To go to the souq, the market, in Sudan means to delve into a kaleidoscope of patterns and colours of the toub – the traditional garment for women from all tribes and corners of Sudan. A toub traditionally spans four and a half glorious metres of cloth that is elegantly wrapped around the body and head. Its width is around a metre, depending on a person’s height.
The artistry of the toub encompasses the whole colour palette and a variety of textiles, which makes it just the right thing to wear for any occasion, including work, cleaning the house, or attending a fancy event. To be a Sudanese woman is to wear the toub with grace and elegance, regardless of one’s circumstance.
Arkawit
The first time my aunties dressed me in a toub was on a hiking trip to Arkawit. My family and most of my grandmother’s uninvited neighbours had made the journey from the sea to the mountains in two rented buses. While us younger people explored the area, the older women fired up a barbecue to celebrate my first time visiting Sudan. I was 18 years old then, growing out of puberty and discovering my African roots as a young adult.
In Germany, my mother’s country, I had been told that I cannot show my body in Sudan, my father’s country, and so I had packed a wardrobe that made me look like I had come straight out of the middle ages. That day, I was wearing a black, floor length skirt and a beige, unflattering shirt. For the last two weeks, I had been walking around in oversized clothes and my cousins had teased me with comments like “you look like a grandma” throughout the trip, making me feel ashamed for thinking that not-showing-the-body meant dressing badly.
That day in Arkawit, the aunties decided that they had seen enough of my mediaeval style attempts at modesty. They had brought a cream-coloured cloth painted with pink and orange flowers, and tied its short side around my waist like a skirt. Then, they passed the long side along my back and wrapped it across my shoulder, so that it covered my upper body. In one short moment, I was transformed into a Sudanese woman. I felt beautiful. I loved how loosely it hung over my head, simultaneously hiding and exposing my body depending on the angle of the light shining through.
The feeling of wearing a toub can be compared to standing in high heels – it made me walk taller, feel elegant and feminine. Walking in a toub, as I should find out soon, was also much like walking in high heels.
Munich
While I stood wrapped in my aunties’ fashion on a mountain plateau in Sudan, my best friend took a photo. My aunt in Germany, a painter, was enchanted by the picture which captured how enchanted I was by the toub. From that first trip I took to Sudan at 18, the day in Arkawit is one of my most cherished memories. Once I returned to Germany, many of the Sudan moments and lessons became difficult memories as I struggled to integrate them into my life in Europe.
But the photo of myself in a toub served as a reminder that I had felt at home in Sudan, too. My German aunt painted the image and exhibited it in Munich where it found great appreciation with her audiences. I felt pride when people asked me about it and researched the toub so that I could answer their questions with competence. She printed the painting on postcards which I started carrying with me everywhere I went, bringing a piece of both of my homes to my travels.
"She told me that growing into the toub, just like growing into feeling at home in this country that I had not been raised in, but whose customs I loved, will take time"
London
As a university student in London, I spent four years studying Sudan’s cultures, histories, and the Arabic language. During the uprisings in 2019, Alaa Saleh climbed on a car to lead fellow protesters in chant, and she, together with her white toub, became famous overnight. It was described as the dress of women at work or during mourning, and hailed as a symbol for women empowerment, feminism, strength and purity. The Sudanese community in London held protests in solidarity with the people at home who were risking their lives to end thirty years of military rule.
Sometimes they organised nights of food and dance to keep each other warm. One such event invited all girls to attend in their toub, a beautiful idea for those who grew up wearing toubs; I had only ever worn one in Arkawit where I had not walked further than two metres. I also only owned one toub: a shimmery orangered garment that my aunt had split between my cousin and I. While I was at home trying it on, I realised that this gesture, which had been romantic at the time, had made the toub too small to wrap around myself. It really felt like a half-toub, mirroring my half-identity.
A few months later, I tried wrapping it around my body again in the attempt to wear it at my graduation ceremony. But the thought of walking in front of hundreds of people with my legs fenced in scared me off any genuine attempt to wear it, so I settled for a dress that I had bought in Egypt instead. To celebrate the Sudaniya in me, I did a photoshoot in my orangered toub. The pictures turned out beautiful and unearthed a deep longing to return back to my grandmother’s house, be wrapped properly, and learn how to carry myself as a grown Sudaniya.
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Khartoum
A few months later, I travelled to Sudan to attend my cousin’s wedding. It was held in the capital Khartoum for seven days. Utterly unprepared, I had brought only one wedding outfit – the dress I had also worn for my graduation. It was brown and beige with a few drops of colour here and there which definitely drowned in the sea of bright reds, blues, and yellows of Sudanese wedding culture. For the first night’s celebration, my aunt gifted me a purple silk toub. It shimmered and sparkled with every move I made and had to be wrapped tightly, so that it would not glide down while my family made their big entrance.
Red and pink flowers and green leaves adorned the dark cloth in which I felt more beautiful and attractive than I could have in a western dress. Toubs can be sexy if they want to be; they always offer the possibility of showing a little skin in between the waist and the shoulder. I like this play with modesty, and having the option to adjust the cloth and cover myself if I want to. That night, my toub and I had a great time on the dancefloor and I felt like I had mastered the art of Sudanese womanhood.
It had been a year since the uprisings, and my cousins invited me to join the anniversary celebrations at Khartoum University. As with everything in Sudan, colour had played an important role in the collective unrest: the revolution’s social media campaign had been under banner of #BlueForSudan, the favourite colour of Mohamed Mattar who was killed trying to protect two women as security forces violently raided the sit-in of peaceful protesters on June 3, 2019.
All across the university, young women were dressed in beautiful toubs of different materials, elegantly moving in the blue that symbolised our hopes and dreams over the past year. I was fascinated by how one simple piece of cloth has the power to create such unity, solidarity and graceful defiance, and how these young women were forging a new future rooted in their culture and traditional dress.
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Port Sudan
Once I had celebrated the wedding in glory and abundance, I travelled to the Red Sea where my grandmother lives. We had not seen each other in six years, and my welcoming gift was a fire red toub embroidered with greengolden flowers. This one was the most beautiful in my small collection, and I was honoured to be trusted with such a gift. When my aunties and I took a trip around town, I decided to wear it out in public. It was an ordeal – my legs were wrapped so tightly that I spent the whole day trailing behind everyone else, especially in my unfortunate encounters with stairs.
I had to hold on to my waist, unravel the cloth inelegantly, and slowly struggle up step by humiliating step, only to be welcomed by benevolent laughter. Anytime I got out of a car, I had to readjust myself, and half of the time I needed the help of an aunt to do it properly. My grandmother laughed when I returned home at the end of the day, exhausted and ready to change into pants. She told me that growing into the toub, just like growing into feeling at home in this country that I had not been raised in, but whose customs I loved, will take time.
Cairo
After this second trip to Sudan, I chose to live in Cairo for a while. It felt like a compromise between Sudan and Germany. I use my fire red toub as a blanket, wrapping myself in the comfort of a home that I am still building. Filled with my grandmother’s love and laughter, this toub is one of my most prized possessions and a reminder of the journey I am on. I have not worn it in public since Port Sudan because I still need the supervision of my aunties. But when I see Sudanese ladies elegantly navigating Cairo’s madness in their colourful toubs, it makes me happy knowing that I have my toub at home helping me through the Cairo madness, too.