1947 May 8; 1947 May 9-17
Travelling on the Nile to Wadi Halfa; across border by train to Khartoum. Railway delays, intense heat, sand, dehydration. (Letter 1)
Visited archaeological sites. Enjoyed hospitality of El Einys, prosperous Jewish contractor. Noted variety and high quality of fruits and vegetables in market, though surrounded by desert. Observations on lack of ‘colour bar' in the Sudan. Class distinctions, but not based on colour. (Letters 2 and 3)

1947 May 25
Continued activities in Khartoum awaiting transport to the south. Visited Gebel Aulia, survived habub in shuttered hotel room, toured Unity Girls' High School. Encountered European ‘characters' in Khartoum, refugees from political upheavals. First visit to the Gezira; description of area. Proud of this British/Sudanese achievement. Toured local markets; watched preparation of local dishes, useful for her work in Zandeland. Stayed in Governor's house; expressed interest in having Culwick do nutritional survey in the Gezira when her project finished in Equatoria. (Letter 4)

1947 Jun 6-8
Still awaiting transport to the south. Discussion of Sudanese politics with Makki Efendi `Abbas. Difficulty tracing equipment shipped from England. BOAC flight to Juba, 28.5.47. Met by Janson-Smith, Education Dept official most responsible for nutritional survey. To Yambio 6.6.47 by borrowed lorry. Noted terrain change to grassland, forest. Agricultural officer, Ferguson, provided information on hashish: recognition of plant, growing, drying. Necessary, to reassure villagers she was not searching for illegal hashish gardens. Worried that new Chairman of Province Nutrition Committee not supportive of her survey. Arrived Yambio 3.6.47. Visited several re-settlements, part of sleeping sickness control project. Briefing from local RC missionary on foods of the area. Staff up to eight, including clerk/interpreter. Learned several polite sentences in Zande to smooth her way. (Letters 5, 6, 7.)

1947 Jun 13-23
Arrived Li Yubo, 13.6.47. Still no transport except for bicycle. Accompanied doctor and others to nearby settlements to lay groundwork for study. Acted as magistrate in dispute between her recorder and villager. (Letters 8 and 9)

1947 Jul 4
Description and sketch of rest house #1 (her home). Visit of Governor-General and Lady Howe, first time for Governor-General to Li Yubo in 25 years. Frantic work to spruce up station. Not happy with Governor-General's point of view. (Letter 10)

1947 Jul 13
Continued equipment delays. Not able to begin survey or train staff. Trouble with staff re local brothel. Account of visit from famished English trekkers heading to Southern Rhodesia. New doctors arrived: Ibrahim, Medical Inspector, and Da`ud, assistant. First time in the south; culture shock. (Letters 11 and 11a)

1947 Jul 20
Funeral dance. Altercation between headmen soothed and settled by Culwick To study Islam with Mortossim, Public Health Officer. (Letter 12)

1947 Aug 21
Frustrating difficulty with transport: car, lorry, repairs, breakdowns. Hampering survey work. Reference to recent Spectator article on Zandeland. Assisted a Zande boy and girl who wanted to marry by outwitting a ‘senior British official'. (Letter 13)

1947 Aug 23
Account of one-week trek to Yambio, Sendi, Bakini, Wau, Tembura, in company with Da`ud, to carry out sleeping sickness and nutrition inspections. Rainy season. Constant trouble with lorry and car. Visit from Province Medical Inspector. Lack of rapport; bad feelings evident. (Letter 14)

1947 Sep 9 - Oct 12
New Ford truck on loan. Five day trek to Verona Fathers Mission to examine students. Lively discussions with brothers, nuns and Sudanese medical officers on many topics, including colonialism. Inspection by Assistant Director of Medical Services; favourably impressed. Trek north to visit the Balanda. Saw hashish growing. Continued distressing difficulties with ‘senior official'. (Letters 15, 16, 17)

1947 Oct 26 - Dec 12
Rest in Abu Satta Hills. Fed up with Africa: climate, insects, difficulties of work, uncooperative assistants. Three-day Muslim feast: singing, sports, dancing. Health problems - ear infection, malaria. Strike and demands by her assistants. Comments re position of women in Sudanese society. To Li Rangu with M.O., Peter Abbott, for clinical examinations of families. Hoping to write a pamphlet on cooking for Zande women. More transport trouble. (Letters 18, 19, 20)

1947 Dec 12 - 1948 Jan 4
Continued transport problems; dangerous breakdowns. Visited French Equatorial Africa; discussion re British and French aims in the area. Christmas travel to Wau; rest in camp, in Dinka country. Comparisons of Dinka and Zande. Rainy season over. (Letters 21, 22, 23)

1948 Jan 12 - Feb 15
To Yambio. Meetings with Agricultural Research Department staff. Stormy sessions with Chairman of Nutrition Committee. Frustrations with survey work and staff. Visit from ‘staunchest supporter' of her work, Senior Inspector of Schools in the South. Railway strike. (Letters 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)

1948 Mar 8 - 21
Long trek for dry season examination of crops and families. Encountered funeral feasts/dancers. Personal difficulties with Chairman of Nutrition Committee. Visit to Domora, Belgian Congo, to shop. Rail strike; serious petrol shortage. Easter weekend in Li Rangu with M.O. Peter Abbott and family. (Letters 29, 30)

1948 Apr 25 - May 9
Survey plans rearranged; petrol shortage. Visit from Margaret Wrong, International Society for Literature for Africa. Visit from French Equatorial Africa D.C. and Provost-Marshal. Civil Secretary and wife stopped overnight. Five American doctors and staff set up camp for ‘medical bug-hunting'. Trouble with survey staff; two sacked, two beaten by chiefs' court. Budget problems. (Letters 31, 32)

1948 May 22 - Jul 30
Palestine War; disruption of travel and mail service. Visit from Agricultural Department staff planning to open new experimental farm at Yambio in September. New Sudanese Assistant M.O. with 15-year-old Egyptian bride. Final stages of survey. Feast and gifts provided by Culwick Reflections on her work and the Zande people, future of the Sudan. Difficult trip down the Nile. Survey notes and books safely through Customs and on to ship at Port Said. (Letters 33, 34, 35)

1949 Apr 17-26
Arrival in Khartoum, then Wad Medani. Details of project setup in Remeitab Village. Worked closely with Adult Education teachers. Description of the Gezira Scheme; plans after expiration of 25-year concession; tenancy conditions changing; future uncertain. Worked with Sandars, Governor, Blue Nile Province; Arthur Gaitskell, S.P.S. head; H. Ferguson, Agricultural Research station; C.W. Beer, Deputy Governor; Elizabeth Richards in charge of adult education for women; Sudanese officials, local shaikhs and villagers. (Letters 1, 2)

1949 May 7-21
Present at opening of Remeitab Sub-Grade Girls' School. Great moment for women's education in the area. Description of survey work in the village; surprised by enthusiastic support. Some had predicted failure for the project. Sandstorms, rain storms, severe heat make life and work more difficult than in Equatoria. Bleak landscape of the Gezira described; difficult to adapt to. Description of wedding feast and dancing. (Letters 3, 4, 5)

1949 Jun 5 - Jul 16
More details of the survey work with villagers, including beer brewing. Gaining acceptance by villagers, but some criticism from S.P.S. and government officials. Ramadan. Culwick decided to keep the fast; description of its effects on her and on the life of the village. Difficulties with interpreter/assistant and with British teacher/helper. Habubs, fierce thunderstorms. Transport difficulties. Description of women's lives, including a confinement and a child's funeral. (Letters 6, 7, 8, 9)

1949 Aug 1 - Sep 21
Description of the four-day feast of `Id, in Medani and in Remeitab. Open house for village men and women (separately). Rains less abundant than hoped for; but crops growing and animals recovering. Discussion of Sudanese treatment of animals. Local followers of the Mahdi thrilled by radio broadcast of his son from London. Adult Literacy programme for women to begin in area, supervised by Elizabeth Richards Brown. Culwick studied Koran with local faqi and her landlord, to delight of villagers and dismay of British colleagues. Visit of gypsies to village. Two villagers off to Mecca for the Hajj ; great excitement. Culwick combatting rumours that she is a missionary. Gave speech to village elders in Arabic, describing, again, her work and its purpose. (Letters 10-14)

1949 Oct 19 - Nov 28
Visited several villages outside the irrigated area to conduct survey measurements. Semi-nomadic herdsmen who travel in the dry season looking for water. Some suspicion, but eventual acceptance. Visited Shaikh Ibrahim `Abd al-Qadir, head of tribal administration in the area; and Shaikh Mukashfi, local holy man, greatly revered. Heat very exhausting; constant digestive problems. Fed up with rotting dead animals everywhere; observations re Sudanese attitudes toward animals. Praise again for Arthur Gaitskell, Syndicate Manager. (Letters 15-18, No. 17 missing, Culwick's note.)

1949 Dec 18 - 1950 Mar 1
In Khartoum for Christmas, with Dr. Blanche Phillips. Visit to Sennar Dam. Resignation of assistant. Adult Education Conference at Institute of Education, Bakht er Ruda on west bank of White Nile. Founder V.L. Griffiths about to retire. Had built excellent teacher training facility. Visit to Tunduch; several weeks of survey work. Guest of Shaikh Muhammad Ahmad. Shortage of water creating near famine conditions too early in the dry season. Visit to Omdurman to give radio talk on her work. Visit to poet `Abd Allah al-Banna; frowned upon by fellow British. (Letters 19-22)

1950 Mar 12 - Jun
Survey work in the camps of the migrant cotton pickers. Completed on time, thanks to the entertainment value of a foreigner interested in their lives. Terrific heat; Culwick preferred climate of Equatoria to rigours of the northern Sudan. Final weighings and measurings of the survey. Provided feast for subjects in Remeitab and in migrant village. Warm farewells. Assisted at confinement of Shaikh's daughter-in-law in final days. Farewell blessing at mosque in Medani by Shaikh al-Jali, a great honour for a foreigner, especially a woman. Home leave from Port Sudan. (Letters 23-25)

1951 Dec 14
Arrival in Azaza village 15 miles from Medani to begin work as a Social Research Officer of the Sudan Gezira Board, carrying out nutrition surveys. House, garden, servants. Making the acquaintance of and winning the confidence of the villagers. (Letter 1)

1952 Nov 1
Second year of research for the S.G.B. Work with W. Fisher, horticulturist; C.W. Beer, again her boss; Peter and Mary Abbott in Medani. Political unrest, strikes in the Gezira. But signs of prosperity from bumper crops of the early 1950s: more pilgrimages to Mecca; more cars, more comforts in houses. Cultivated good relations with the Sudanese, both government officials and local villagers; necessary for successful survey. (Letter 2)

1952 Nov 16
Long diary letter full of details of daily life and work as Culwick settled into third year of survey work for the S.G.B. On good terms with Shaikh Daf `Allah of Azaza and Shaikh Hasan Abd al-Jalil of Mesellemiya, and Haja Raba`a, midwife of the area. Aware of more political unrest. Suspicious of Dr. Mohidin Sabir, anthropologist, but probably political activist. Studying family budgets and debt; how families spent their money and how purchasing decisions were made. (Letter 3)

1952 Dec 5 - 8
Women's adult education classes underway in the northern Gezira. Only two teachers; women clamouring to enter. Long trek and work in northern Gezira: Neuwila, Shalla`oha; and migrant workers' villages in western Gezira. Political unrest, strikes. Concerned about efforts to prepare for independence. Old government institutions breaking down; new ones not fully in place. Journalists and film makers working to tell ‘the Gezira story'. Assisted by Culwick with introductions. (Letter 4, last in series)

Nutrition survey team, Li Yubo 1947. Back row, L-R: Penisi, Kosa, Samuel, ? , James. Front row, L-R: Daniel, Barnaba, Culwick, Dominic. At front door of rest house No.1

Rest house No.1, Li Yubo, occupied by Culwick Jun 1947 to Jul 1948

International boundary beacon, rest house garden, Li Yubo

Zande families

Zande family in front of grain store

Zande homestead

Zande domestic scene

Weighing cassava as it is taken from the water after soaking. Barnaba Toroyo, clerk, with a village woman

Pounding cassava in a horizontal mortar. Village scene

Children pounding cassava in upright mortar in Yambio (town)

Zande hut (tukl), Yambio

Zande men gathered for nutrition session

Sports Day at Li Yubo. Dr. Ibrahim adjusts high jump helped by Mutossim Efendi (Letter 18)

Watching the sport at Li Yubo. L-R: Mrs. Ibrahim, Mrs. Mutossim, someone from Maistrellis' household, Maistrellis' half-caste daughter (educated in Greece), and 3 of Ibrahim's children. (Letter 18)

Sleeping sickness inspection at Madi. (Letter 19)

Sleeping sickness inspection at Madi. (Letter 19)

People gathering for clinical examination at Ukwo. (Letter 20)

Peter Abbott (MO) examining a woman at Ukwo. (Letter 20)

People gathering for clinical examination at Ukwo. (Letter 20)

On our way to work: Culwick, Mary Abbott with baby Jane pushed by S.M.S. driver, Selemani. Barnaba Toroyo on extreme right. At Ukwo. (Letter 20)

Tennis in Medical Inspector's (M.I.) garden, Li Rangu

M.I.'s house, Li Rangu

At Obo, French Equatorial Africa. (Letter 21)

Fishing fleet, Nyamlell. (Letter 23, p.3)

Dinka on the River Loll at Nyamlell, Aweil District. (Letter 23)

Woman wading through river in Aweil District. (Letter 23)

Dinka at Nyamlell. (Letter 23)

Skeleton of Dinka cow byre, showing construction. (Letter 23)

Dinka homestead, Aweil District. (Letter 23)

Dinka family. (Letter 23)

Dinka thatching. (Letter 23)

Getting cars across the River Chell near Marial Bai in Aweil District. (Letter 23)

Teachers at Girls' Intermediate School, Medani, 1949/50 [?]

Girls' Intermediate School, Medani, 1949/50 [?]

Children at Remeitab, 1949/50. ‘Any sweets for us?'

Remeitab, 1950. Culwick with three small boys

Remeitab, 1950. Culwick and three of the tenants

Remeitab, 1950. Home from the fields. Three children on a donkey

Remeitab, 1949/50. Camels and donkey; houses and people in background

Pay day. Tenants at Remeitab Block office, 1949/50

Remeitab, 1949/50. Little girl standing

Mother and daughters, Remeitab, 1949/50. L to R: Haram, Sayda, Amna

Remeitab, 1949/50. Home from the fields. Man on donkey

Remeitab, 1949/50. Camel and villagers

Remeitab, 1949/50. Two goats

Remeitab, 1949/50. Man and boys, standing

Remeitab, 1949/50. Lads of the village

Remeitab 1950. Headmaster and his No.2. (see Letter 8)

Remeitab 1949/50. Animals collecting in early morning to be taken out grazing. (See Letter 13)

Dry hafir at Shekeiniba (outside irrigated area) Oct 1949. (See Letter 16)

Village scene [camels, riders, huts], Wad El Shigil, 1949. (Outside irrigated area). (See Letter 18)

Work at the well, Wad El Shigil, 1949 (outside irrigated area). (See Letter 18)

Culwick [atop a camel] at Wad El Shigil near Managil, 1949. (See Letter 18)

Sennar Dam 1949. (See Letter 20)

Fellata house near Sennar, 1949. (See Letter 20)

Cutting new canal, northern extension, 1949. (See Letter 20)

Foreman's tent at work on northern extension, 1949. (See Letter 20)

Ferry on Blue Nile between Sennar and the Gezira, 1949. (See Letter 20)

Remeitab Girls' School and corner of the Mushidat's house on right, 1949

Remeitab village scene, 1949/50

Remeitab, 1949/50. Yusuf Obeid, Culwick's clerk fetching the post

Suq 1950

Shoemaker's stall, Hosh suq, 1950

Fellata women winnowing grain in Hosh suq, 1950

Somewhere near Remeitab (? Hosh), 1949/50. Grinding sesame to get out the oil. [Camel power]

The Shaikh's daughter, Remeitab, 1950. (Extremely shy without her enveloping tobe.)

Remeitab, 1950. Visiting nomads on camels

Culwick and children, Azaza

Culwick, women and children, Azaza

Market scene, Gezira

Shaikh al Jali, famous as a healer, at Azaza house

Haj Bashir, the goldsmith, taken at tea-party at Azaza house

Tea party, Azaza. Shaikh al Jali seated, centre; Shaikh Daf `Allah, second from left; Haj Bashir, goldsmith, third from right

Fellata threshing dura crops at Culwick's house, Azaza. 1952 crop

Killing a snake, Azaza house, Jan 1953

Thatching grass arriving in Hosh suq, on camel back, Feb 1953

Cotton transport, camel back, Remeitab, Feb 1953

Cotton collecting station, Remeitab

Well, old style, in a Gezira village, Feb 1953. Women gathered

New water supply, Remeitab, Feb 1953

New water supply, Hosh, Feb 1953

Sennar Dam, train crossing, Feb 1953

Sennar Dam, Feb 1953

Sennar Dam, looking down from control room, Feb 1953

Sennar Dam, looking down river. View from control room, Feb 1953

Sennar swimming pool and Miss Baker, Feb 1953

Irrigating Gardens, Sennar, Feb 1953

Sudan Gezira Board staff at the Musaad Nursery, Social Development Project. Culwick, C.W. Beer and associates

Afforestation experiment, Gezira. al-Tahir and a 1-year eucalyptus

Afforestation experiment, Gezira. al-Tahir and a 2-year eucalyptus

Afforestation experiment, Gezira. al-Tahir and 3-year-old eucalyptus

Women and Shaikh Nur at the well, village of Fadasi Halimab, Gezira, Jan 1954

Culwick with headmistress of girls' school, Fadasi Halimab, Gezira, Jan 1954

Culwick's two southern servants dressed in their best, Azaza house, 1954

Southerners' party in chaplain's garden, Medani 1954

Dr. Amin, Minister of Health, arriving to open Midwifery Training School, Medani, 1954 (?)

Dr. Amin, Minister of Health, cutting tape to open Midwifery Training School, Medani, 1954 (?)

Dr. Amin, Minister of Health, opening Midwifery Training School, Medani, 1954 (?)

Dr. Amin presenting certificates to newly-trained midwives, Medani, 1954 (?)

Getting ready for the camel race, White Nile Agricultural Show 1954 (?)

Tug of war, White Nile Agricultural Show, 1954 (?)

Shaikh Nur, Shaikh of Fadasi Halimab, Gezira, 1954

Shaikh Nur, Shaikh of village and the `Umdah of Tayiba Block, at Fadasi Halimab, Gezira, 1954

`Umdah of Tayiba Block, Fadasi Halimab, Gezira, 1954

Little girl, Fadasi Halimab, Gezira, 1954

Gezira youth at Fadasi Halimab, 1954

Gezira house, old style, 1954

Gezira house, new style, 1954

Saqiyah irrigating permanent gardens on the Blue Nile, Fadasi Halimab, Gezira, 1954

Sudan Gezira Board Social Development staff with Miss Marjorie Nicholson (from the Fabian Colonial Bureau) at Musaad Horticultural Nursery. L to R: Sulaiman Bakhit (Editor of El Gezira), Richardson (Village Development Project), Culwick (Social Research Officer), ? (assistant at nursery), Miss Nicholson, Sabin Amir (assistant horticultural officer), ? (another assistant at nursery). 1954

S.G.B.: Social Development Department. Social Research Officer at work in a village, Feb 1954. Culwick and assistant in discussion with tenants at Azaza. Shaikh Daf `Allah, centre, sitting on mat, wearing turban

Murshidat coming to a women's class in a Gezira village. [1954?]

Gezira Women's Social Welfare Class (Irshad Class) in a Gezira village, 1954

Ladies of the Gezira in a sewing class, 1954

Ladies of the Gezira, members of the Murshidats' class

Murshidat leaving a women's class in a Gezira village