Transitions: Personal and Public
By Tayler Bilal Elrabia
Tayler, 32, is a full time cook and artist who moved to Chicago and hopes to open a restaurant in a few years. Tayler provides details of the day before the war, but has some issues recollecting what happened when.
Edited by Caitlin Chandler

April of last year was so sweet, soft and precious. I was in Chicago, Illinois, and I was embracing Ramadan for the first time since my childhood years. Now April in my mind is like a time capsule, when hundreds of seeds were planted. On the day before the war, I was breaking bread with family, starting my hormone therapy, and embracing my new name: (Tayler) Bilal Elrabia. I was speaking with a loved one when they pointed to the television and said, "Look, your father's on TV." This is what I remember.

Friday April 14, Iowa, USA
I was feeling happy and fresh because I just had a haircut that day. I had a new hat on and a blue buttoned up shirt. Sometimes when I visit my mother I say this is really cool, and she will tell me you can have it. So I picked up one of my mum’s scarf, and she let me have it. It was fiery orange, red, black and yellow, it was silky and see-through and very soft on the skin with a scent that is best described as a Sudanese mum. I felt very powerful wearing it.

Usually when I visit Iowa, I meet with old friends from high school or college. I met a friend Adoh the day before, we had lunch and coffee. I have known Adoh for 10 years and we travel together. We met at the Java House, next to the neighbourhood my family first moved to from Sudan, a neighbourhood with a large Sudanese community. One family would move there and then another one. So eventually the neighbourhood was all Sudanese people, which was amazing. It was nice to be next to that neighbourhood where I attended elementary and high school. We sat at one of the tables next to the windows looking outside. I sipped a vanilla latte as Adoh asked me questions about my transition. It was an important day because we were discussing what my future was going to look like. He asked me deep personal questions, and I was happy to share with Adoh details about the transition – the hormones and other changes – because he is a special friend. He said to me no matter what happens, we will always be friends.

After the café I spent some time with my little brother, and we took a walk in the park, which was full of memories from childhood. As a kid, the trees in the park looked huge. Over the years, I’ve attended Sudanese hang outs and birthday parties here, gatherings full of community and  food. Then we went back to my mum’s apartment, where we walked and watched YouTube – like any normal day.

Saturday 15th April, Iowa, USA

So from that happy moment, we went to the next day…boom, war. It was a strange day; it was on that day when I realized that everything was happening in that moment. We were hanging out in my mum’s room having a conversation when she pointed and said your dad is on tv, Yousef Almousli. On tv were the Sudanese armed forces and my dad singing the national anthem. I stared at the tv for only a few seconds, but I felt like it was eternity. I was confused and shocked, about to travel the next day to Chicago for my transition.

I am the only one among my five siblings who was born in Khartoum. Back then my family lived in Cairo, and they were visiting family in Sudan when I was born. We were stuck there until I was able to travel as a baby. In 1997, we moved to the US when I was six or seven years old, first to LA for two years. Then we discovered Iowa City, where there was more of a Sudanese community. We moved to Iowa for a better lifestyle, and the situation wasn’t great in Sudan. My father and his friends, who were all musicians and artists, were making music to represent peace and love. And there was a danger to my family at the time.

This Ramadan a lot of memories popped up again, and I think every Ramadan is going to feel like this for me now. It is a very intense 30 days of recollecting memories and thinking about family and traditions. This time of the year happens every year, and it is now going to be like a checkpoint for me. Finally, my incomplete thought: 

Dear Sudan,
Embracing my identity made me love you even more, and I hope that you love me too.
My unfulfilled dream is to visit Sudan in person and see my family/revisit my childhood memories in my identity.

The Great Friday of the Holy Week
by Mirametta Botrous
Mirametta, a young architect, researcher, and a teaching assistant at the University of Khartoum, is currently in Cairo, Egypt with her family after being fiercely forced to relocate. She is fully embracing the experience of being in a new place while missing her life back in Sudan, where she grew up in Bahri.
Edited by Caitlin Chandler

Friday April 14, Khartoum, Sudan
War eve was Eid eve to us Copts, the Great Friday of the Holy Week. And because it is usually a day rich in rituals and prayers, we would spend the whole day at church. I was attending as usual in my childhood church, St George of Bahri. Because it was summer, the AC was blasting frigid air and because I'm not a winter person, I was grateful for the crowds that kept me warm. Luckily, the church was extremely crowded this year. 

Although side talks are a thing we teach children not to do during prayers, as adults, we might throw a comment every now and then whenever we decide the moment deserves one. So, my friend whispered to me, we could go to Sooq Bahri tonight, and shop for a few items in preparation for tomorrow. Or maybe I could go to her place the next day so she can do my hair, or even better if she comes over to mine, we can manage tomorrow, not a big deal. This was the average plan we had, it sounded normal back then, but an unaccomplished dream today. I had no clue how all the ideas crowding in my head were the vanity of all vanities compared to what could happen next.

It feels like a joke to remember now that one of the most nagging worries in my head was the yet undelivered SHEIN package, supposedly my Eid outfit, the not-yet-approved-from-home critique session with my students and a decision whether have an Eid feast at Grandma’s or our place.  It was a joke because we thought of a normal day that promised to appear.

But there was one moment, framed forever, when I suddenly got caught in the amosphere of the moment that triggered my eyes to roam around the place, then suddenly hovering at a specific point where it had been decided that the whole scene was perfect. I quickly took a mental picture.

I caught sight of several nicely embroidered black chiffon scarfs, solemn eyes, lips murmuring prayers, the scent of burning incense, calm and content tunes, and flowers. 

I don’t know whether it was the trend of taking random pictures to document the moment, or the sun penetrating through the colored stained glass, but I was moved, so as many people, to also take a lot of photographs that day.

After prayers finished, we had the annual selfie with my friends and my sister out in the church’s yard, where there were tents to protect those who couldn't find a place inside the church from the sun and there was food to share. Many small groups of friends gathered here and there. Their unfulfilled promises to meet tomorrow for Eid prayer filled the air.

Saturday 15th April, 9:00 am, Khartoum, Sudan
It was a typical morning, and an equally typical Eid rush. Between the following events and the first explosion, there was no introduction.  Between the preps for tonight’s feast, some normal babbling here and there, the yet undone hair, a few missed calls from friends, a loud TV in the living room,  and a huge explosion, followed by massive continuous shooting; between this and that, then and before; there was a blink of an eye, an unfinished sentence, an idea to quit today’s lecture, and a startled heart.

My father rushed from outside, into the house to tell us we had to stay home.

It was not a “mozaharat”  typical scene, but something serious was on its way to us.

At first, we didn’t believe it.  A typical manifestation of our denial was my mom’s ongoing laundry plans, my sister's fake nails suggestions, and my insistence to do this critique session RN, or else I would see you guys after Eid, God willing! 

My mother was up on the roof fearlessly hanging the laundry to dry, totally heedless of the bombing’s deafening sounds, and the thick rising grey clouds of smoke.

Not until we received the news that the church in which we would pray that night was bombed and the main local market was burnt down and so many (AFV) were taking over the streets that it started to be true.

Combat vehicles in Bahri, seriously guys?! Come on!!
One big explosion, where the walls of our house were shaken, the doors almost burst open, the power went off, and so did life. 
A scene to silence life in my country.