Abstract:
Sit Alshai is a Sudanese local term that means the lady who sells tea,
coffee and other drinks to passersby. There are many issues related to
the Tea Lady, as she represents the socio-economic changes in the
Sudanese community. These ladies get an income by appropriating
parts of the streets of the city and transforming them to temporary
cafes where people drink tea and socialize for a while. The authorities
however do not approve their business and many times both the
government and opposition parties use them as political leverage. The
paper will investigate this phenomenon and the effects of it on the
urban society. The Tea Ladies can be found in many places in Khartoum
where this happens, mostly concentrated in the centre. However this
paper will focus on documenting Tea Ladies located on one street in
Khartoum, El Meshtal Street. The road has been chosen specifically
because of it’s rising importance in the past years and because it is
located in an upper-class neighbourhood. The existence of the Tea
Ladies on that street symbolizes juxtaposition on that street that is
worth being studied and documented.