In Khartoum, shopping for future

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- By American standards, it is rather ho-hum -- second-run films, a small number of shops, and restaurants that serve only fast food.

But Sudan's first mall is revolutionary to some.

Inside Afra Shopping Center, which opened four months ago, shoppers slip inside from 110-degree heat and enter air-conditioned splendor. They can browse for footwear at the Payless shoe store, sip an Arabic coffee from Gloria Jean's, or roam the aisles of the cavernous, 27-checkout Hypermarket superstore. They also can bowl, sign on to the Web -- or in a discreet corner, pray at a mosque.

The mall's large white domes may seem a mirage in a country that is beset by war and millions of displaced people, and is a fixture on the State Department's list of states that support terrorism. But many observers in Khartoum, the country's capital, say the mall is a reflection of a changing society emerging from years of economic and cultural isolation.

Cellphone use has taken off; by one estimate, more than 600,000 people in Sudan -- a country of 35 million -- own mobile phones. More than a dozen Internet cafes have opened in the past few years in Khartoum. And in the past five years, educators say, the number of young women in college has surpassed the number of men.

"Khartoum has changed a lot recently," said Gasim Badri, president of Ahfad University for Women, which has 5,200 female students in Omdurman, across the Nile River from Khartoum. "We have lots of new car dealers, including BMW. We have Internet cafes, and now we have a mall. Compare that to a few years ago, when we had none of that."

Part of the reason for the change is that the long-restrictive government has eased controls over the flow of information and investments. But a larger reason, observers say, is that investors are betting on a lasting peace between the government and southern rebels. An agreement to end the two-decade conflict was signed last week in Kenya.

If the deal holds, Western diplomats in Sudan say, several European countries may soon lift economic sanctions against Sudan. The United States is expected to wait longer before lifting sanctions because of the humanitarian crisis in the western region of Darfur, where more than a million people are displaced. The US government and several human rights groups accuse Sudan's government of supporting a proxy army that has torched villages and killed more than 10,000 people.

One sign of the hopes for peace is that landlords in some of Khartoum's priciest neighborhoods have begun to double rents in the past year, believing that an influx of foreigners will pay top rates for the limited supply of housing. Foreigners -- namely, aid workers -- are arriving in droves, not to settle in Khartoum but to set up base in Darfur.

In Khartoum, once a hangout for Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda members in the 1990s, the best sign of a new Sudan is seen at the mall.

Yara Al-Qadri, 18, and Muneera Abdu, 17, two premed students at the University of Africa in Khartoum, sat in the bowling alley one recent day and acknowledged that they come to the mall many days of the week. Qadri, a Palestinian whose family is from Bethlehem, said she met her boyfriend, an Iraqi, at the mall.

"The mall changes everything," said Abdu, who is originally from Eritrea. "It's just fun. There is no place like it. Sometimes we have our breakfast here, our lunch here, and our dinner here."

In their black headscarves and coats, the two young women energetically took up one of their favorite pastimes at the mall: bowling. Many young men and women, clearly on dates, sat and watched.

Downstairs, Reem Abdulmajid, a sales clerk at a store called Zia Avenue, said Sudanese and expatriate women alike buy the Zara line of clothing that she sells. Most customers, she said, are surprised to see European clothes in Khartoum. The prices range from $35 for a pink shirt to $125 for a rose dress.

"It's beautiful, but none of it is for us," she said, because of the prices.

But Abdulmajid said she is proud to work there.

"Around the world, many people see malls everywhere," she said. "It's the first time for us. There will be other malls as well. Sudan will be like any other country in the world."

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.