How long is a piece of string?

A ball of Plastic string

It is great having a husband who is very practical and good with his hands.  I have learnt so far in my married life of three years that he finds nothing more exciting than fixing things with odd pieces of anything he can find and even better if he has been storing in some out-of-the-way place known as justincase.  I find it amusing but also very handy as I can say things like “make me a door knocker”  (that sounds like a command actually) or “I really need somewhere to store my ….” And he is off and away in pursuit of a solution.

So I was glad to find him some little jobs to do in Sudan.  My mother always said “a man needs a hobby” especially if it is mutually beneficial.

The first task was a washing line.  “Martin I need a washing line”.  This was while we were staying with Tanya and Susannah.  It was perfect.  

We brought the remains of the red ball of plastic string and this is what he has done with it so far.

“I need a washing line.  No make them further apart.  I need more.”

Double washing line

Extra line space needed

It's holding up well

“What do we do about the mosquito net?”

A careful design to avoid tangling the mozzy net with the fan

“We need a toilet roll holder.”

Perfect

"And a Towel rail."

His and Hers Towel rail

Our home 

 A view of the gardens

My husband is a lovely bloke.

First Day at School

Assembly time at Madani Girls' School

 We had already visited both the boys’ and girls’ schools and met the teachers and had a quick look around but today we actually started at the girls’ school properly.  Martin was in the girls’ school on the first floor and I was placed in the girls’ school on the ground floor.  Until June this was one school but the decision was made to create two schools on the same site but with different administration and staff. The smaller of the schools, upstairs has around 400 pupils and has smaller classrooms and higher ability students, whereas the downstairs school has around 800 pupils and larger classroom sizes and are lower ability students.  I was amazed to observe a class of 84 students crammed into a classroom without any room to move.  You couldn’t get a fag paper between them.  We were told that the classes upstairs were small – around 30 to a class but the classes Martin saw were 40 to 50.  High schools consist of only 3 years of students, 1^st years are aged 14, 2^nd years are 15 and 3^rd years are 16.  The 3^rd years are being prepared for exams and so we will not be working with them in the class, just with 1^st and 2^nd years.

They were very excited to have me there

Singing and saying prayers

Lined up ready to say their bit

The day started at 7:30 with assembly and a group of girls led the assembly with a mixture of poems, pop songs and prayers in both Arabic and English, presumably for my benefit.  A couple of the girls were really nervous and tears welled up in me for them and I gave encouraging smiles as best I could.  The head teacher asked me to say a few words which was a little daunting as I had to use a microphone and I hadn’t prepared anything.  But I just told them my name and that I was from London and I had come here with my husband to work with their teachers to help them with listening and speaking English.  I then said “and as I look around at all you beautiful and talented young women, I look forward to getting to know you all” They let out a big “whoooo” at the word beautiful!

Hard to tell them apart in their uniform but their footwear shows their individuality!

I only got to observe a 3^rd year class and as I said they were crammed in tightly. As you would imagine, a few students were particularly active and most of the students didn’t fully participate.  It would be impossible to move around the classroom and check on student’s understanding.  Similarly there would be no moving around for the students and so the only thing to do would be to group the students into 6, with 3 in front turning around to the 3 behind and working together.  Ideally, there would be a seating plan so that the groups were mixed ability and the better students could support the weaker students.  I discussed these thoughts with the teachers in the staffroom and  they we happy enough to try them out. 

One teacher has worked in Saudi and had already been exposed to these ideas and was very interested in trying them.  The other teachers were a little negative but I understand that.  The truth is that my ideas are theoretical as I have never worked with such large classes and the ideas may need refining.  But what they are looking for from me is to show them how to incorporate modern teaching methods and expand listening and speaking skills into the curriculum.  We were led to believe we would definitely not be doing that but instead working with the teachers and improving their language skills.  The conflict arises where the teachers have a deadline to complete the curriculum and therefore do not have time to take a leisurely approach and spent time on developing speech.  Not forgetting of course the broad range of ability in the class and the fact that probably half the class are way below the ability of what what is being taught.

However, as it turned out we didn’t try anything out and were whisked away by the Ministry to attend a workshop on introducing a Debating Society in school.  This was very interesting and I look forward to the possibility of getting involved.

Our Permanent Home!

Proud owner of a book shelf

 On Sunday we moved to our new place which will be our permanent home in Wad Medani.  It is the Teacher’s Union which is a conference centre for ‘educational stuff’ and has a block of en-suite rooms for people who have to travel a distance.  We are on the ground floor and are the only people living there.  It is set in some pleasant gardens and is very close the two boys’ schools and two girls’ schools we will be teaching in and so very convenient.  The shops are in reasonable distance but it feels quite far when walking in the heat so we have used a rakshar (tuk-tuk) to get there.  We think there are some nearer shops in a different direction but we have yet to explore.

The walls were crusty brown before we scrubbed all day

Thrilled to have a wardrobe and to be able to unpack everything

Martin playing ghosties behind the mozzy net

The room is a reasonable size but it is like a hotel room with nowhere to sit other than on the bed which is fine if you are on holiday but not so convenient when you are living and working there.  The Ministry of Education however have been more than helpful and have said they will find us a table and a couple of chairs plus a bookcase which will be very helpful.  We had to scrub the whole place as it was really filthy! But we are making it our own and are very happy to have unpacked finally after living out of suitcases since June 15^th!

We have had to buy a few things though. We have a fridge in our room, but decided we needed some bowls for food for the fridge.  Basic stuff like plates and cutlery plus plastic bowls for washing our clothes and a little and iron.  There is no kitchen attached to our room, but we have been given authority to use the Teacher’s Union’s kitchen when they give us a key he he.  This will be another adventure I suspect.

Getting Started

The Anglican church

The maize field belonging to the church

We arrived but this was the first part of the process and things move slowly.  Having come from Khartoum, Medani is a pleasant sight.   There are trees!  And we saw some grass!  Our temporary apartment block is a couple of hundred yards from the River Nile which is lined by green parks with swings and slides for children and seating areas for relaxing.  Across the road are rows of tea ladies and juice bars and people sit around chatting and relaxing with friends.  It has a real seaside feel and is very pleasant.

We took a little walk around early evening the day after we arrived and found an Anglican church.  We had a look around and met the Bishop and had a good chat with him about his visits to England and the work they were doing here.  He showed us around the place which consists of a few small buildings one of which houses five computers.  I am quite excited about this as it is an opportunity to teach skills and English at the same time and so my brain starts doing somersaults thinking about what I can do here.  However, what hit me like a bolt was seeing blackboards fixed to various points on the outside of the buildings with seats arranged under nearby trees.  These informal outside classrooms are where young people come for English lessons after they have been at school or university.  They hang around the church because they know that this is where they can learn and practice their English.  They come because they need to and the Church meets that need.

Makeshift Classroom

Jessica was an SVP volunteer in Wad Medani before us and she had given us the names of some people from an English School that she volunteered at and we asked the Bishop if he knew them.  Of course he did and so Rose came over when she finished teaching and took us to the English Institute.  We met Doris, a German woman married to a Sudanese man and had lived all over Africa but came to settle here when her husband retired.   (My description does not do justice to this very interesting woman who has done some amazing stuff)  We met James as well; both he and Rose run the little English Language Institute.  It had a lovely atmosphere, like an oasis of calm.

We then met up with Christine who is doing her 3^rd year of her language degree in Sudan and is due back to the UK next week.  We all went along to Nile street, ate pizza and drank tea.

In fact this is all we seem to do all day.  We go over to the Ministry of Education, sit around and drink tea and chat, hand over a piece of paper.  Then we go somewhere else and do the same.  Patience, patience.

Our home town - Wad Medani

View from a Rakshar in Medani

We have been hanging around for what seems like forever and so we were very excited to be travelling to our final destination (not that final!)  The journey itself was fairly seamless and we arrived in Wad Medani after a 2 ½ hour air-conditioned coach ride and were picked up immediately and taken to our temporary accommodation by people from the Ministry of Education.

The accommodation is quite plush, with ceramic floor tiles, air conditioning in all rooms, double glazing and comfortable furniture.  We were told that we would be here for 2 or 3 days and we also guess that our permanent accommodation will not be as salubrious as this so we are making the most of it.   Take-away lunch is brought for us all and we sit around and chat for a while with the Ministry people for a while.  They leave and tell us that they will ring at 6 to make sure we have everything we need for our evening meal and that is that.

The apartment is on the 3^rd floor and some poor lad had carried our 6 bags up the stairs and so we asked Rami how much we should give as a tip and he said 3 or 4 pounds. We gave Rami 5 and asked him to give it to him on his way out but Rami couldn’t find him and so instead put the money on my phone.

At 6 this same boy turns up and asks us about food and so assuming he had been sent by the Ministry we gave him our order for food.  He spoke only very little English but he explained that his brother has a market stall and would we like some oranges or bananas?  So he went and bought us a kilo of each. We also took the opportunity of giving him the tip for carrying up the bags.  He came back again later, asking us whether we wanted some meat.  There followed a long conversation about meat and we said no we didn’t want any.  Then he came back with a frozen chicken and a couple of packs of meat.  We said no again.   He was hard to get rid of.  We were suspecting that he wasn’t from the Ministry at all but acting under his own initiative and we were feeling really put out by his persistence.  Echoes of Ethiopia.

The next day he was back again.  Banging on the door asking if we wanted food.  We told him no but he kept on.  Martin went down to buy something from the shops but the guy was behind him harassing him and so he came back up without buying anything.  The next day as we were walking out he stops us and tells us that the money we gave him wasn’t enough for carrying so many bags – it was “Little money”.  He asked us the same thing next time.

It got to the point that we stopped answering the door and it was only after persistent banging last night that we opened the door and he had brought us up a visitor who we had met the day before who didn’t have my number but knew where we lived.

She told us that he was Ethiopian.  Well that explained everything as this was our experience in Ethiopia and were beginning to think it was going to be a Sudanese approach as well.  What a relief.

Ethiopians are not liked here.  I don’t think it is for any particular reason other than the fact that they are immigrants.  During famine times, many Ethiopians crossed the border to The Sudan and have stayed and many go looking for work here as it certainly appears to be more prosperous that what we saw in Ethiopia.  From what I can see, all countries do this when they have groups of immigrants coming into their country, no different to us or the US in this respect.

In sickness and in health

It took me a week to get an appointment with a Rheumatologist at a hospital.  I went to the hospital last week hoping to see the specialist that day but it was not possible.  Instead I had to wait for the secretary to arrive and she wrote my name down in position 15 in a book for the following Wednesday.   She said 12 o’clock but I had no clue what that meant as there were 15 written down before me.  The waiting room was overflowing so I imagined I would have to be waiting for hours.

Anyhow, Wednesday came and we turned up at the hospital to an empty waiting room and I was seen straight away.  The doctor was very nice and I was given medication for my Rheumatoid arthritis and I have to come back in 6 weeks time.  It is a 3 hour bus ride from our placement city so I guess we will be in Khartoum for the night otherwise it will be a very long day.

The fee for the doctor was 150 SDP which is about £19.  So that was ok.  But the meds were very expensive.  The pharmacy wanted 50 SDP (£5.50) for 10 tablets and when I pulled a face she gave me some cheaper ones for 16 SDP (£2) Why not give me those ones first? I tried in 4 different pharmacies for the main medication and they didn’t have it.  In the last pharmacy, they called a number and a bloke appeared who sold me some directly.  Apparently, he is a pharmacist who goes to Egypt to stock up on drugs that are not available in The Sudan and sells them to pharmacies.  He charged me 150SDP that’s £19 for what would be 2 month’s supply.  I have bought drugs in Egypt and they are very cheap.  Am I being ripped off?  No doubt.  What a pisser.  Not happy.

But the good news is that I have my meds, am off steroids , so my little chubby chops should start to recede and am on the way to being pain free.  Also, my blood pressure is normal for the FIRST TIME IN 8 years without any medication.  Why is this the case?  I have no idea.  In fact it is very good not even just OK.  It was up when I was in the UK in June, maybe Africa suits me after all lol.

As you will gather from my FB statuses, we are working our way through the Sopranos at a steady rate and this has required lying down in bed for endless hours in an awkward position.  This has resulted in a painful muscle spasm at the top of my ribcage.   It was so bad that when it “went” it woke me with a start and I honestly thought I had cracked a rib!  It is like a crick in the neck but in the rib cage so not as bad but I am groaning and moaning like a good’un when I turn over in bed.  To top it all the last batch of our staple food – BBQd chicken – left us with a bug or two and we were up all night with sickness and diarrhoea which has lasted all day today.

BUT this morning we have woken up full of beans and feel great!!

On Covering up 2

Tanya - fellow SVP volunteer - British Muslim with a Jamaican heritage

Following on from my previous entry I wanted to find out more about the religious aspects of the dress code.

Why do Muslim Women wear a Hijab?

This article explains why Muslim women wear a veil.  Known as a Hijab, this is different to the Niqab which is the black, full body plus face veil and is a related but different issue.  The article says that the reason for wearing the veil or headscarf is

“… because they believe God has made it an obligation for believing women.  In the Quran God tells the believing men and women to lower their gaze and to dress modestly.  He (God) specifically addresses women when He asks them not to show off their adornment, except that which is apparent, and draw their veils over their bodies”

“Islam is known as a religion concerned with community cohesion and moral boundaries, and therefore hijab is a way of ensuring that the moral boundaries between unrelated men and women are respected.  In this sense, the term hijab encompasses more than a scarf and more than a dress code.  It is a term that denotes modest dressing and modest behaviour.”

One argument is that wearing the hijab is a symbol of gender-based repression but many women see it as their right to wear a hijab and make independent choices proclaiming their independent thought.  They also feel liberated by the fashion dictates of the society, less vulnerable to sexual harassment in the work place and being valued for their minds and not how they look.

I get both arguments.  I see both sides.  The reality is that these issues apply to all women in all society and not just to Muslims.  While I understand that walking around being too ‘alluring’ (in any society) may well send the message that a woman is available for sexual favours that will be freely given there is also something wrong if women need to totally de-sexualise themselves in order to send the message they do not welcome sexual advances and will not freely perform sex acts on request.  In the end doesn’t it just come down to the belief that men cannot be expected to NOT ACT on any sexual feelings they have?

Of course religion always gets mixed up with the culture which is why different Islamic countries insist on different dress codes for women with some insistent on the full Niqab (burka) for women.

Tanya, a volunteer here is a Black British Muslim and wears a veil in the UK.  Interestingly she says that in the UK she has found that there is more emphasis on how she dresses where other Muslims will feel free to comment about her style of dressing than in The Sudan where she has been living for the past 8 months. Here, she told me, comments about her behaviour, such as sitting at the tea stall in the street on her own will raise comments or looks whereas in the UK this would not be an issue. 

The Koran says that wearing the veil indicates to all men that a woman is a woman of piety and therefore not to be molested; so I was surprised to hear that Tanya is regularly touched up when travelling on buses, despite being fully covered, because she is clearly not Sudanese; the assumption is that she is Nigerian and therefore foreign and therefore sexually available.

This article looks at one Leicestershire woman’s view of wearing a Niqab (full veil) and also discusses how this is a problem.

One woman's experience of wearing a Niqab in Leicester, UK.

“It is a strange thing for something so apparently anti-fashion, but the anonymous black silhouette of the burka and niqab has become a status symbol.  A sports star pulls on a pair of expensively-endorsed Nikes, a Tory politician dons an electric blue suit, and the Muslim woman who has to be seen as holier than thou draws a veil over her face.”

The relationship between religious practices and the culture it is practiced within is a complex one and the dividing line between what is pure religion and what is culture can be very blurred.

On Covering Up 1

Wedding guests the day after we arrived in Khartoum

Evidently I didn’t think much about what it would be like to live in a Muslim country regarding the dress code for women.  I think I had naively thought that it wouldn’t really apply to me as a westerner.  Obviously I did ask what the expectations were for dress, I spoke to previous volunteers etc. and the answer was long skirts, ¾ or long sleeves and no cleavage showing.  One said that she wore skirts to work but trousers in her own time and that as a Westerner, people would accept that a less rigorous adherence to the dress code was accepted.  We wouldn’t be expected to wear a head scarf or anything like that. I was fine with all that.  In fact, with the heat and the strong sun, you would not want to be exposing too much of your skin anyway.

I didn’t anticipate the heat of course.  You don’t actually want anything next to your skin in that heat.  You just want to get naked, have a cold shower and then lie on the bed under the ceiling fan – several times a day.  You want only the lightest of fabric over you when you are outside after 8 o’clock in the morning.  My 3 cotton dresses were fine indoors but to go outside, I had to wrap a scarf around my shoulders or wear a t-shirt under the dress.  For comfort and aesthetic reasons I hated doing both.  I walked like a robot when wearing the scarf so that it didn’t fall off and expose any skin so inelegantly had to tuck bits under my bra straps and I felt ugly pairing up t-shirts with a cotton sun-dress which were not designed to go together.  I know it will take time to adjust to the heat and hopefully in the not so far future I will be able function in the open air.

So focussing on the few things in my wardrobe that are suitable and lightweight at this moment I looked at myself in the mirror the other day and wanted to cry.  I was wearing a flouncy skirt a flouncy top.  My hair has a natural curl to it unless it is blow-waved but firstly cannot face the heat of the hairdryer and secondly, with the sweat followed by the constant showers it hardly seems worth it.  Ditto make-up.  The redeeming features are I am still wearing earrings and I have large sunglasses.  I looked and felt like a bundle of S@&% tied up in the middle as my Mum would have said if she could have seen me.  Of course, we all have those moments in England but here in the Sudan I realise that I am going to have to develop a whole new attitude to how I feel about how I look and dress.  You know, so much of our self-esteem is wrapped up in how we look and this set me off thinking. 

Generally speaking, we like to dress in the way that our peers dress - whoever we consider our peers to be - and when we don’t, we stand out and give rise to positive or negative comments from other members of that group.  We dress appropriately according to the occasion, with certain clothes for work, for relaxing with family or going to social events.  Our clothing is more than something to keep us warm it says a lot about our social standing and the messages we are giving other people.  Even relatively small things like wearing a poppy or a pin for cancer awareness or gay rights tells people a lot about us.

I am not a Muslim and my culture has a different dress code so what do I want to do?  How do I want to dress?  In the UK some would argue that other cultures should adapt to UK culture (particularly when it comes to wearing a full Burqa for example) but why shouldn’t they wear what they like?  So, the same here.  Why shouldn’t I wear a sleeveless top or even a short sleeved t-shirt?  What is wrong with wearing a below the knee skirt?  As I am white and therefore clearly not of this land why would anyone bat an eyelid at me not being dressed the same?  In England I am still taken aback when I see someone in a burqa, curious and wondering at the same time.  Is that how Sudanese people feel if they saw me in a short-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of trousers?  I just don’t get it really.  But what I know is that I feel uncomfortable and very aware of the fact that I would normally dress differently to those around me and could not be relaxed if I was exposing my arms, legs, or chest (I don’t mean cleavage) in public.  I don’t want to be different if the truth be told.

Susanna Chooses to wear a head scarf in public even though she is not Muslim

Susanna, a 20 year old SVP volunteer, chooses to not only cover up her body but also her hair with a scarf even though she is a devout Christian.  She said that it was out of respect for the Sudanese culture and the only time Muslims have asked her to take it off was in a class of female students who wanted to have more of an ‘American’ English lesson.  Another ex-volunteer I saw but did not speak to also chooses to cover her head even though she is not a Muslim.  I find this interesting and maybe this is partly due to wanting to fit in and not stand out.

But one confusing thing is that given that there is a dress code, why are there not more appropriately designed clothes available in the Sudan?  We went to a plush wedding a couple of days after we arrived and the women wore obviously very expensive western style strappy evening dresses.  But under this they wore the equivalent of a nylon roll neck jumper in either a matching or contrasting colour.  Why?  Why not wear a dress that has sleeves and covers your chest?  Also the dresses of the bride and bridesmaids were strapless and showed their chest. 

The bride surprisingly wears an off the shoulder dress

Why do women not wear evening dresses with sleeves?

I am puzzled!

The Camera and the Hamaan

Happy times with my camera

One mini-disaster. I went to the open-air hammaam (loo to you) and pulled up my billowing shirt only to also pull up the handle of my camera that was hanging out of my pocket.  Up my camera flew into the air and landed on the pan.  I watched it in slow motion as it landed recalling all the near misses I’d had in Georgia with my phone and my pocket and watched as it landed and then slowly slid down the hole.  I stared at it not quite believing my eyes.  Did that actually happen?  Sadly it did. 

Rami’s two cousins offered to dig it out for me if I really wanted the camera.  Heroes.  We are guests and that is enough motivation for them to try. 

My Heroes

Not only did they use hands, hooks, string and pole under the heat of the sun digging in you know what, but they carried on again later that night in darkness by the torchlight.

Alas, they found it but couldn’t dig it up before it sunk.

On being Tee-total

The issue with alcohol is a funny thing.  Neither of us are big drinkers and the thought of not being able to drink in the Sudan didn’t seem like a problem.  In Ethiopia after school had finished we would go to the hotel and have a couple of beers maximum three while we used the internet.  I think I had a vodka and tonic on one occasion.  But here, knowing that there is no alcohol is very strange. 

There are lots of café / bars where you can get delicious fruit juices and milk shakes, coffees, teas and other soft drinks but no alcohol.  A glass of rose wine would be nice or a large vodka with lots of ice and tonic but I can’t and I feel cross that I can’t.  I keep saying let’s have a beer or shall I open up a bottle of red? Or get those beers out of the fridge.  I think I am sharing my crossness.  I can’t explain it but I feel like showing off about it.  I resent being unable to have even one cold beer. 

There is of course alcohol here – the home-made kind and when we had this delicious date juice drink, our SVP friend said “Ohhhh if you leave this 3 days …..” so drinking does happen among the locals.  I miss the effects of being a bit tipsy and giggly.  I didn’t think I’d miss the social aspects of drinking either but I do. It's not quite the same getting together with people and then remaining completely sober without a glass of wine in my hand.  To add to this but I don’t like fizzy drinks or sweet juices and a tea or coffee doesn’t really hit the spot. It all adds to the excitement as Rebecca (SVP volunteer) likes to say!

However, it’s like always being the designated driver and it is quite irritating.

Checking out the Pyramids at Meroe

The pyramids are in the middle of nowhere

So we drive for an hour to the Meroe pyramids.  The thing about The Sudan is that it has more pyramids than Egypt and there are no tourists.  There are 3 cemeteries on this site and unfortunately I can’t work out which one we went to; one pyramid looks very much like another!  I think it is the Northern cemetery but feel free to correct me!  There has been some restoration to a few of the pyramids (the smooth bits in the pictures) and are around 3000 years old.  Which is incredible when you think about it.

A few people sell some trinkets

There are absolutely no tourists which is also amazing.  When we pulled up a few people jumped to their little stalls ready to sell us miniature pyramids but I was badly burnt on the Lake Tana Islands in Ethiopia with these sales people and bled dry so I am never purchasing from these people again!  (Does that sound bitter? Lol)

Looking for trade

They found it

Ahead of us there were a couple of guys on camels and we saw that were joining a group of camels ready to take us for a camel ride for just 10SDp (£1.20) I was suffering from the heat; even at 5 o’clock it was burning hot and I remember going on a camel when I was 8 at London Zoo so my camel riding days were behind me, but Rebecca, another volunteer had a go.

So hot - the sand burns your feet 

Two graves

Our knowledgeable guide

I didn’t listen to the guide.  I can never take in all that information which really amounts to a list of Kings and Queens and dynasties and preferred to take photos.  There was something about the solitude of the place that struck me deeply.  To get that sense of time passing; that for 3000 years people had stood on this same spot and looked out on this same view was, and still is as I think about it now, humbling.

Amazing

Still Amazing

Sometimes I can be so full of my own self-importance, thoughts and feelings but there are some places, and this is one of them, where I am forced to see that I am a mere blink of the eye or a dot on the landscape of the universe.

So lucky to see and share this wonderful place with each other

A village wedding

The women's section at one stage of a village wedding

Sudanese weddings are a series of events that take place over many days.  I don’t know what they are yet but we were invited to the event where the men jump up and down and beat the groom with sticks while the women and children watch.  I have no more information to give you at this point.

When we arrived we were treated like celebrities.  Chairs were made available for me and Rebecca with the women and the children swarmed around us wanting their picture taken.  Not to be outdone the women also got up and danced and wanted their picture taken too!

Children crowded around us - we caused quite a disruption

This lady did not want to be left out and strutted her stuff

Men dancing and getting ready to jump

Boys on a wall watching the men jump

It was all a bit overwhelming to be honest and after a while we were whisked off again because apparently the event was not being organised well enough.

On the way back to the house we stopped while Rami met up and chatted with all his mates by the Nile where the river had burst its banks.  There were several children swimming in the river and we were all envious and wanted to jump in.  However I was warned by my practice nurse to stay away from all water in Africa hahaha so I didn’t even dip my toes in.

Boys swimming in the Nile

How many thousands of years have boys been doing this in this same spot?

Since mankind started to live by the Nile, boys have been doing this same activity!

And what a fantastic evening view of the Nile.

The Nile

The Nile

The Nile

A Glimpse of Village Life

A painted gate is the only adornment form the outside of the houses

Rami one of the co-ordinators at SVP invited the new arrivals to stay in his village and visit the pyramids at Meroe (pronounced merrow-ay).  Naturally we were very excited about this and said “YES PLEASE!” and so we set off in a minibus for the 3 hour journey north of Khartoum to the town of Shendi which is the main town near to Rami’s village.  Rami had ordered in advance for a fish to be set aside for us for lunch.  It was a huge fish and it was prepared and freshly cooked for us at a little café and was absolutely delicious!  We washed it down with a pint of some kind of date juice drink which had a distinct undertone of sherry and we were informed that if this was left for 3 days mmmmmmm.  I guess this would be pretty potent by then!

It was very hot by then and so we had the choice to go and see the pyramids now or go to his village and to rest for a while.   We opted for the rest as we were suffering enough with the heat and the last thing we wanted was to be fried in the open air, pyramids or no pyramids.

Another 40 minute drive and we arrived at the village (whose name escapes me) and Rami shook hands and hugged every person we saw!  The thing with these villages is that they look like they have emerged from the earth itself.  The houses are made from the same material as the earth and are not painted on the outside.  In fact the only adornment is a painted gate to the compound. 

We first visited Rami’s Grandfather of whom we had heard stories about and was a bit in awe of him.  He was certainly feared by Rami.  When he was a boy, he had arranged to meet his Grandfather at a certain place to go to the market with him, but he got distracted and forgot about him and went another route and stayed all day at the market.  When he came back, he found his Grandfather still waiting for him in the same place, for the past 10 hours. He asked him why he didn’t make his way on his own and the Grandfather said that he had promised to meet him and therefore he would wait until he met his promise.  Rami said that this taught him never to break a promise.  Another story was when his Grandfather caught a thief and instead of reporting him to the police he put a padlock though the thief’s nose.  The thief thought he had got off lightly and went off but came back a week later snivelling and asked for the key.

We were all welcomed into the Grandfather’s  house, a single story mud-clad building with a flat roof.  What a surprise when we went in!  Ceiling fans, TV and very comfortable and also very spacious!  Very deceptive from the outside!  We just stayed long enough for him to pay his respects and then went onto his Aunt’s place.  When we arrived, we drove through the gate and were met by a maze of buildings and courtyards.  The compound is divided into a women’s area and a men’s area but luckily for us we were given a room of our own as we are a couple.  The house was well equipped, with TV, ceiling fans, cooker, fridge-freezer and another freezer for the water.

An outside wall within the compound

Another Courtyard

Inside view of a bedroom with a very droopy Martin suffering with the heat

One of the outside courtyards.  At night the TV is brought out and everyone lays in the open air on the beds

Martin and Rebecca resting 

Kitchen with all mod cons

Nice little storage jars

The village is on the banks of the Nile and is quite spread out.  There is virtually no noise - something which was particularly noticeable as the city of Khartoum is incredibly noisy!  The village is built up using local materials and this gives the impression that it has just emerged form the earth.  The land is very flat and sandy and it has a look of a beach full of sandcastles when the children have gone home.

The rest of the village consists of similar houses.

Here are some pictures.

Village view

Village view - looks like sandcastles drying out on the beach!

Village view

Village view with Nile overflow

Nile overflow - great for paddling

Nile overflow

Nile overflow