The current exhibition. Note the Eye-Bee-M poster.

The museum by Frank Gehry.

Factory building by Nicholas Grimshaw.

The fire station of Zaha Hadid.

The conference building by Tadao Ando.

Inside the VitraHaus by Herzog & deMeuron.

Pictures by Rychard, shaving by Christoph.

Kassala is supposed to be one of Sudan’s most beautiful towns. And it is true, the setting of the town under the Taka mountains is dramatic. Amid a never ending plain, suddenly the mountains shoot up out of nowhere. The town itself is green and pleasent, people are nice –but not as relaxed as in Port Sudan– and the city is dominated by one large market area. The market is fun to explore and covered and open markets are mixed in between each other. However due to the continuing high “security” status of Kassala –the town is close to the Eritrean border and was attacked (by SPLM / NDA forces) at least once in 2000– it is still not advisable to take pictures all around town –especially if you are a PhD student. Below you can see the Taka mountains as back drop to the town as seen from the roof of the hotel I stayed in.

Kassala is however not only a city close to some unexpected mountains, but it is also the centre of the Khatmiyya Sufi brotherhood, which is one of the largest brotherhoods in Sudan. In the village which is also called Khatmiyya, directly under the mountain, is their central mosque and most holy site. In this place a number of their previous leaders are burried, which makes it an important site for pilgrimage. All structures however are relatively new, as the original structures were destroyed by the Mahdi when he came to power in the late 19th century. The large birds which can be seen on top of the saint’s tomb are migrating birds which come to this spot to breed and by that in an interesting way the saints tomb is very literally a place for the renewal of life.

The Taka mountains are a place for the renewal of life in a second sense. Because of it’s scenic location and thanks to a well which when one drinks the water it supposedly increases fertility, Kassala has become a hot spot for Sudanese honeymooners. Funnily enough it is one precise spot in the village of Totil, where everyone goes to drink coffee under the mountain. Here one finds numerous tourists, all of course Sudanese, mostly newly-weds, who come to some kind of coffee theme parc to enjoy the sunset and an Ethipioan coffee. Various little “Cafeterias” are spread over the hill side where one can get coffee and popcorn, served as usual with incense.

PS: Yes I know I didn’t post my Juba pictures yet and I still have not finished my boat picture series either. I will try to catch up eventually. Promise.

Khartoum has a pretty good bus network. It’s actually great if you want to travel long distance and if you travel outside the city centre. If you are in the city centre however, it actually sucks. The reason for this is basically that all busses travel via one central bus station which is on one end of the city centre. So if you are at any place in down town, you can either walk across the centre to jump on a specific bus line –or you can grab any bus back to the central station, then jumble through the masses of other travellers to eventually find the bus line you aim for. I usually pick the first option.

Since I am currently staying at a friend’s house for a couple of days while he is in Finland, the easiest way home is to walk towards Khartoum 2 and then grab any bus at the first roundabout going down towards airport road. Most busses going that direction cost 400 (old pounds, i.e. 10 British pence), but that’s not true for all busses. As I learned today, the bus to “Maju, Sinia” costs between 500 and 700 depending on where you want to get off. But the ticket guys never say anything, they just click their fingers and assume you know the price. So I gave him 400. He looked at me and asked where I want to get off. After I told him, he shrugged, looked at me again and shook his head as if he was trying to say; what a greedy Khawaja, not only is he too cheap to use private transport, he doesn’t even want to pay the normal bus fare. Then he turned around and let me be.

(Picture by Laura Mann – it shows my favourite election poster, with the exception of a poster for a local candidate in Malakal who promised to spread corruption.)

I know, you expect me to comment on the Sudanese elections. But I have been wrong too many times now about what was going to happen or how one can explain certain events. I will for now be a good historian, wait until everything is over, and then give you my enlightened, or maybe less enlightened opinion. Instead I will give you some links you can read and play with in the meantime.

The Electionnaire by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, where you can answer questions and find out, whom you would vote for and what the issues are (which noone really ever talked about).

SudanVoteMonitor which collects reports from all around the country on how the voting is going. They also have some fancy Google Maps overlay of all the incidents –think Web 2.0 meets Sudanese elections. A less fancy but possibly more substantial list of violations is published daily by the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies.

For news on the elections you can check the Southern Sudanese biased Sudan Tribune or you can check the differently biased Al Jazeera International. On the blog of some very distinguished Sudan academics you can read some intelligent commentary, I especially recommend the post on the complexity of the whole exercise. For some visuals you can check out the pictures my flat mate Laura took of campaign posters. She also posted translations of most of them.

Last but not least you can check out the website of a Sudanese anti-government pressure group called Girifna who has been quite outspoken lately.