Experience is a solid walking stick...

The Niles 17
> Departure: Warrap State, South Sudan
> Arrival: Kampala, Uganda
> Distance: 940km
Lessons in life
Victor Ngor Majok Ngor is one of thousands
of young South Sudanese studying in Uganda.
Ngor, who already has a diploma in business
administration, is enrolled in software engineering
at an institute for computer training
in Kampala.
By Marvis Birungi
Victor Ngor Majok Ngor postponed visiting his former home in South
Sudan when conflict broke out more than a year ago, deciding instead
to focus on his studies in software engineering.
But he hopes to return. “My main achievement will be graduating,
then I’ll head straight home to work. I love South Sudan and am proud to
be South Sudanese,” he says. “If only we can work through our challenges.”
Ngor, the son of a South Sudanese business man, pays US$1,800
annually for his education at the APTECH Computer Education
school. “This money could be paid to our own institutions if we had
quality ones,” he says. “It’s sad that many of us are studying outside
South Sudan as our leaders struggle for power. This will not help us.”
Corruption, which has affected the provision of services and
wealth distribution, is one of the major hurdles he sees for his nation.
World Bank figures indicate that South Sudan is one of the most
corrupt countries in the world and is still struggling to achieve basic
services like the provision of water, health, and education.
Ngor has had first-hand experiences of his country’s difficult transition
to independent statehood. During an internship in 2012, Ngor worked
with the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) police
as a language assistant, where he says he witnessed the deep-seated
problems facing the force. “What I saw was a great will to study but a
deep inability to learn,” he says. “Some were unable to read or even write.”
Figures from the United Nations show that only 27 percent of
South Sudanese are literate, largely an inheritance from the country’s
extended civil war.
His stint in the Ugandan capital is the most recent of a string
of moves for Ngor, whose biography reflects his country’s turbulent
recent history. Born in 1986 in Warrap State, he moved to Koboko,
a district in northern Uganda bordering South Sudan, when he was
15 amid the raging civil war. After spending five months in the town
of Koboko, Ngor once again felt his safety was on the line, so he
moved to the Rhino refugee camp in northwestern Uganda in 2001.
Outside the classroom, Ngor organises concerts in Kampala,
arranging for South Sudanese musicians to travel from Juba to perform.
He lives with his five siblings in the capital city where services are
affordable compared to the spiralling costs of everyday life in his home
country. He feels settled, he says, at least for the time being.
> Departure: Gezira State, Sudan
> Arrival: Aswan, Egypt
> Distance: 990km
A home
away
from
home
Mohammed Hassan Hamdan is among as many
as 6,000 Sudanese citizens in Aswan, Egypt.
He has mixed feelings about the 30 years
he has spent living on “Sudanese Street”.
By Esmat Tawfiq
Egypt is a place of transit for many young Sudanese on their
way to Libya or other countries in the Gulf,” says Hassan Hamdan,
the oldest vendor in the so-called Sudanese Street in Aswan.
“But some lose their way in Egypt and stay until the end
of their lives.”
Hamdan is among those who lost their way. He arrived in
Aswan from Sudan’s Gezira region some 30 years ago, en route
to one of the Gulf nations. Back then, in the mid-80s, Egypt’s
economy was as robust as those in the Gulf region thanks to
an economic boom in the commerce and tourism sectors. Many
Sudanese merchants established themselves in Aswan, particularly
in Hamimi Al-Jebelawi Street, which was nicknamed the
Sudanese Street.
“We worked hard selling watches, sunglasses, shoes, and
Sudanese agricultural products and we made big profits. The free
trade agreement between Egypt and Sudan allowed us to enter
Egypt on our personal ID documents without requiring a visa,”
he says.
Hamdan is one of an estimated five or six thousand Sudanese
living in Aswan. Most newcomers sell Sudanese products, perfumes,
or household supplies. Others work as mechanics, metalworkers,
or carpenters. They have their own consulate to deal with issues
like travelling via the High Dam docks or the Qastal-Ashket border
crossing, saving them having to make the costly journey to Cairo.
But the numbers of Sudanese in Aswan have risen and fallen
in tandem with the fortunes of the city. Hamdan describes how
the community shrank following the Gulf War in the 1990s:
“Then things began to change for the worse: Young Egyptians
began returning from the Gulf in large numbers to join the long
lines of unemployed. Tourism to Aswan dropped in the tense
security situation.”
Around this time Egyptian-Sudanese relations also soured
after accusations that some Sudanese had been involved in an
assassination attempt on former President Hosni Mubarak in
Addis Ababa. Restrictions on Sudanese tightened and newcomers
required visas rather than just ID documents. Only long-term
Sudanese residents of Aswan, such as Hamdan, were exempt from
the new laws.
Hamdan married an Egyptian woman in 1988, typical of many
Sudanese merchants whose inter-cultural relationships reflected
parallels in customs and traditions between the two Nilotic nations.
The children of Sudanese nationals living in Egypt were treated as
Egyptian citizens, particularly when it came to access to education
and healthcare. Those with Egyptian mothers could also obtain
Egyptian citizenship.
Hamdan predicts that the numbers of Sudanese immigrants
will continue to rise because of the recently-opened Qastal-Ashket
road linking Egypt and Sudan. The road eases a journey that once
involved a twenty-hour ferry crossing of Lake Nasser.
With ferries leaving once a week, Sudanese typically had to
wait in hotels for their boat to leave, exhausting their financial
resources. The new road, on the other hand, is open 24 hours a day
and journeys between Wadi Halfa and Aswan take only six hours.
Hamdan has mixed emotions about his thirty years in Aswan,
saying that if he had his time again, he would “take advantage of
every opportunity. I wasted opportunities, so deep down I feel my
time in Aswan has been a failure”, he surmised. “If I was to go back
in time I’d do the same again. I’d still leave my birthplace in Sudan
and come to Egypt.”
The free trade agreement
allowed Sudanese to enter Egypt
without visas.
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