It’s not easy to cultivate a garden in Sudan: the near-equatorial sun burns plants, dries out beds, creating a harsh environment that needs careful attention to layering plants for shade, and of course to watering. But it’s always been a passion of mine, and my family and neighbors know to find me sipping tea in the evening on a swing in my garden, where I planted most of the shrubs and trees with my own hands. Some people might be bothered by the squeaking sound of the swing, its hinges a protest — almost a wail — against the friction. But I find it a comfort. As I do the large wooden bird that one of my sons made at school, that we painted and hung at the entrance as a welcome sign and blessing for the boys and their friends as they played football and climbed the mango tree.
I made my passion a landscaping business, Gardenia, and ran it for more than 15 years despite the difficulties of being a woman CEO in my country. I was considered a pioneer female in this sector that was dominated by male entrepreneurs. I secured not only notable local contracts, but also prestigious international tenders: the British Embassy Residence, American Embassy, and the Burj Al-Fatih hotel. But never contracts at the highest levels of Sudan’s government. Corruption meant that only companies affiliated with the Islamic regime had access. I was aware that other women were watching — I wanted them to see that limits are made to be broken, that perseverance in the face of odds is always worth it, and that no door is permanently closed to a woman who refuses to stop.
This perseverance and overcoming of limits was also visible in cultivation of the political environment. Just two years earlier, on April 6th, 2019, we had marched to the military headquarters and began what became a famous sit-in. I woke up that night in a hospital, feeling suffocated from tear gas and security chases. Medics informed me that I was found unconscious on the street, live ammunition all around. I survived, but many did not. Participating in the revolution for justice, peace, and freedom was a moral act for me as injustice had reached unprecedented levels. To participate in beautifying the palace seemed like a crown placed on the victory we’d won.
Victory looked like the first opportunity in a less corrupt environment to bid on a tender for the Presidential Palace and the Presidential Residence. It was the first time such tenders opened to public, and the first time they could have as the revolution of 2018 had reduced corruption. Gardenia, my company, participated and won.
But winning that contract meant something beyond business — and not only for women.
It was short-lived. Then, that same fall in 2021, a military coup shattered our dream again and the short lived democratic transitional government ended. My contract…didn’t. I would have to keep working in the palace even after President Burhan had revealed his true face: not a democratic reformer, as he’d pretended in the face of reform pressure, but yet another face of the Islamist regime we’d suffered under for three decades.
From the first coup announcement, the Resistance called its members, including me, back to full activism. We revived our tactics: secretive modes of communication, blocking roads, covert meetings — constantly fearing arrest. Meanwhile, I had to continue “business as usual” at the palace and President’s residence to avoid suspicion as we started the contract only few months ago.
I had access to both palaces and no one there suspected that I supported the revolution or opposed the coup. I often met the President at my tours, and heard senior staff calling the protestors “rats who need to be killed,” unaware I was one of them. I had to show up, scared to death, and later put on a mask and march to the very same location calling for freedom and justice.
This dual existence was exhausting and dangerous, but the dream of a peaceful, democratic Sudan was bigger. We suppressed our fear for it; marched and chanted “Huria, Salam, Adala” (“Freedom, Peace and Justice”), “Ma Bnakaf, Ma Bnakaf” (We are fearless) — my favorite slogan. Voicing these slogans in the streets of Khartoum was a victory in itself.
Despite these efforts, we didn’t succeed. And bitterly — some now accuse us of starting this turmoil, wishing we had kept silent. But I never regret it — turning a blind eye and not engaging can never be the answer.
Things kept deteriorating and the government kept feeding the Rapid Support Forces, that it created to oppress the peaceful protesters. The monster went out of control and turned on the government.
In April 2023, in the capital city Khartoum, without any warning to civilians, Sudan woke up to the sounds of air strikes. Shells landed in residential areas as the Army and the Rapid Support Forces militia clashed; my father’s house was hit on the third day. My own home followed weeks later. My business—disintegrated too.
Bombs completely burned my house. My garden. My books. My boys’ world. I have seen pictures of my burned house that I wish I never saw. I still can’t believe that between a day and night I acquired a new title: a refugee! The whole nation has been under fire for three years marking the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. The uncertainty, the displacement, the disconnection — none of it has an answer yet.
The keys to my home — the most precious keys that open nothing now — still carry the memory of that garden. When I hold them, I smile, as if I am about to open the gate and see it again.
The swing is no longer wailing, but my heart is.
Image by Robert Gramner on unsplash.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
- The Keys That Open Nothing - November 11, 2026