Khartoum — Buthina Khidir Mekki is a Sudanese novelist and short story writer. She has published five novels and collections of short stories including The palm and Singer (1993), The Ghosts of Towns (1994), Shadows of Greif (1996) and Awakening of a Heart (20019). His books have been translated into English, French and German. Buthaina was honored with the Eminent Arab Women Writers. She was the first president of the Sudanese Women Writers Association. She is now director of the Buthina Khidir Mekki Center for Culture and Enlightenment in Khartoum.

Abdul-Aziz Ali Omer selected and translated for Sudanow readers “Dreams of a Tea Seller” from his Awakening of a Heart collection:

She put what she was carrying on the ground and started sweeping the place with a broom made of palm fronds. She adjusted her Tobe or shawl on her head and then began to pour water from an ancient bucket with a pewter cup, a cup that had lost its handle since time immemorial. She turned to her son, a nine-year-old child, and in a harsh voice shouted ‘Oh, Boy! Bring the chairs quickly. Here, my boy, take this money to the janitor. He was running with gasping breaths hampered by the malnutrition that was testing his lean, lean body.

From a large basket, she took out some utensils which she carried in a bag and put them away. She put in a coffee maker, a kettle and a stainless steel tray which had cost her an exorbitant price which she had kindly paid to the seller of Souk El Shabei – a popular market – which she was convinced she would profit from on a elegant display base as she would serve drinks to her potential customers. She followed her stumbling and falling son in his walk while carrying five stools tied with colorful ropes balanced on his little head, but swinging to either side of him, strands of her soft hair hanging from his forehead and across his chest. neck. She took two steps towards him to relieve him of having to hold the little chairs and put them on the floor. Then she rearranged them in a semicircle. “Go quickly and bring ten chairs,” she said. Easily he walked and returned carrying five other small stools for customers to sit on.

Meanwhile, she was absorbed in arranging the utensils on a small table, the porcelain cups, the teapot, the bowl of milk and the jug of sugar, lighting a small gas stove and pouring boiling water into the tea-pot. She polished a large thermos flask into which she spilled steaming water, added six mint leaves and a pinch of Deux Gazelles tea. The taste of the tea would be delicious after adding pieces of cinnamon or cardamom pounded in a mortar.

She turned back to her 9-year-old son as he carried another stack of chairs. She watched him bouncing or skipping in her tracks until he joined her and stopped in front of her. She looked at him with compassion and affection. And then she sighed. Without him, she wouldn’t have had to work as a tea seller, which exposes her to a lot of trouble. After her father’s death, she enrolls him in school and rents a room in one of the public residential areas. Every day, she came to sell tea there after selling ‘Kissra’ to her neighbors and customers.

She migrated from her village on the edge of northern Sudan after falling out with her cousins, her brother’s wives, and came with her son to Omdurman to live in one of the slums. She sighed again as she took the stools from her son and carefully arranged them in a semi-circle around the tea table. She dreamed. Maybe one day his son would be a doctor. One day, she would be called Dr. Samih’s mother. Her son was one of the brightest students. He would realize his aspirations.

A sudden commotion and commotion began on the shore around her. Her son came running in, panting and shouting “Mom, the police are raiding. They poured Hajja Sakina’s tea on the floor and took her chairs.” Her mother was distraught upon hearing this and rushed to try to protect her few possessions that she had struggled too long to buy. In the confusion, she tried to conceal them in a burlap sack, but before she could, the Tatar attack began. With raised eyes, she looked at the police in tears and pleading, but they stood in front of her and in all their cruelty and harshness began to gather her things and violently throw them into their vehicle.