| A Look at Khartoum |
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Page 1 of 3 Hell, it turns out, is 122 degrees, 95 percents humidity, and no chance of a frosty lager 
Photo by Matt Carr
While standing at the aircraft’s open doorway at 3 A.M., to be precise. Having read somewhere that it gets cold in the desert at night, I’d hurriedly put on a light sweater during deplaning, only to be struck at the door by a heat so intense that my first reaction was utter disbelief— shock, even. How hot was it? Since people always exaggerate this kind of stuff, I’m going to deliberately lowball it and guess 122 degrees with 95 percent humidity. “Pleasant, isn’t it?” the African man next to me said with a smile. “But be careful: During the day, it is hot.” I’d come to Sudan that autumn of 1986 to research a book my brother, Jon Lee, and I were writing, an oral history of various war zones around the world. Sudan, with a brutal civil war raging between the African, primarily Christian, tribes in the south and the Arab-dominated and Islamic central government, seemed a natural candidate for inclusion. After checking in to the Acropole, a funky old hotel popular with relief workers and journalists, I proceeded to explore Khartoum. Although searingly hot and incredibly dusty— if the roads were paved, the asphalt had long since disappeared under an ankle-thick layer of sand—the city did have a certain raffish charm. In the old part of town, the four- and five-story stucco buildings were painted ocher and fronted by peeling colonnades, vaguely reminiscent of Naples. The central bazaar was a cacophonous microcosm of North Africa, a melting pot of tribes and ethnic groups: Dinka, Nubia, Somali, Ethiopian. A little of this goes a long way, and by noon I was done. Ducking into the Hilton hotel, I made for the air-conditioned bar and ordered a beer. At this, the waiter gave an amused chuckle and gathered a couple of his colleagues to hear my joke. “We are under sharia[Islamic law],” one of them finally explained. “We don’t serve alcohol here.” “OK, so where’s the closest place that does?” I asked hopefully. The waiters conferred among themselves. “Egypt.” |
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