Before me was a sprawling slum which was poverty incarnate: makeshift shacks, seedy alleys, valleys dotted with fresh and dry cakes of shit, bare-chested skinny kids in tatters, an open-air market buzzing with green flies, dump heaps suffocating with rot, scavenger dogs and cats sleeping in the shade of kiosks, donkeys carting drums of saline drinking water, smelly severed goat heads with gnashed teeth roasting on a hot grill. The smell of poverty pervaded and perverted the mind.

Despite all these I felt pleasantly dead in this oblivious world as I trailed behind a volunteer escort. He wore unkempt hair that was dusty. His unwashed and crumpled clothes smelled of stale sweat, dirt and poverty. His muddy feet felt unwelcome in a pair of flip-flops that did not match. He stopped to beg for a pinch of snuff from another slum dweller with a protuberant lower lip that bagged a ball of quid. They exchanged pleasantries and spat in parallel directions.

"I’m escorting this visitor to Juma. He came from Juba, sorry, I mean Khartoum," said the escort, pointing at me with an index finger with overgrown, dirty nail. "Welcome to Port Sudan, man. And feel at home, man," said the other man as he extended a hand with a network of bulging veins. We shook hands as if we knew each other before. His beer breath hit my face with crude friendship. The man’s breath and firm handshake summarized the life ahead of me. My mind raced into an obscure and insecure future recycled from the present trash. It was humid and I felt thirsty and homesick.

As we approached a dingy kiosk, a simple structure of soft wood cardboard, plastered with posters of European soccer stars and anti-polio campaign, I could hear the singing of a sewing machine. The singing of the machine evoked distant memories of shop verandahs in Juba lined with sewing machines pedaled by home boys brought up on cassava and bush meat. My escort stood in front of the kiosk. He looked at the man behind the sewing machine and then smiled in my direction. "Juma, I bring you a visitor from Juba, no, the national capital Khartoum. Look at your visitor, do you know him, look." The tailor’s head jutted out of the window of the kiosk like a man peeping out of a moving train. Our eyes met, then we exchanged smiles. I’ve never met this man before. He smiled sheepishly as if trying to locate me. To avoid an embarrassing situation I told him that my name was Pio, the son of his cousin brother who passed away a decade ago. "Son of my brother, welcome to salty Port Sudan." He jumped out of the kiosk, embraced my small frame and shook my hand vigorously. I forgave him for the vigorous handshake, for he knew not that I was starving. Maybe this was how folks here greeted people.

As we got into a small banter my escort waited all the while impatiently, shifting from one leg to the other. I didn’t know what he was waiting for, until I saw my uncle dig his hand into his trouser pocket. When he removed it, he squeezed something into the escort’s dirty palm. Without a word of goodbye, he entered a dingy, makeshift building with a porous fence. There were murmurs, laughter of women and arguing masculine voices. Some of the people who emerged from there moved with unsteady steps. This was the way of life here. And if you lived here or at the periphery of the slum, you learned to live that way. The slum dwellers drank to drown their sorrow of living below the poverty line. Men drank, women drank, and even children drank. They drank merisa – a fermented brew that came in buckets and scooped with small bowls or calabashes.

Days rolled into weeks, and weeks became months and the military junta that seized power in a military coup began to dig its roots deeper to entrench and consolidate its position as a power to be reckoned with. Commercial Banks and government parastatals went up in smoke; money and vital documents disappeared in thin air as loyalists of the regime amassed stolen wealth. For now I must forget the idea of ever going to Spain. Not for now, maybe not forever.

Within a few months of my arrival to Port Sudan my life was reduced to a daily routine, dull and boring. I woke up at 6am. With a toothbrush in my mouth, I often joined the early risers in the slum, down the cobbled valley, unbuttoned and unzipped and lowered my pants to my knees. Then mechanically I squatted, to ease myself within the view of all and sundry. This is where transparency is made visible. Women, with assorted bums and complexions also relieved themselves here. We used all sorts of wipers for cleaning up: rough cement paper bags, newspapers, water, stones, twigs. It was a pleasant experience easing oneself in the open, where one communed with or even cursed nature with abandon. At night the valley turned into a den of fornicators and drug abusers.

I became part of the slum community and often contributed ideas towards the betterment of life among the youth. I painted pictures to illustrate the dangers of the major twin killer diseases: malaria and HIV/AIDS.

I was part of the communal life, but I badly needed work to support myself materially. My first job was at a tyre plant. I hated the menial work, but I loved the money. I hated the work because I was told that the carbon monoxide shortened people’s lives. Other people before me hated the labour too. One folk I suspected from the south like me hated the factory and his immediate bosses who were bullies. He had no kind words for them in graffiti scribbled on the wall of a toilet:

I labored for one month and fired on the second for plotting a workers’ strike. I was more than happy to leave before carbon-induced cancer corroded my lungs. I took my last pay and threw it into the lap of a Nubian woman whose artificial hair tickled the valley separating her nipples. Her ever smoke-filled home was like a crèche. She had a dozen kids from a dozen men who were tax evaders. They gained nothing and lost nothing. She took my money and lectured me on the New Testament. She said it was not an accident that Jesus Christ had thirteen apostles. And anyway, according to her, the thirteenth apostle, the one called Iscariot, was a reject who on his own volition experimented with suicide. Whenever I felt lonely I would pay the Nubian woman a visit, to drink ereqi, listen to Nubian music from a battered cassette player. Each night I slept on her rope bed I dreamt of Nubian harems and Nubian murals.

One day I went to play cards at the Community Center. That lucky afternoon I won the game that earned me some little cash. I bought a sandwich and some cigarettes. I ate the snack and planned to smoke the cigarette when I got home. My uncle was still at the kiosk enjoying the singing of the sewing machine. When I parted the gunny sack curtain of our entrance, the cardboard door was ajar and the padlock lay forlornly on the dirt floor. When I entered the shack I nearly fainted. The shack was swept clean of our earthly belongings. "Shit! Shit! And stinking shit!" I shouted at the top of my voice. I missed my books, but not the clothes. I was reduced to the jeans and worn-out T-shirt I was wearing. But it was fun sleeping in a pair of boxer shorts with a torn front, which made peeing an easy affair.

After the theft, the Nubian woman wanted to take me under her wings. I refused. I wanted independence. I wanted to go away, far away from this fucking life of grinding poverty, slum madness, and what not. Did I hear a voice say second-class citizen? And who is the first-class citizen, anyway, the president and his wife and well-fed kids? I wanted to break free from this open prison. My parole was over and I just wanted to disappear and reappear among total strangers who would not know my past and immediate present, other than being just a mere mortal, hoping to make meaning out of my miserable life.

It might have been a long a slumber of sorts; but honestly I never knew that date. The year was 1990, all right, I remembered vividly because Nelson Mandela was walking a free man. The year I remembered, yes, but not the month, not even the day of the week. Does it bother me? I had no sense of time either. I was broke, starving, dreaming of nothing. I was trapped in a time warp.

It was a quiet evening, and humid. And there I sat by the Red Sea. I threw pebbles into the transparent waters of the Sea, counting my age backwards but the glorious past was irretrievable like the memory of a crashed computer. The file was corrupted and therefore I needed to restart my life all over. I looked straight in the horizon. And I saw a tired ship groaning with cargo flying a strange flag. From here it would proceed southwards, to Mombassa, Maputo, Port Elizabeth, and then it will sail back to Port Said, and onwards in its rotation of the world. Maybe that is the ship that would bear me to Spain, or if I’m tossed overboard I would drift on the back of a shark that would transport me to Calcutta or even Papua New Guinea to be initiated into the black brotherhood by eating termites and herbs. The ship began to hoot tootoooooot huhuhuuuuu like a prolonged fart. I’ll camp here tonight and when the tired ship docks and is relieved of its cargo, I’ll pretend to be a ship cleaner. That will be the only golden opportunity for me to slip in and hide in the basement among the rats, cockroaches, spiders and spirits of the sea.

Darkness embraced the sea, except for the beacons in the distance. Behind me lay the sleepy city twinkling with bulbs of dull colours. The pangs of hunger began to torment my tummy. Mosquitoes menacingly sung unwelcome choruses of malaria in my ears. I helped my light frame up and trudged back to the city. I felt heavy carrying an invisible question mark on my head. I decided to pass by the Meriekh Football Club to play dominoes or cards for money; and if I win I will have some beans and a maimed piece of bread and probably drink some tea if I’m lucky enough. I hate playing dominoes with those Bedouins, I must confess. They insult me a lot. Sometimes I imagine cutting off their large ears that stick out like artificial appendages. I can imagine how these chaps would look like without their ears. Maybe they would look like chickens without wings? Hunger knows how to plug a bloke’s ears from insults, anyway, I convinced myself.

. The club was full that very tonight. When a good number of ships dock at the port they bring cargo and sailors and money and sexually transmitted infections. I booked for a game and went to sit on a rickety wooden bench to watch TV. There wasn’t much in the news except for the usual religious sloganeering, propaganda and Egyptian soaps. I was terribly fed up with these state lies. I eyed the steaming metal pot of horse beans near the cashier’s table. My mouth watered. I looked at the cashier counting a wad of worn-out, oily and dirty banknotes. I envied his position because at least for him he doesn’t sleep on an empty stomach, not even on the day of the last military coup. Although the bulb glowed dimly, my eyes fell on a crumpled piece of something that looked like a dry leaf, or was it a piece of cloth or a talisman? But the harder I looked at it the more it resembled money. My mouth went dry and I felt guilty without committing any crime. I walked over to the cashier’s table. The cashier was busy arranging his wad of money like a pack of cards according to the denominations. I stood before the cashier pretending to buy some food. I dug my right hand into my empty pocket and removed it with a clenched fist. "Oops!" I exclaimed, pretending my money fell in the sand. I bent over the object I saw before, grabbing it with a shaky hand; and by God, it was a wallet. I didn’t want to know who might have lost it. Instead I straightened myself and looked directly in the eyes of the cashier who seemed not to notice a thing. "Maybe I’ll eat after my game?" I said this aloud to no one in particular, although I really wanted the cashier to hear. And I went away without playing the game either.

I entered Abbas Restaurant and went straight to the toilet as if I had a running stomach. I looked around the four walls of the toilet, painted with murals of shit. I reached for my trouser pocket and fished out the slim leather wallet. I held my breath and opened it. My! My! My eyes popped out when I saw the contents of the wallet: a one hundred dollar bill and a coloured passport-size photograph of a young woman with an aquiline nose, thin lips, and heavy mascara lined her eyebrows, and her hennaed hair was half covered with a white veil. The woman’s photo made me happy although I didn’t know her. Even if she was an image, for me she was God-sent. However, what saddened me most was the dollar note. I was broke and badly needed money but it was not American money that I was looking for. The dollar in my pocket was like walking with death in my pocket. It was a curse. If the state security agents caught me red-handed with it the kangaroo courts would not hesitate to send me to the gallows without giving me a chance to tell them how I stumbled on the American money in the first place. I would be labeled an agent of imperialism, colonialism, Americanism and other isms you can think of. Curse the military junta!

There was a feast at the Nubian’s place. Three of her boys underwent circumcision that morning. The cut had nothing to do with initiation of passage, but simple hygiene. Even men who were not circumcised when they were boys, were now going to the hospital to be circumcised, they said; ‘it reduces the chances of getting HIV/AIDS.’

In the backyard, Nubian women were outdoing each other in the art of cooking and making salacious remarks about the occasion. "Circumcision is good for men. It is healthy. A circumcised dick is better than one with a hanging forehead. Me I can’t sleep with an uncircumcised man," declared another woman’s voice.

"Sister, a dick is a dick, circumcised or not," interjected another one amidst laughter.

"But I told you I just can’t sleep with a dirty uncircumcised thing," insisted the other one.

"Look at this penis discriminator," shouted another woman. The other one slapped her palms and said, "Rania, you’re really ignorant, haven’t you been told that AIDS lurks in the loose skins of uncircumcised dicks?" The women laughed at this as the delicious aroma of cooking food escaped from the Nubian’s backyard: sizzling onions, assorted spices, peanut butter, barbecue. There was also an overwhelming feminine scent lingering in the vicinity. It is during ceremonies, funerals and suchlike festivities that the Sudanese woman exhibits her unique, innovative cooking skills. Woe to a Sudanese woman who is a bad cook, her husband will be snatched by other women who cook to conquer the heart of a man. They say; "the route to a man’s heart is through his belly."

The Nubian sent one of the parking boys to fetch a block of ice for cooling drinking water. The weather was damn hot. Everybody was sweating, worse for the women who were cooking food for the visitors. They sweated profusely and continued to crack salacious jokes. After all, wasn’t the occasion a constant reminder to warrant such loose talk?

The men on the other hand were discussing matters to do with the security of the slum. Not about thieves or rapists or conmen. They talked about the police. The previous morning a truckload of them descended on the slum in their regular swoops on the slums in the Port city. Whatever their motive was this time, I swore they wouldn’t get any clue to where I hid my dollar. I had folded it into a polythene paper and sewed it in the waist of my jeans trouser. All the same I had panicked just like anyone else in the slum. The Nubian was an illicit beer queen. And since she got into the business almost a decade ago, she has been bailing other imprudent women, but she has never landed in jail for possessing or selling illicit drinks. Some women whispered that she had a charm that kept police at bay. But besides that, she had good connections with the powerful people of the law: army officers, police officers, Customs officers, Port officials. She brings them virgin girls to shut their eyes, ears and mouths.

The circumcised boys sat on a mat. They wore loose calico robes locally known as Jallabia. They ate cakes and candies to assuage the pain of their manly wounds. They enjoyed the company of other kids from the neighbourhood. They talked in low tones and giggled. The boys’ mother, the Nubian, coordinated the agenda of the occasion, moving from the makeshift kitchen in the backyard, giving orders to the young ladies to supply the men in the makeshift shade with more free beer. She also made sure the circumcised boys stayed put. "Boys, if you know that you are circumcised and it hurts, remain where you are seated, don’t even think of sneaking out to play football," the Nubian warned the boys who affirmed with a lazy nod of their heads.

The afternoon became old and the young evening gave meaning to life. There was eating, drinking, talking and laughing. The revelers had kind words for the Nubian. They praised her for being a successful single mother. Who doesn’t reap praises for supplying people with good food and beer free of charge? I was even amply supplied with a packet of Benson & Hedges cigarettes.

In a low tone one of the guests who I knew asked me about the war in the south. I raised my thumb up. He smiled. "I hear the Nuba and the Westerners are joining the war?" He remarked questioningly. I told him that the war had united all the marginalized people of the Sudan, and quickly changed the topic to something else, for you could never trust a character who posed like a brother.

"I hear they are planning to raze the slum soon," said one man who sounded a bit tipsy. But another elderly man who didn’t give a hoot about informers announced, "let them raze it, but only if they want to turn the slum into a killing field. Let them dare, if they want to turn this place into a lake of blood!"

Then there was a dance until the wee hours of the night. The men beat drums improvised from tins, benches, chairs. The women sung, thumped the ground with their feet and ululated. The women enticed the men with a suggestive dance. With their braids and artificial hair they swung their heads left and right, the artificial hair hitting their left and right shoulders, while their palms worked on their bums, imitating a drum beat. And as they slapped their buttocks in unison they produced a rhythm that sent the men into frenzy. I reeled home when the cocks were about to crow.

When I woke up the following morning my head pounded like a drum. I lost appetite, and each time I belched there was an unpleasant smell of rotten egg in my mouth. I had constipated. I forced myself to take bath when the Nubian sent for me. This woman knows matters to do with beer and hangovers, but I never knew why she has failed to maintain a husband. She had prepared some breakfast for me. I ditched the solid food and concentrated on the green peppered goat leg soup. Sweat exploded from my forehead, arms and armpits, and I felt alive again.