Somewhere in Sudan

Wilfred Thesiger was my favorite writer when I was in college. Born in Ethiopia in 1910 to a diplomat, Thesiger spent much of his life in Africa, first as a child and then as a soldier in WWII. When he wrote of his travels, there was one thing he celebrated above all else: hardship.

“The harder the life, the finer the person.” That was his credo. He traveled like a destitute drifter. He slept on the ground under the stars with the natives and ate their food and drink.

Thesiger suffered plenty for his philosophy: almost starving to death, contracting third-world diseases, you name it. But he didn’t regret a moment.

It was because of Thesiger that I decided to go on my own African adventure. It was 1961, and I was nearing the end of what should have been my senior year at Stanford University.

I was 12 credits shy of graduating, but I wasn’t sure what I was graduating for. I always imagined that by the time I was a senior, I’d have it all figured out. But the only thing I had figured out was I loved to read, especially Thesiger. As far as direction in my life, that was the best I could do.

Africa seemed to clarify things for Thesiger; perhaps it could do the same for me.

My last semester at Stanford would have to wait. I made plans quickly and sailed from New York City to France. From there I drove from Paris to Beirut and then from Cairo to Sudan, right where my hero had most of his adventures. After reading about it for years, I’d finally made it to Africa.

Sudan was greater than all of my daydreams and romantic notions put together. The land was vast and alien, gorgeous in every sense of the word. You could feel the history, the people, places and things all around you.

Thesiger always scoffed at the idea of not drinking the local water on his travels. “I’ve never boiled or sterilized water anywhere in my life, and I’ve drunk it out of every ditch and drain that I’ve been to,” he wrote. Lifting my glass to Thesiger, I downed my first cup of local river water. Delicious. 

I was on a boat on the Nile River heading to Khartoum when I started to regret that decision. My stomach groaned in pain. Then came violent cramps and nausea. When the boat pulled into a makeshift port at a small village, I stumbled off in search of a doctor. Amid a cluster of mud huts I found the only stone structure. The hospital.

An Arab doctor met me. By that time, the pain was so bad I could hardly speak. It felt like my insides were being torn apart. The doctor put me in bed and gave me some fluids. Malaria. In my feverish state it was the only word I understood.

I was in the hospital for five days. Long silences were punctuated with brief visits from the doctor or overheard snippets of unintelligible conversation from the hallway.