"In my small village, roosters crowing announce the morning. People wake up bright and early and start moving towards their farms, in particular the corn fields which are the most important ones because they are considered the main source of cash crops and food besides fruits and vegetables in the area.
I wake up very early to help my brother milk the goats, one by one. Then we help the little lambs suckling, after that we give the animals fodder and water which we often prepare at night. Our small kitchen lies at the side of the house which is made of wood, palm leaves and corn canes. At this moment, my mother is sitting there preparing tea with milk using a charcoal fire. Sometimes Sidr wood is used. I didn’t know what a gas stove was until my father returned one day from Libya, an oil-rich country. He brought back a gas stove that we used only in an emergency and that was rare. He also brought a radio (National) of average size. My older brother used to listen to Omdurman’s local radio station, and also the BBC, I think.
But the most important object was the JVC TV set, which was also brought back by my father. It was a 21-inch (black and white) TV. Once, my uncle, his brother and his friends tried to turn on the TV, using a lorry battery borrowed from my cousin. That evening, everyone gathered around – children, elderly people, women, men, people with disabilities and even blind people – to watch this new miracle, and we, my brother and I, were standing at the door telling people about the TV. We were running around and shouting loudly, "It speaks. It sings. It speaks. It sings songs." Just for a few minutes, we were pointing at the TV but there was no signal. And although the picture was very distorted, people were very excited and amazed. This is a part of the story about the TV set and the gas stove.
It is still early in the morning. All family members are sitting drinking tea. We – the children – are not allowed to drink tea or coffee. We are offered tea with milk and a corn pancake or biscuit. After breakfast, my cousins and I drive the cattle and goats grazing. We usually take some sugar, salt, some food for lunch and matches for a fire. We don’t forget to take along the neighbour’s dog to hunt rabbits and deer. In the afternoon, it gets very hot.
Hunting is our favourite hobby, especially hunting for big birds of prey in the migrating season, when they fill, in huge numbers, the plains and valleys. There’s a very good species of bird that we call Hubara. We would hunt them usually by setting traps that we covered with leaves and stakes around the nests. We sit nearby, waiting for the large preys. When we are successful, we happily take our game and sing:
Autumn is heaven’s gift.
Rain is our forever perfume.
For our souls....
Love is our food.
Plains are our carpets.
Tomorrow we will be fathers and grandfathers.
Life is so beautiful, my friends.
Here we are. Here we are. Here we are.
We keep singing, dancing, walking on the sand along the valley, picking fruit to fill our pockets. We climb to the mountain top to see the landscape, the green trees, the goats, the white clouds. We stay there for a long time.
When the gentle breeze starts blowing and the rain begins to fall, we think about our return. We descend to collect our things and drive our animals home before the flooding of the valley which would otherwise leave us stranded here away from our village and our people."
