Nothing really exciting happened this weekend. But a week ago, I went to Nuba wrestling. The wrestling takes place near a market on the outskirts of Khartoum North and even in Khartoum it still is an important part of Nuba culture. In Nuba Mountains, fights take place to uphold the honour of the village. In Khartoum you will see fighters from two districts of Khartoum fighting each other in the sirwan or wrestling ground.

The whole wrestling takes a good two hours and is worth going to! The crowd is full anticipation and to make sure the fighting stays in the ring, there is quite some police present.

Before a fight, there are some rituals. Sometimes, a flighter has his legs painted or they are throwing sand around like an elephant in a dried up wadi. After the fight, the winner is carried around the ring. There is a guy blowing on a horn behind him and someone screaming around how good it all is. Another guy is hitting the winner with some leaves and money is stuck on his sweaty forehead. A photo impression below:

The crowd, waiting for a good fight:

One of the first fights, boy selling cookies is watching as well:

The last fight:

The winner gets Dinar bills stuck on his forehead:

Some kind of ritual with an old fighter:

The whole group of mean motherf$*@#ckers of the Blue team:

Well, that’s it! Wishing all of you a good week!

Dennis