Nahid Sharhabil Ahmed could no longer hold back her tears.
Sitting quietly at the front of a soft-lit celebration hall in Port Sudan, Ahmed watched as black-and-white images flickered across the screen: young Sudanese children training in the distant Chinese city of Wuhan, Hubei province. It had been more than half a century. And she was one of them.
Inside the hall, decorated with Sudanese and Chinese flags and faded photographs, traditional Chinese music played quietly in the background, blending with the murmurs of the audience and occasional bursts of applause at each historic scene on screen.
For Ahmed, time seemed to slip backward.
She appeared in the documentary herself — a young girl performing acrobatic routines alongside the first group of Sudanese trainees sent to China in 1971 under a bilateral cultural exchange program.
As the old training scenes unfolded, Ahmed wiped away tears several times. The memories had brought her back to "the most beautiful years" of her life.
Now head of the Sudanese Acrobatic Troupe, she spoke with deep emotion and nostalgia.
"I was 9 years old when we arrived in Wuhan," Ahmed says. "We were little children, afraid of being far from home and unable to speak a single word of Chinese. But we found warm hearts there that embraced us with kindness.
"The Chinese teachers treated us not just as students, but truly as their own children," she adds. "They woke us before dawn for training, helped us with our studies and meals, and cared for us when we were sick.
"That is why China has always remained, for me, associated with family and warmth," she says.
In 1971, Sudan sent 50 carefully selected children to China to form the core of its first acrobatic troupe. They underwent three years of specialized training in Wuhan.
"Every movement we learned there carried a lesson in patience and discipline. When we returned to Sudan, we felt we were carrying a great dream that we had to share with our people," Ahmed recalls.
In 1974, the children returned to stage performances as the first acrobatic troupe in both Africa and the Arab world.
Since then, the troupe has become one of Sudan's leading artistic institutions, blending Chinese acrobatic techniques with Sudanese and African rhythms and dances.
Looking at the photographs of the old days, Ahmed says she feels "both pride and sadness".
"Pride because we created something that has endured for more than half a century, and sadness because many of our companions are gone or have been scattered by life and war," she says.
Her reflections came during a reception hosted late last month by the Chinese embassy in Sudan in Port Sudan, marking the troupe's 55th anniversary. Sudanese officials, diplomats, veteran performers, and Chinese community members gathered to celebrate.
The celebration unfolded against the backdrop of Sudan's prolonged conflict.
According to Ahmed, the troupe's management has drawn up a plan to rehabilitate its headquarters, provide equipment, and train new performers.
For veteran member Magdi Babikir, the troupe was more than an artistic project.
"It was a complete human journey that shaped our personalities and changed our lives," Babikir says."We were children from different parts of Sudan, and there we learned commitment and teamwork. We learned how art can bring people together despite differences in language and culture.
"Even in this difficult war, I still believe this troupe will return," Babikir says, "because it is not just stage performances, but a shared memory between two peoples."
At the ceremony, Xu Jian, charge d'affaires of the Chinese embassy in Sudan, said the anniversary represented "golden years in which legends were written".
Xu noted that more than half a century ago, young Sudanese children "traveled from the banks of the White and Blue Nile to the banks of China's Yangtze and Hanjiang rivers, where teachers from the Wuhan Acrobatic Troupe instructed them hand in hand and cared for them as their own children".
These human bonds, he said, helped create "a flower of Sudanese-Chinese friendship".
Sudanese Foreign Ministry official Omer Oshik said the troupe has become part of Sudan's cultural memory and a "symbol of civilizational exchange".
Despite the hardships of war, the anniversary carried a clear message: the flower of friendship can bloom again. The art born 55 years ago on the Nile still holds the power to connect people, bridge nations, and remind us that some bonds, like the memory of a warm hand in a foreign land, never fade.
