Growing up in  a Sudanese Nile Village

Awad Abdelrahim Abdelgadir

The lion is known as the king of the jungle, but the king of the Nile is the crocodile. Since our village is located right on the bank of the Nile, it is not surprising that there are many stories about crocodiles. Some of the stories are legends and some are rumors, but others are true. In my boyhood, I not only saw some scarred survivors of encounters with crocodiles but also witnessed a crocodile attack on two of my friends.

Our saintly ancestor, Sheikh Abdullah Tor Kulum-Mesid (God's Mercy Be Upon Him), is believed to have performed many miracles in his lifetime. One of the greatest miracles he performed was when he turned a crocodile into stone. This miracle cannot be disputed, as the proof still exists today. The stone crocodile lies on the floodplain below the mosque of Kulum-Mesid. The massive flood of October 1988 covered the stone crocodile with silt, but a future flood will surely uncover it again.

Sheikh Abdullah Tor Kulum-Mesid (God's Mercy Be Upon Him) was at that time the imam of the mosque and the teacher of the Quranic school. One day, it is said, he sent one of his students from the mosque down to the Nile with a pitcher (ibrig) to fetch water for washing in preparation for prayers. When the boy didn't return, the imam and the students went down to the river to search for him. To their dismay, they found only the pitcher lying on the bank and they realized that he had been taken by a crocodile.

The imam washed himself and sat and prayed on the bank of the river. He prayed and prayed until all of the crocodiles came out of the Nile and approached him. He asked for the crocodile that had eaten his student. The biggest of the crocodiles stepped forward and the imam told the others to return to the water. The big crocodile then vomited up the boy's body. The sheikh took his pitcher and mounted the crocodile. He sat on the crocodile's back and washed ¬and prayed. After praying, he hit the crocodile on the head with his prayer beads and the crocodile turned into stone.

After that, Imam Abdullah had a sword brought from the village and k had some verses from the Quran written on the blade. He placed the sword on the water of the river and it floated, carried north by the current. It floated several miles past the village and then sank. From that time on, it was believed that for a hundred years no crocodile would attack along the: stretch of the river where the imam's sword had floated.

But during my childhood, the imam's protection ran out. A crocodile attacked two of my friends within the stretch where the sword had floated. The attack took place on a Sunday; it was the market day in Suq as-Sair, a town across the Nile from our village. On that morning, along with other villagers, I put my donkey on the wooden sailboat that ferried us across the Nile. I was going to the market to sell some lemons from our lemon farm and buy some meat and vegetables for my family, as I usually did on Sundays during my summer vacation from school.

After returning to my village, I went with my friends for a swim in a large pool by the Nile. The pool was like a crater in the riverbank filled with ¬water and connected to the river by a small channel. Although this pool was considered to be a safe place, parents would punish their children anytime they swam. Whenever they punished their children, the parents reminded them that the one hundred years of protection had expired, so that anyone in the water was in danger of being taken by a crocodile. After we swam, we would hide in the bean fields and rub dirt on our arms and legs to cover our disobedience .

While we were swimming in the pool, a group of boys on donkeys coming from the market passed by on the way to their village to the north. These boys were older than me and my friends and they teased us for swimming in the protected pool, calling us babies. They invited us to come swimming with them in the open Nile and then laughed and hurried away on their donkeys, leaving us in a cloud of dust.

We finished swimming and prepared to head home. But we heard the sound of the older boys laughing and splashing in the Nile, and we couldn’t resist the temptation to join them. We went to the river bank and watched, hesitating to enter the water of the big river. There were at least fifteen boys ¬swimming near the anchored sailing ferry. I wanted to get in the water with them, but I was afraid of being punished. While we were standing by a pile of clothes and shoes guarded by the smallest boys, a boy named Mohammed took off his clothes and entered the water. I saw him greeting his friend Mustafa; they were standing in the shallow water.

Suddenly, chaos erupted. The open jaws of a crocodile followed by half of its huge body rose from the water between the two boys. With a twist of his body, he grasped them both in his jaws and forelegs and he dragged them under the water. I don't know if he was able to hold onto both of them, or if he held onto Mustafa, who clung to Mohammed. All we could see was the splashing and stirring of the water, which became increasingly muddy. I stood staring at the water, frozen in shock as in those bad dreams where you need to run but can't move. Naked boys erupted from the water and ran in every direction. Mohammed and Mustafa were still under the water. The crocodile was sitting on them, waiting for them to suffocate, in its usual way of killing its prey. After two or three minutes, Mohammed burst from the water, gasping for air and grabbing at the waves, struggling to reach the bank. Wounded and bleeding, he fell by the pile of clothes and vomited river water.

At the same time, the commotion of the screaming naked boys running into the village had roused the ladies from their housework. A group of women, including Mustafa's mother and sister, ran to the riverbank. When they arrived, the crocodile rose out of the water in front of them, lifting and shaking Mustafa's body in the air. In order to restrain Mustafa's mother and sister from leaping into the water in a mad attempt at rescue, the other women had to push them to the ground and sit on them. Soon the screaming and wailing of the women brought almost everybody in the village to the riverbank.

A group of men led by Sheikh Abdelmajid, owner of the only shotgun in the area, piled into the sailboat in an attempt to recover the body. Somehow, I was able to get into the boat along with the men. They set off after the crocodile, heading in his direction, when they saw him surface for air, carrying the body. Imagine trying to chase a crocodile in a sailboat! The crocodile couldn't swim fast with his burden, but he could out-maneuver the large wooden boat. At one point, the tired crocodile climbed out onto the bank, dragging the body. He came out near where the women were wailing and picking up dirt, throwing it into the air and rubbing it onto their heads in grief Mustafa's sister threw a stone at him in rage. He retreated to the water, and the chase continued. Eventually, the crocodile disappeared with the body, and the men finally had to give up the chase.

The crowd returned to the village; they all went to Mustafa's house to grieve and offer condolences. The search for his body continued for several days, but it was never found. Mohammed was taken to the clinic, where his wounds were treated. His face is still scarred from the attack, and he bears the nickname "Crocodile" (Timsah). The village recalls the incident with sadness but also with humor. One of my friends who was swimming that day was later found huddled naked in the palm trees by a group of ladies, and some people tease him about that to this day.

Not all victims of crocodile attacks were as unfortunate as poor Mustafa; the village contains several scarred survivors in addition to Mohammed (Timsah). One hot summer day, a boy named at-Toum went swimming in the Nile. After he had gotten away from the bank, he was attacked by a crocodile. Some friends who were with him tried to save at-Toum. When the friends pulled him from the jaws of the crocodile and tried to drag him towards the riverbank, the crocodile managed to pull at-Toum along with his friends back into the deeper water.

At that time, a group of men came down to the river to wash themselves after the hot and dusty work of threshing sorghum. Fortunately, they were carrying with them the long and heavy sticks which they used to beat the grain from the stalks. When they saw the struggle, they rushed into the water with their sticks to join the battle for at- Toum. The crocodile's behavior proved true the old Nubian belief that once the crocodile has gotten a taste of a victim, he will keep returning for that individual. Amidst the struggle, the crocodile returned to grab at-Toum, rather than trying to take any of his rescuers.

In the water, the group would manage to free at-Toum and carry him to the bank. When they would reach the bank, the crocodile would charge out of the water, grab at-Toum from the middle of the group and pull him back to the deeper water, still with his friends hanging onto him. Finally, the rescuers won; the crocodile gave up and disappeared into the depths. At-Toum was badly injured by the crocodile's jaws and claws during the extended struggle. He spent a long time in the hospital in Dongola and when he returned to the village he bore terrible scars, which he still has.

Crocodiles not only victimize people; they attack animals as well. One crocodile picked a victim that was too much for him when he attacked a camel. During the winter, male camels get very wild and aggressive. It is common for people to tether camels in this state to a tree near the river. The owner occasionally tosses food to the camel, and the camel can get to the water to drink when necessary.

One winter day, a camel that was tied to a tree on the bank of the river went for a drink. While he was drinking, a crocodile rose from the water and clamped his jaws on the camel's lips. The camel, irritated and wild, reared back and pulled the clinging crocodile out of the water. The crocodile planted his hind legs in the mud of the bank and pulled the camel back into the water. The struggle went back and forth. In the deeper water, the camel had the advantage, while near the bank, the crocodile had the advantage.

The camel in his wild winter state was not an easy victim, but the crocodile persisted. The Nubians say that after a crocodile has attacked, he will not give up. They say that the crocodile is such a coward that he pees on himself three times before he attacks his victim. Then, once he has overcome his shyness, he will not let go.

Unfortunately for the camel, the bank collapsed into the water, causing him to lose his foothold. Then, to add to his dilemma, a number of additional crocodiles appeared, as if they had been waiting for the moment. Soon, there were crocodiles all over the camel. By this time, some of the villagers had gathered on the bank. The Arab who owned the camel (in my area, the camel-owning tribes are called Arab) drew his knife and jumped into the water to try to save his animal. To everyone's surprise, he was successful in driving away all of the crocodiles and rescued his camel. Unfortunately, the poor beast was too badly wounded and died within a week.

After Sheikh Abdullah Tor Kolum Mesid's protection from crocodile attacks ran out, many parents punished their children severely for swimming in the Nile. I remember being beaten with the spine of a palm frond as punishment for swimming there. At the same time, other parents did not try to prevent their children from swimming. These parents did not care less about their children but believed that every person's fate is written by God and that there is no point in trying to affect that fate.

If you tell these parents that they should stop their children from swimming, they will support their fatalistic argument with the following story. Once there was a man who was so afraid that his children would get eaten by a crocodile that he moved from his home by the beautiful Nile into the desert. One day his son asked him what a crocodile looked like, so he used a stick to trace a picture of a crocodile in the desert sand. To his surprise and dismay, the drawing turned into a real crocodile, which then swallowed the boy whole. The moral of the story, which is believed to be true, is that you cannot interfere with God's will.

Reproduced from Remembrances of Childhood in the Middle East, University of Texas Press, with the author's permission. More about his village at www.nilevalleyherbs.com