The first time I ever came into contact with what they locally call “Bango” was actually not in Sudan, but in a German university in 1996. A Sudanese fellow student had some with him, and since he knew I was into weed while he preferred alcohol, he handed me a small chunk. And I do mean chunk—I’ll explain that later. I remember picking a few seeds out of it, but to be honest, I can’t recall the high from that day at all — we were already drunk at the time.
He told me something curious: in Sudan, people recognize Bango smokers because they walk around with mismatched socks and shoes, and, of course, it’s said to drive you crazy. I’d heard similar jokes from drinkers before, even later in Sudan, so I took it with a grain of salt. He also said that Bango is traditionally grown and sold exclusively by women — and that this has been the case for hundreds of years.
I kept one of those seeds and ended up growing it under a fluorescent light in my room. What came out was a tiny, weak-looking Sativa (or at least that’s how I remember it) that yielded barely 5 grams. I tried to get the most out of it, but the high couldn’t even compare to the K2 or Power Plant I had access to in Germany at the time.
Fast forward to 2004 — I had married my lovely Sudanese wife and traveled with her for the first time to visit family in Khartoum and Al-Ubayyid, Kordofan. Before I met her cousins, my wife warned me: “They don’t smoke weed.” She was wrong. Like with many smokers, it just wasn’t obvious at first.
One evening in Khartoum, I was invited to hang out with seven of her cousins. It turned into one of the best smoking experiences of my life — not because I finally got to smoke, but because of the whole ritual around it. One guy brought drinks, there were fresh fruit platters, and endless trays of Sudanese pastries and sweets being passed around.
Sudan was under Islamic fundamentalist dictatorship ruled at the time, and we were on a rooftop in Khartoum. Some were drinking illegal , others smoking narcotica — everyone knowing full well that if the police showed up with AK-47s, it’d be over… or we’d need a lot of money. But no one seemed to care.
One cousin had the job of organizing the Bango and was running late — everyone got a bit irritated because they wanted to be good hosts.
This was 2004, and I thought I was spoiled with Dutch weed like Power Plant, AK-47, Northern Lights, K2, Afghani #1, and Super Skunk. The cousins told me they’d heard that European weed is much more chemical and intense — less soft and natural.Truth is, after a 2-month tolerance break, just a few hits had me high as hell. I couldn’t stop grinning and nodded automatically😄
We were speaking a mix of English and basic Arabic and stayed up until around 4 or 5 in the morning — which, climate-wise, was actually the most comfortable time to be outside. I remember rolling one myself, but it was dark and I couldn’t really see what I was doing. This time, the buds didn’t have seeds in them.
That night, we basically became partners in cannabis crime. It felt like a true bond — I had real friends and family there.
I even caught one of my new friends smoking on the rooftop the next day and had to admit: If I hit that in the heat, I’d probably collapse right here. I’d stuck to weed the night before and avoided the homemade aragi alcohol, but in the daytime heat, even one puff would’ve sent me into a half-hallucinogenic daydream. It was over 50°C in the sun and i was still feeling high as hell from the night before, like in a bubble.
Next, time, in 2007, I traveled with my wife to visit her family in Al-Ubayyid, Kordofan.
As soon as I arrived, in the evening I was quickly reintroduced to Bango consumption. This time, I asked if I could maybe buy a bit to take back with me to Khartoum. Like with any plug, the first thing I heard was: “This is the best quality from South Kordofan, not just anything!” They told me the plants grow up to 4 meters high in the Nuba Mountains, and the buds are wrapped in banana leaves, buried underground for two weeks, and dried there — which explained the texture perfectly. They also added its done and sold like alcohol only by women in Sudan.
It was extremely dry, hard, almost impossible to break by hand. You could scrape it down into powder. Visually it looked like faded green or light brown hay — but structurally, it was surprisingly dense, almost like modern Calibuds in texture. The smell before burning was barely noticeable — just earthy.
The next evening, a friend of the family brought me about 20g of Bango shaped like a banana for just 5 dollars. He kindly asked if I could maybe leave him some since he needed to study for university. I gave him back around 18g, kept 2g for myself, and told him that’s all I really needed — I didn’t want to risk getting caught with more.
Back in Khartoum, I tried it over the following days. The first test hit me with pure paranoia — and it made sense. Right outside my hotel room, a few South Sudanese people were being taken away by the military, and as a European I clearly wasn’t supposed to witness that. There I was, hiding behind the blinds, high as hell. .
But I quickly realized how strong this stuff really was. The paranoia was just from being super high — and I had no time for that. I had to get in a car and pick up my daughter from kindergarten in Khartoum, in a city I didn’t know, no GPS, and with chaos traffic. But once I was behind the wheel, I was able to focus perfectly. The paranoia faded, and I felt confident — fully functional, even though I didn’t speak the language or know the city. Everything felt fine. I was totally optimistic.
That sense of calm and positivity matched the mood on the street. Sudanese people were incredibly warm and eager to help a European visitor. I had to turn down many invitations because people were always offering food or coffee. Even in the heat, it was such a kind atmosphere.
I ended up stretching those 2 grams over 7 days. Every time I smoked, the high lasted for hours. And it didn’t smell like weed before burning — just earthy. It felt like a block of wood in your hand, but the powder it produced was extremely potent.
I was not able to bring any seeds at this time back to Germany and wasnt able to visit the women who growing it in Sudan, but I couldnt even imagine at this time that it will become impossible to get back to Sudan for anybody of us.
So thats why I share my personal experience with Bango in Sudan. Since 2019, much of Kordofan and Khartoum has become inaccessible due to violent conflict and terror militias. Civilians have been displaced or killed, and even my wife’s relatives no longer live there.
What struck me most about this part of the trip was the hospitality and warmth — traditional Sudanese coffee, food, stories under the stars, and genuine kindness everywhere I went. I could already feel that cannabis here had a cultural role too, even if it wasn’t openly visible all the time.
If anyone here has any experience with Bango in Sudan, or knows more about whether the plants growing in the Nuba Mountains truly qualify as a landrace, I’d love to hear your insights.
Every experience others share brings back a little bit of that good memory for me.
Thanks for reading. I’d really appreciate a like, or just hearing your thoughts!
Typical appearance of Bango as seen here during confiscations amid the uprisings in 2019 — the distinct banana-shaped structure is clearly visible.
