Women in my 60 years+ life feature so strongly that I often forget the remarkable existence of the men in my life......May be because I am one of eight sisters and two brothers with eight aunts and one uncle....Or may be because of the two strong women I had as grandmothers...or..the so many or stories of remarkable women: poor and rich, young and old, illiterate and highly educated, Sudanese and beyond........There was always a woman that makes a legendary story..
As one of those women I grew up travelling around the western Sudan: Kordofan and Darfur with my teacher then headmaster and Inspector of education father, house bound mother and troops of sisters. We enjoyed life immensely as we were the lucky folks whose fathers sudanized the jobs held by the British and Egyptian colonizers of Sudan. We lived in big stone mansions with gardens and house farmlets and were attended by house maids and full service staff whom my mother insisted were part of the family so we never enjoyed (breakfast in bed) kind of service...we visited them in their homes and became the link between them and the single coeducational school run by my father.
Not surprizingly, I contiued my life dedicated to girls' education ..Intermediate, secondary , teacher training and university level, and I was blessed with teaching in other countries to add to my files the interesting comparison between women here and there and further....I retired this year to the conclusive fact that a woman is a woman regardless of all identities....There is just one identity we all fall into: WOMAN......And I am proud to be one of the clan.....asha