My Scholarship entry - Seeing the world through other eyes

miru — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 07:36:00 GMT

I’d always wanted to get out of Khartoum and visit the sites, finally the opportunity had arrived. My camera and I had set off into the desert to take in some of Sudan’s breathtaking history!
The Lion Temple at Naga and Musawwarat were sites that not even local Sudanese people visited, and yet it’s all situated 3 to 4 hours out of the city of Khartoum.
(pictures in Journal blog 'El Bajrawia).

I reached the plateau of sand... I could just about see ahead..there they were...following Isma’il, one of the freelance journalist’s who’d kept me company along the coach trip, I gasped;
‘wow...this is just like out of a fairytale book!’
He smiled and continued onwards to capture more pictures while the light was still good.
The ancient pyramids in El Bajrawia, near Shendy also known as the Royal Cemetries of Meroe. The historical site that is said to be older than Egypt’s pyramids.
The ancient carvings of kings and queens that graced the stone walls of the temple, the ‘key of life’ that was the door to the temple, under the tremendous heat and brightness of a mid day in March told many stories of an age, the Kushite period.
As the journalists sprawled amongst the ruins with their cameras updating their information on news of recent excavations, I gazed avidly at my surroundings. How many times had these journalists seen this place, the pictures they took, the people they spoke to...their world, and yet for me, as a traveller...this was all so magical.

Amid the quiet stillness of the desert, the sand blowing wildly, Isma’il smiled and said, ‘I love the way you described what you saw, I’ll never forget the look of ,‘it’s just like ...out of a fairytale book’.
At that moment, Isma’il decided he wasn’t going to hold back... ‘I want a picture of me hugging a pyramid’, he shouted, - I turned round quizzically, ‘hug a pyramid’?

Hugging a pyramid in El Bajrawia.

My Scholarship entry - Seeing the world through other eyes