Wau

Wau grew out of the violence of the nineteenth-century ivory and slave trade in Bahr el Ghazal, when traders from the north built fortified camps, or zaribas, along the rivers; a station on the Jur developed into the town. The many peoples of the surrounding woodland — collectively known as the Fertit — and the Luo, or Jur, who give the river its name, were the population the traders preyed on, and the town's mixed character dates from this period of upheaval. The French Marchand Mission established a post here called Fort Desaix.

After the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of Sudan, Wau became the administrative centre of Bahr el Ghazal province, laid out on a grid with shaded avenues and government buildings. The Cathedral of St Mary was built in 1905 and is the seat of the Catholic Diocese of Wau, and the cathedral and its schools made the town an important centre of Christian education in southern Sudan. The railway from Babanusa in Kordofan, running through Aweil, was completed in 1961 and linked the town to the north.

Both civil wars hit Wau hard. It remained a government garrison town through the long second war, with its population swollen by people displaced from the countryside, and the railway stopped after the bridge at Aweil was destroyed in the 1980s, leaving the town without rail access for more than twenty years until the line was rehabilitated and reopened in 2010. Wau is the capital of Western Bahr el Ghazal, and fighting reached the town in 2016 and 2017, displacing thousands into church compounds and the United Nations site, with many not returning to their homes.

Wau's defining feature is its mixture. Most of its people are Luo and Fertit, since the town lies on the boundary between the two, and Dinka from the surrounding counties and families of northern Sudanese trading descent live here as well, so a local Arabic closer to Sudanese Arabic than to Juba Arabic serves as the common language, alongside English, Dinka, Luo and the Fertit languages.

The Catholic Church has shaped the town more than any other institution. Its cathedral, schools and choirs are central to community life, the church calendar organises the year, and brass bands, hymn singing in local languages and church youth associations are part of the town's identity. There are Anglican and Muslim communities as well, the latter concentrated in the old trading quarters.

Music and dance are taken seriously, with drums, dancing at weddings and funerals and wrestling matches between neighbourhoods and villages in the dry season. Older residents speak with pride of Wau as an educated, cosmopolitan town, and its people often set that against the cattle-keeping culture of the plains around it. Since the fighting of 2016 and 2017, relations between communities are handled with care, and questions of land and belonging are sensitive.

Wau's population was estimated at 151,320 people in 2011, and in 2008 it was the third-largest city in the country after Juba and Malakal, though the figure moves sharply with displacement. Beyond the old grid the town is a wide spread of mud brick, tin roofs and thatch, with compounds, churches, schools and small workshops scattered among unpaved streets.

Work comes from trade, government, the churches, aid organisations and farming just outside the town. Households grow sorghum, groundnuts and sesame on plots in the surrounding countryside, keep some cattle and goats, and fish the Jur. Goods arrive by lorry from Juba, and formerly by rail and road from Sudan, so prices rise steeply whenever routes close. Many families still depend at times on food assistance, and displaced people remain in and around the town years after the fighting.

Days begin early, with water fetched from boreholes or the river and tea drunk at the market; work stops through the hot middle of the day and resumes in the late afternoon. Power comes from generators and solar panels, mobile coverage is patchy, and the rainy season turns the outer streets to mud. Insecurity on the roads, the cost of imported food and the weakness of the pound dominate local concerns.

Sorghum is the foundation of the diet: ground and cooked into a stiff porridge, or fermented and cooked on a hot plate as kisra, the thin sour flatbread eaten with almost everything. The usual accompaniments are stews of okra, often dried and pounded, beans, leafy greens, groundnut paste or sesame, with dried fish or meat where a household can afford it.

The Jur River gives the town its most distinctive food. Fish is eaten fresh, grilled over charcoal or stewed, and split and sun-dried for storage and trade, and dried fish from Bahr el Ghazal travels far beyond the region. Milk, fresh or soured, comes in from the cattle camps, and meat is a food for weddings, funerals and church feasts, when an animal is slaughtered and shared.

Sudanese habits are stronger here than in Equatoria: ful, slow-stewed brown beans dressed with oil, is the standard breakfast, bread and lentils are common, and tea is drunk black and very sweet, or with milk, at stalls throughout the day. Wild fruits and shea nuts gathered from the savanna add variety in season, and sorghum beer is brewed at home for gatherings and ceremonies.