[The Guardian] A tea shop in Khartoum before the bombs: Ala Kheir’s best photograph

A tea shop in Khartoum before the bombs: Ala Kheir’s best photograph

‘This meeting place, under a bridge over the Nile, was a great place to watch the world go by. But many people have now fled the city – and places like this sit empty’

I moved to Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, at the age of five, and instantly fell in love with the river. The Nile snakes through the city, offering one of very few public places to escape the sweltering heat. It was always where I felt happiest as a child, and now as an adult.

The Halfaya Bridge, pictured here, is one of the newer bridges in the city. It connects two of the capital’s three main neighbourhoods: Omdurman, where I grew up and still live, and Bahri, to the east of the Nile. Under the bridge is a little tea shop, a common sight. It’s the perfect place to pause, relax, watch the world go by and catch the breeze blowing in over the water. The river is treated like a public space in Khartoum. The various classes and communities that make up the city all come here to chat and look out over the Nile. It’s a place where people come together in a city that can otherwise feel divided.

Continue reading...
Source: A tea shop in Khartoum before the bombs: Ala Kheir’s best photograph

Feeds culled from https://www.theguardian.com/uk/rss