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5. Text message poetry (shi'ar iliktrooni): The broader effects of personal practices
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5 Text message poetry (shi‘ar iliktrooni): The broader effects of personal practices ) 5 ( ϙΎδϨΑ Ύϣ ΔϴϧΎΛ ϙΪϋϭϭ ϱΪϨϋ ΔϴϟΎϏ ϙήϛΫ Ϧϣ ϰϨϣήΤϳ έΪϘΑ Ύϣ ϙΎϴϘϟ Ϧϣ ϰϨϣήΣ ΪόΒϟ Ϯϟ !!! low al-bu‘ud Haramni min loghiiaak ma bigdar yaHaramni min dhikraak ghaalia ‘indi wa aw‘adik thaania ma bansaak!!! ‘If distance stops me from meeting you it can’t stop me from your precious memory to me and I promise I won’t forget you one second!!!’ Alessandro’s story This message was sent to me by Alessandro, one of my informants and friends, as a way of saying goodbye, just a few days before I left Sudan. Alessandro Hassan Kumsour is a 23 year-old student at the University of Khartoum. Both of his parents come from Temein, a village near the town of Dilling in the Nuba Mountains, but met and married in Khartoum in the mid 1980s. Like his parents, most all of Alessandro’s “tribe”, Temein, have migrated to Khartoum or El Obeid. He now has one relative in Temein with all remaining relatives in Khartoum. While a Muslim, he carries the name of his father’s Italian co-worker and best friend during his father’s years in Saudi Arabia as a migrant labourer. Hassan is the Muslim name of his father while Kumsour is a Temein name. Alessandro’s name itself is a documentation of changes that took place, where his grandfather carried a name from the tribe, his father was given a Muslim name who then became a labour migrant, later coming into contact with an Italian company. Alessandro was born and raised in Omdurman, the largest town of Greater Khartoum across the White Nile. He lives with his uncle and cousins, in a house with a carefully maintained, tiled courtyard, and the family has a truck, which Chapter 5 74 Alessandro can borrow. His extended family lives in separate houses on the same street or neighbourhood, but his house is the only one with a car. I knew that this detail was important to Alessandro because when he invited me to visit his family, he mentioned that he would be able to take me home in a car, an important marker for middle-class families. He also insisted on paying for my taxi to his house, which from Khartoum to Omdurman is about US $7, not a trivial amount. I had gone to the house of his cousin, where a meeting was arranged for me with his uncles, father and grandfather. A special meal was prepared and Alessandro by his older sister. I knew it was special because they served a large piece of lambs’ meat, which is left over from the ‘aid al-adha holiday. A family’s ability to slaughter a lamb for ‘aid is another important marker of social class, and their presenting meat to me was illustrative that they could afford to slaughter a lamb as well as have enough left over afterwards for guests. When I had first met Alessandro, he said that he spoke Temein, and wrote me a few text messages in it. When I visited him in his home, and met with his family, it became apparent that he had only passive knowledge of Temein but could not speak it, nor could his cousins of the same generation. And, while his father, uncles and grandfather could speak it, not one of them was using it in spontaneous group conversation. The entire meeting, most of which involved them discussing the status of their mother language, Temein, took place in Arabic. Alessandro started learning English and French two years ago at the University of Khartoum. He sees English as the most important language both in Sudan and in the world. Although he’s not ready for marriage, he told me that he would like to marry a khawajiyya ‘foreigner girl’, because he likes the ‘simplicity of European life’, and doesn’t like the social responsibilities in Sudan. If that doesn’t work out he has no restrictions on which tribe his wife might come from; she could be Temein or any tribe. He says he has friends from many tribes. One way that Alessandro keeps in touch with his diverse group of friends is by sending them poetic text messages. In fact, out of thirty-five messages that I collected from him, over twenty could be classified as either poetry, or prose or some kind of forwarded message. He says that he writes poems as well as reusing ones that he has received, in which case he will change certain details...