Sorrows began from a train’s window By :Abdulaziz Ali Omer

Sorrows began from a train’s window

By :Abdulaziz Ali Omer
Her name is Nisreat . She arrived in Gedaref in East Sudan in 1963 after a policeman split from the departing train her grandfather. He kissed the earth on which she set her feet . In his mind glittered things. He waved and waved with his trembling arms until the train hid “an orange” his grand-daughter a way on the horizon. The train translpanted the aroma of orange to a plot of land, a small house in Gedaref. This is little part of an orange story as a mother. One mid-night, her 9-year old daughter died in her arms in a solitary ward in the Teaching hospital. The non-chalant mother whispered to a passing nurse that he shouldn’t cry over the young beauty bereft of life but he he should bring her a vechile . She carried her body and ushered the driver to her home. The car stopped infront of the house, with the driver’s banging at the door, the sleeping father with his sick children couldn’t emerge from sleep. His next door neirghbour leaped into the house from the side of his wall to prod him awake. Aziza had arrived , the neirghbour said as he asked him waht was happening. Aziza ! He moaned in a choked voice and then began mourning in the courtyard of the house. Aziza exhausted all her kindergarten school songs while the fever of measle seared her flesh . Her mother watched and suffered. The father regained his composure and warpped his young daughter in a along turban. On the other side , the mother tore her tobe to protect her children from pinching cold.
How her husband lived and died , that is another good story. Once , he found some one sleeping tired and ill at the door of his house after the family thought he was drunk . As soon as he arrived home, it turned out that was one of his relatives. He hefted him to the interior of the house saying “ my kinsfolk are a tree of kindness” . He ordred his wife to make a soup for him . One of her sons who observed the scene told me they marvelled at how can abigman weep or be borne like achild. The son added that they wept as much as they laughed as children when they knew the value of humansentiments.
Over a cup of tea, the mother related to me how the father of her sons passed a way. He returned ne Friday with stains of blood on his prayer costume as a sign of minor accident. AS he put on clean clothes , one of neighbours asked him to fetch several buckets of water from a near-by well. A voice in his children’s mother insisted that he should stay at home as if It felt a lingering death . She bought carted water to disuade him . He passed by on his donkey “ You are a rich woman” he said with a last smile. The mother asked her children to wait for thier father to have lunch with him . As the sun had set, a young boy knoked on the door to tell the family that he drowned in well. The day ended with hunger strike and grief.
Orange travelled to several Sudanese cities and was never intimidated by the checkpoint police. In a loud voice she says she is a citizen of Gedaref and a mother of orphans. You would be held accountable if my children were harmed by your dealy. Before the security personnel answer to her warning , one of sympathetic fellow passengers replies with a defiance “That is my mother” Any objcetion sir?” The journey continues to add spice to coffee gossip latter on.
Under the insistence of a fellow widow, she once lined up with some people with disabilities. Iam perfect and strong. She said but gave in to the pressure of her feamle collegue . As her turn came , the benefactor crumpled a note into her hand and asked her not to see it. She opened the piffling sum of money and slapped at the table. “You are a rich woman” the benefactor said. Yes , she replied and withdrew with a considerable pride to work for 25 years. With the swaet of her brow, she could bring up all her her sons.

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