Though our time in the Sudan is drawing to a close, it is perhaps fitting to tell one last adventure before we head to Ethiopia.. not to return (sniff).
This particular adventure involved an encounter with the police, and constitutes my most extensive experience with the security forces of another country. (Though that record may not hold up for long here.)
It started with the travel permits. David has often quipped, very aptly, that here in the Sudan we have "The best visas money can buy!" .. that is, the most expensive. What with the visas themselves, the registrations, various permissions and other fees, we have probably donated about USD$1,100 to the government of Sudan just for the privilege of getting in the door. (And no, that doesn't include taking any pictures - too much of a skinflint to purchase the scam-esque
'Photographer's Permit', I have chosen simply to snap my shots as surreptitiously as possible.)
Part of that sum went to finagling city-specific 'Travel Permits' to allow us to get out from the capital. In each city or town, we've had to produce these papers alongside our visas, with their explicit endorsement of our legality in the area, and register ourselves - me usually just as "Jana" or under David's name because the harassed police officers lose heart when they see my surname. [Side note added later: There would be no record whatsoever of Jana Marie Hutchinson ever exiting the Sudan for this same reason.]
In only one city did we have problems: one plainclothes officer in Sennar, after struggling to find a hole in our documentation, finally hit upon the one town that was just outside the border of our included provinces, Kosti. We had planned to make a day-trip there from Sennar, but the officer
explicitly forbade it.
After he left, David and I discussed the possibilities. We both really wanted to see Kosti, and if we hired a taxi to take us there and back we might easily slip under the radar of the next town, whose security forces might not be so finicky, and we could get away with not registering as we wouldn't stay the night. Ultimately we abandoned this idea for its costliness (resisting a pun for "Kosti" here), and glad we were that we did: not an hour after we left our hotel to innocently walk about Sennar's market, we realized that we were being tailed. Subtlety was unfortunately beyond the grasp of the local kid obviously assigned to spy on us, and as the (three) of us meandered together through the town we couldn't help being a bit pleased with ourselves for having decided to keep it legal.
Ironically, for all our legality, we were to spend the next night in a police compound anyway.
Making our way to the tiny town of Dinder the next morning, we immediately became the most exciting thing to be seen in weeks- and the best entertainment to be had in at least as long- for the good but bored men of Dinder's provincial security headquarters. Registering upon arrival, we received only dumbfounded stares in reply to our inquiries after a hotel. There was no hotel. There was no hostel. There was no guesthouse. There was, in fact, no tourism at all, and running shy of ideas about what to do with us, the kind officers decided to put us up themselves (free of charge) in their own headquarters.
For the rest of that day, spent in an elaborate but fruitless quest for a bank, moneychanger, or other person able to offer forex services, we enjoyed a full escort of several delighted members of Sudan's finest. Though the grimy, tired faces of David and myself that day may have betrayed fatigue and frustration with our vain attempts to do, really, ANYTHING in tiny Dinder OR its vicinity, the officers were positively radiant with the responsibility of guarding us. Don't let the stern, official-looking expressions they both immediately adopted for the sake of my forbidden (but joyously-welcomed) photo-taking fool you: they were thrilled to be along for the ride. And what a ride it was..
Day over, settling into our quarters at Dinder's police compound, I reflected on the somewhat satisfying symmetrical irony of it all. We may have narrowly escaped official arrestation that morning.. but we didn't get out of spending the night under governmental guard. Mash'allah..
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