their effort and dedication of time. They have helped me accomplish my dream of sharing Darfuri culture with the world.

Special thanks to those who helped me in translating and editing:

Patricia Kröll, born in Austria, has recently lived and worked for NGOs in the UK, Israel and Uganda. She became friends with me when she was working for Amnesty International in 2014.

Carla de Lello Lorenzi is originally from Campinas, Brazil. She has recently completed a MSc in Human Rights in London, United Kingdom and volunteered with the Refugees and Asylum Seekers Campaign of Amnesty International for six months.

Also I would like to thank Manon Manou, Sofia Wachtmeister, and Abdelkerim Omer who designed the book page.

THE STORY (1)

Haj Sabor

Haj Sabor was the leader of a village called Disy. Generous and wise, he solved all the problems in the village. Every morning, he got up early and greeted people. The only thing he feared was becoming rich. Even when he would solve a difficult problem for people, he would refuse to take money for it. Also, he helped people in the village build storages for harvest, called matmoras, by digging a big hole outside and putting corn leftovers in to keep the space dry, and he also built suebas (mud storages inside the houses). The common food was millet.

He loved to work in his small farm (jobraka). It was close to his village. Haj’s farm was not big, and people from the village came to help him. People helped him out of respect. He was married, but he did not have any children. His wife died because there was no doctor in the village; to get to the nearest clinic, you had to walk two days with a donkey. His life changed since she died, and for a year, Haj could not do anything; he did not even go to the farm, and all his chickens died because he forgot to feed them. He had only one rooster left. In order not to forget about him, Haj tied the rooster to his bed. At night, Haj would sometimes start talking to himself. Haj had one close friend, Haroun, whom he used to visit, but after the death of his wife, he stopped doing so. His friend was rich; he had three farms and is very busy. He came home late, so he never had time to visit Haj. They hadn’t seen each other for four days, so one day, Haroun decided to come to see how Haj was doing. When he arrived, he saw the door locked from the inside (tied with a robe, as people in the village usually do). It was daytime, so it was weird that Haj was at home. He knocked the door a few times, but Haj did not answer, so he put his hand between the wall and the door and opened it; locking the door was mostly to prevent animals, such as goats, from entering the house and making a mess. Haroun understood it was very strange, as it was harvest season and nobody would stay at home during that time.

Haroun opened the door and got inside Haj’s house, and he found his friend lying on his bed, but not sleeping. He did not react to Haroun’s arrival and did not get up from the bed. This is the first time he did not get up when his friend came. Haroun asked, Are you fine? He answered, Yes. Haroun sat beside him and started talking to him. Haj told him that he decided to leave the village and go to the city. Haroun could not believe what his friend was telling him. Haj was such an important person in the village. After a few minutes, he asked, Why do you want to leave? What happened? Haj answered, Nothing happened. I just suffer and cannot work. After Haroun left, he had to go to work.

Haroun returned the next day and tried to persuade his friend to stay, but Haj had already made up his mind. He had nothing left—no money, no food, and only one rooster.

The following Friday, he tied his rooster by the legs and took him on his back. He walked to Tamad where the market was so he could take a car from there to the town. While he was on the way, the villagers were surprised to see him leaving and tried to persuade him to change his mind. Many people offered him a donkey to make his way easier, but he refused and went on foot.

Haroun gave him one pound, which was enough to buy some food for the day and pay for the car to go to town. At the market, a friend invited him for breakfast. As he ate, he wondered why there were no cars at the market yet. He stayed for some time, waiting for cars to come. The friends left the restaurant and went to a café to continue waiting. The café belonged to a man called Kinjar. Everybody in the village knew him and would go to rest there. Haj Sabor met many people, who were surprised by his desire to leave. They would tell him, But our village is very nice. It is a good place to live. All morning, people spoke only about Haj Sabor leaving the village.

It was already around 4:00 p.m., and there were still no cars. People already started going back to the village, and Kinjar was about to close his place. He offered to go with Haj Sabor, but Haj refused. Somebody suggested Haj go with him to the closer village and see if cars will come tomorrow, but again Haj refused. Until sunset, no car appeared. Haj Sabor was left alone in the market. He had nothing to sleep on there, but he decided to stay the night anyway. He walked around the market and found some carton to lie on. Haj put one of his flip-flops under his head for a pillow. The only thing he was worried about was his rooster, because he did not give it enough food during the day. Early in the morning, he woke up as he heard chirping. The first thing he did was check on his rooster if he was still okay. He walked around the market and found some leftover corn for his rooster.

After an hour, he saw an old woman named Asha; she was walking to her farm. She never saw anybody sleeping around the market area; it was strange, and so she came closer to see who it was. She asked him why he was there, and he told her his story. She went home to fetch him some water. When she returned, she explained why there were no cars. There was a lot of rain, she said, and some of the valleys on the way from town were flooded, so cars could not pass. She told him the cars would come; he just needed to wait. And then she left him alone. Asha made him relaxed. He was worried at the lack of cars, but now he knew that he just needed to wait. All the while he was looking at the place where the cars were supposed to pass. At 11:00 a.m., he saw the first car arriving. When other people who stayed the night in the village nearby heard the sounds of the car coming, they all started coming to the market.

To get to a car, one needs to cross a big valley with a cart. The valley is about a hundred meters long. People needed to walk in the mud to get to the cart.

When he got there, one of his flip-flops broke because there was a lot of mud.

Haj bent down to fix his flip-flop, and when he did it, his one pound fell from his front pocket to the water. He tried to find his pound, as without it he would not be able to pay for the cart and cross the valley. During that time, his rooster died. The man with the cart agreed to help him and did not take money from him.

Haj saw a car driver. He asked if he can take him to the town without money, as he lost his pound and couldn’t sell his rooster yesterday at the market. However, the driver didn’t agree to this, so Haj Sabor waited for other cars. There were many other people waiting to go to town, so the drivers of the second and third cars didn’t agree to take somebody without money. Haj Sabor had to wait until sunset when the last car came. There were a few people left, and the driver agreed to take him for free. When they started moving, there were many clouds in the sky. People in the marketplace advised the driver not to go now; it might start raining, so he should wait. It could be a problem if the rain caught them on their way. But the driver decided to go anyway, because he had some business in town the next day. He already lost some time because of the rain and came to the market late. Now he didn’t want to lose more time and wait. One of the shop owners gave him some waterproof material that covered the whole car. Just about ten minutes after they left the market, it started to rain. It began slowly, but the more they moved, the harder it rained. The driver tried to drive fast to avoid getting stuck in the rain. The place where they were passing was mud, and the rain made it hard for the car to pass. When they got to a place where there was sand instead of mud, he forgot to slow down, and the car fell and turned to its side. The driver got out of the car to check what happened. Luckily, nobody was hurt. The driver asked people to get out of the car and help him put it back on its wheels. When they did, they saw that it was now stuck in the sand. For Haj Sabor, it was his first time to go to town with a car. Usually he would go with other villagers who had donkeys, and it would take about a day. So he asked the driver if it happened every time. The driver explained that it was not always like this, but it’s also not the time to discuss; they needed to work. The drivers usually take somebody with them from the city, so there will be somebody to help. But this time the driver was alone. The person who would usually come with him was unavailable this time—he needed to go help his mother. She lived in the town but had a farm not far from there. The driver gave the passengers two shovels to dig with in front of the wheels, and later they used the sajad, which are pieces of metal that people put under the wheels so they could get the car out of the sand. The driver got to the car, and the others started pushing the car from behind. It didn’t help, so the driver got out and put another sajad under the back wheels. This time it helped, and the car started moving. While they were pushing the car, Haj Sabor lost his documents. They fell from his pocket.

They arrived at the gate of the town at 1:00 a.m. The guard asked the driver why the car came during the night. He explained the situation, but the guard decided to check the car. He told all the passengers to get out and show their documents. Then Haj Sabor noticed his documents were missing. The guards didn’t let him pass and told everybody to stay until the morning when the officer comes. The guards investigated Haj Sabor during the night, because they saw that he was not from the area. Early in the morning, the officer let them go. Quickly, they went to the market, where the driver asked everybody to leave. Haj Sabor didn’t know anybody in the town. He came to the driver to ask how he could find him once he had money to pay for this ride. The driver didn’t have time, and he just wrote his car number on a piece of paper and gave it to Haj Sabor; no one had a cellphone or an e-mail address.

Haj Sabor didn’t sleep the previous night, so the first thing he decided to do was to find a place to rest. There were shops around, and he couldn’t find a better place to sleep other than on a carton in front of some shop. A couple of hours later, the shop owner came. He woke him up and kicked him out because he was sure Haj Sabor was a beggar. Haj Sabor tried to talk to him, but he didn’t want to listen to him and threatened to call the police. So Haj Sabor had to leave. He walked through the town and saw the children who cleaned the shoes. They laughed and made jokes about him.

Early next morning, Haj was sitting at the bottom of a tree, resting because he had not eaten for more than two days. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw many small children sitting in the shadow of the tree offering to shine shoes of passersby. When the children spotted Haj, they began laughing at him again because he was a villager and behaved as if he was in a village even though he was in a city. One of the