Water is the source of life for everything, including cities. With it, they are born, they die and disappear. In North Kordofan, there are a variety of water bodies, both surface and groundwater, such as permanent and seasonal rivers. With different seasons and ways of living, methods of preserving and obtaining water vary. The pictures in this gallery show water extraction from wells with buckets, hafir “water storage”, and “wabour” water pumps.

The baobab tree is also one of the well-known water stores, as the tree is dug from the inside to resemble a well and is closed from the top with a thick cover such as zinc sheets. The baobab tree purifies water from sediments, and the bucket is used to scoop water during periods of scarce rain and drought.

The emergence of the first capital of North Kordofan Al Obeid was linked to the presence of water, so much so that the name of the city is associated with several stories passed down through generations, shedding a lot of light on this emergence and the influence of the natural environment in choosing the current location. The first story goes that the residents of the neighboring villages used to unleash their livestock and animals in search of the grass that grows in the space extending around these villages and around the swamps and valleys in which water collects after rain. In one of these villages, there was an old woman called (Manfoura) who owned a white donkey that she released in search of food and drink. One time, he was gone for a long time and after his return, the woman noticed that the whites of her donkey were stained with mud mixed with green grass. This matter aroused her curiosity, so the woman followed her donkey the next day to find it grazing in a large depression filled with water and growing on its edges some dense trees and vegetation.