Hajja Madina (2/6) The Shrine at Hamed Al-Nil and Sudanese Coffee Rituals

In this extract, Hajja Medina tells us how difficult life has become for women traders. She seeks spiritual comfort at the shrine at Sheikh Hamed El Nil, in Omdurman as she always does before she embarks on a journey, and explains why this is so important to her.

See https://wordpress.com/post/womensliteracysudan.blog/1392 to learn more about Hamed EL-Nil and the Sufi ritual of dhikr Hajja Medina refers to.

Title photo and above copyright Imogen Thurbon

And, as always too, before traveling, Hajja Medina organizes a coffee party for her friends and neighbors. A ritual to bless her travels, it also allows her to take orders and collect payment from her neighbors and customers.

The extract today includes many useful formulaic greeting and polite response expressions used in everyday interaction in Sudan. They are religiously-based and English translations can strip them of their full courtesy and elaborateness.

Below, transcript and brief explanatory notes on the dialogue from minute 7.00-15.00 of te Aljazeera documentary “Sudan, Coming and Going” (You can view the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYUe6VC28Go&feature=share).

Transcript and Notes

• 1 pressures (sing: DaghiT)
• 2 customs (duties) and agriculture
• 3 literally “ really, these women are suffering a bitter suffering.” Next line, hawjah; need/ necessity
• 4 (ever more difficult to) earn a crust; literally, morsel
• 5 shrine
• 6 I visit and attend the drumming (see photo above) and dhikr (see link above)
• 7 and there’s a moment of purity as everything that you have brought there weighing on your chest is released.
• 8 renew your spiritual life
• 9 invoke our Lord so that he will give success to …..

• 10 when I’m intending to travel
• 11 I make coffee (the traditional way)
• 12 spend an enjoyable time together, getting away from everyday worries and boredom.
• 13 child (Sudanese dialect, pl shuffa’), what a sweetie (literally our honey)
• 14 a word with many meanings, here; anyway/ anyhow.
• 15 May our Lord give you good health
• 16 It’s the same everywhere.
• 17 literally: the world is all in ruins / a mess
• 18 as 15, a formulaic expression used in greetings, to express thanks etc
• 19 asked after you
• 20 polite formulaic response to 19: May God bring them all the best
• 21 polite formulaic expression: may God give you wellbeing.

Dishes of boiled seeds or grains, often adzuki beans, known as baliilah, are offered to guests. This is often done as part of a blessing ritual (karaama) for new ventures, to give thanks, or to break fast.

• 22 May our Lord give her success
• 23 pull/ move the table a little …
• 24 Sudanese rituals
• 25 with incense, small china coffee cups and coffee pots (see previous blogpost)
• 26 as if you hadn’t honored him with hospitality
• 27 seal

To learn more about Sudanese tea and coffee and the poetry associated with it, see https://wordpress.com/post/womensliteracysudan.blog/1832

In the next episode, Hajja Medina talks about the traditional Sudanese foods, often used in herbal medicine, she needs to find and the things her neighbors ask her to buy. She begins her journey to Aswan, chats to restauranteurs in Aswan, catches up with friends and travels on to Cairo.