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City within a city
The place felt like a community was being recreated, made coherent through the cultural material goods and objects that were on display and for sale in their new, often temporary home.
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Recently, and while looking through the tens of pictures I have stored on my laptop, I came across a folder of photos reminding me of the glimpses of the lives my ‘Habesha’ friends had in Khartoum. The pictures were taken during various visits to friends’ homes in Al-Jirayf and Al-Sahafa, both neighbourhoods of Khartoum known for their large populations of Ethiopian and Eritrean migrants. I remember the sense of a city within a city that I had as we walked around Al-Jirayf taking in all the shops and restaurants where Ethiopian and Eritrean food and clothes, perfumes and hair products were on sale with large signs in Amharic displayed across shop doorways. The place felt like a community was being recreated, made coherent through the cultural material goods and objects that were on display and for sale in their new, often temporary home.
Most of the Ethiopians and Eritreans I have met, both inside and outside Sudan, have a fondness for the country; they are descended from the same tribes along shared borders; have passed through the country on their perilous journey to a better life in Europe or America; or they, or other family members, have settled in Khartoum. And while they got on well with ordinary Sudanese people, my friends would often complain about their constant battle with the absurd, and often exploitative encounters they had with the Sudanese police and authorities on the pretext of enforcing immigration rules.
I remembered the Ethiopian Orthodox church in Khartoum 2 whose bells and chanting went on for hours and the crowds of worshippers in their bright white dresses, trouser suits and shawls trooping towards it, children in hand. The Ethiopian street vendors lining the street outside the church with their grains, flours and spices and the many other colourful items laid out on the ground in front of them. And the more austere Protestant Church with their upbeat hymns, a building they shared with Sudanese Protestants from the Nuba mountains.
This was an immigrant population that had created around it a space that was reminiscent of home but which was open to their Sudanese hosts to sample and experience it. Zighni and injera were popularised while the Ethiopian coffee making ceremony, with all the paraphernalia of incense burning and popcorn making and the stools, low table and small coffee cups became a familiar sight.
Since the war, many of the Ethiopians and Eritreans who lived in Al-Jirayf and Al-Sahafa have been forced to leave, either to safer towns like many of the Sudanese, or back to their countries.
The idea of a city within a city, where people recreate ‘their homeland’ in a host country and attempt to practice their cultural heritage is a fluid process. It does not exist in isolation or to the exclusion of others because after all, they are a stone’s throw from their hosts and must adapt and find ways to live alongside them and within the host society. These cities within cities are a source of comfort, to remind them of who they are and where they are from, emphasising the difference between them and the host country but also the similarities and what can be shared.
Cover Picture © Sara Elnagar, showing Ethiopian, Eritrean Cemetary in Al-Sahafa
Recently, and while looking through the tens of pictures I have stored on my laptop, I came across a folder of photos reminding me of the glimpses of the lives my ‘Habesha’ friends had in Khartoum. The pictures were taken during various visits to friends’ homes in Al-Jirayf and Al-Sahafa, both neighbourhoods of Khartoum known for their large populations of Ethiopian and Eritrean migrants. I remember the sense of a city within a city that I had as we walked around Al-Jirayf taking in all the shops and restaurants where Ethiopian and Eritrean food and clothes, perfumes and hair products were on sale with large signs in Amharic displayed across shop doorways. The place felt like a community was being recreated, made coherent through the cultural material goods and objects that were on display and for sale in their new, often temporary home.
Most of the Ethiopians and Eritreans I have met, both inside and outside Sudan, have a fondness for the country; they are descended from the same tribes along shared borders; have passed through the country on their perilous journey to a better life in Europe or America; or they, or other family members, have settled in Khartoum. And while they got on well with ordinary Sudanese people, my friends would often complain about their constant battle with the absurd, and often exploitative encounters they had with the Sudanese police and authorities on the pretext of enforcing immigration rules.
I remembered the Ethiopian Orthodox church in Khartoum 2 whose bells and chanting went on for hours and the crowds of worshippers in their bright white dresses, trouser suits and shawls trooping towards it, children in hand. The Ethiopian street vendors lining the street outside the church with their grains, flours and spices and the many other colourful items laid out on the ground in front of them. And the more austere Protestant Church with their upbeat hymns, a building they shared with Sudanese Protestants from the Nuba mountains.
This was an immigrant population that had created around it a space that was reminiscent of home but which was open to their Sudanese hosts to sample and experience it. Zighni and injera were popularised while the Ethiopian coffee making ceremony, with all the paraphernalia of incense burning and popcorn making and the stools, low table and small coffee cups became a familiar sight.
Since the war, many of the Ethiopians and Eritreans who lived in Al-Jirayf and Al-Sahafa have been forced to leave, either to safer towns like many of the Sudanese, or back to their countries.
The idea of a city within a city, where people recreate ‘their homeland’ in a host country and attempt to practice their cultural heritage is a fluid process. It does not exist in isolation or to the exclusion of others because after all, they are a stone’s throw from their hosts and must adapt and find ways to live alongside them and within the host society. These cities within cities are a source of comfort, to remind them of who they are and where they are from, emphasising the difference between them and the host country but also the similarities and what can be shared.
Cover Picture © Sara Elnagar, showing Ethiopian, Eritrean Cemetary in Al-Sahafa
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