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

The Heat

The heat is unbearable.  It is like being fried.  Most of the time we are inside where the temperature without air-conditioning day and night is a steady 90 degrees  (32).  In Georgia I used to measure the extent of my chest infection / colds by how many packets of hankies I got through in a day.  (“I’m down t 4 a day now!” But here it is the number of showers I take in a day.  In the SVP flat I was on at least 7 a day – I even got up in the middle of the night to have a shower and spent my time in the flat wrapped in my sheet.  Actually, I did that because the other volunteer was doing the same but it turned out that that was a special sarong she had brought with her for that very purpose and so I must have seemed very strange to be wearing my bed clothes all day and night.

If we come back to the flat in the middle of the day the first thing we do is to switch on the air-con in the bedroom (used as a treat), plus the fan, get naked, cold shower, don’t dry and lay on the bed in icy ecstasy.  It is of course short-lived but it’s what keeps me going from stepping out of the taxi, crossing over the busy road and making our way up to the third floor.

The water here is never cold.  It comes from a water tank on top of the building and depending on when in the day you shower it will range from tepid to hot.  The best time for a cold shower is at 5 in the morning as this is the longest time the tank has not been exposed to the sun.  The water is cool. 

The same thing goes for water for drinking.  We freeze bottles of water and then it stays reasonably cold for a while but at night, if we leave a bottle by the bed, by morning it is quite warm.  In fact I have drunk colder tea.

In my first few days here, even though I was drinking a lot of water, I nearly passed out through the heat when walking. My head would start to feel really heavy and I would get lights before my eyes and I just had to get out of the sun (we were mostly walking in shade) and sit down.  It’s a different matter when you are on holiday and you sit in the shade reading your book and drinking cold beer and you wonder how people can actually do the housework or shopping in this heat.  We can do nothing.  However after a week my body adjusted to the heat somewhat and I was down to 4 showers a day!  I think school starts early and so this wont be too bad when we are finally placed in schools.

The other thing is that most of the side roads are unmade which means that there is a lot of sand around.  You know what it’s like when you walk on a hot beach, barefoot?  Well it is a similar effect when you are wearing sandals here with the sand flicking up under your feet.

In Limbo

Fitara - This is delicious! pasta like bread stuff with mince, carrot and yoghurt

Many people who read my Georgia blog believed that I wasn’t enjoying my time there because all I did was complain and say how hard it was.  I didn’t see it like that at all.  It was really hard and grim (a well-worn phrase for Georgia of mine) but also a delight.  Maybe I focussed on what made for more entertaining reading and therefore presented a bit of a lop-sided view of our life there.  I fear that I am going to do the same for our time in the Sudan!  So I beg of you to make allowances for my tone and realise that it is probably a lot better than my blog implies!  Already, in my facebook messages I have said stuff like “On a scale of 0 to 10, when 10 is fab and 0 is really shit, today is 2.5”. My friends anxiously offer us jobs in England and offers of homes because they care for my state of mind.  All I can say that it is quite unpleasant for a number of reasons as it was in Georgia and Ethiopia until we settled into our routines.

Gadding about isn’t as easy as it looks.  We have been living out of a suitcase since June 15^th now which is a bit irritating in itself and in that time we have stayed in England for 2 ½ weeks, 2 weeks traveling around Ethiopia, then  4 weeks in one hotel, 2 weeks in another, 1 ½ weeks in 1 flat in Khartoum and now 1 ½ weeks in another flat in Khartoum.  Our gypsy feet need a rest and are in serious danger of getting bunions.  Next week however, will see us in our own little place with roses growing around the door and birds tweeting in our little garden.  I don’t think so!  But I am looking forward to our first Sudanese home in the 2^nd city of Sudan called Wad Medani.

I am getting excited about what we might need; a bucket (which colour shall I choose?  Will I need more than one? A new broom and what about saucepans?  What indeed as we have no clue as to the type of place we will be living in other than it will be an apartment that hopefully wont be too many flights up.  I have been letting my imagination wander.  It started with thinking how nice it wold be to have our portable hot tub on the balcony, then to well it would have t be a cold tub, with ice, and then to possibilities of building a small swimming pool the size of the balcony.  I went into a lot of detail on this one, how would we sort out drainage, temperature control (a whole freezer dedicated to creating large blocks of ice) and drainage (stuff a plastic bag into the balcony overflow).  Of course, being in a country where the only bits of flesh it is acceptable to show are lower arms, ankles and face would prove to be a bit of a problem, but the solution was found.  Strips of fabric wrapped round poles to make sun / privacy protection and yeah! Free to run around naked and not upset the neighbours!  I haven’t found a solution to the weight of the water which is likely to bring down the balcony, naked Jen and all.  I can dream eh?!

There are three things that I have found difficult so far apart from the being in limbo issue;

1) The heat

2) The no alcohol and

3) Covering up.

See later posts.

We are Here!

Sunrise over Cairo

Our flight to Khartoum left at 4:30 in the morning which meant that we needed to be at the airport at around 1:30.  It was a 3 hour drive to Addis from Nazret and so it felt like we had been travelling all day.  We had an 8 hour layover at Cairo and looked into doing a quick tour to the Pyramids at Giza while we waiting.  However, we had a problem with both our debit cards and could not get any money out at Cairo airport and so were technically potless.  However, we had internet and the time passed quickly enough.  Luckily we had stocked up on custard cream variants (banana and strawberry) and with the disappointing airline food stave off any emergent hunger pains.

Coming into Land in Khartoum

We arrived at Khartoum at 18:30 and were met by Rami and taken by taxi to the SVP flat not too far from the airport.  It was still very hot and we had to carry up the bags to the third floor – no lifts – which was a killer.  We have been separated too which is a killer!  There are only 2 bedrooms and for convenience and modesty have been designated a boys and a girls room.  Since our marriage we have spent only 2 or 3 nights at most and hate it!  The “girls” as we are being gallantly called are myself and Rebecca who is 5 days younger than me and the “boys” are Martin and a young man called Raj.

We were invited straight away to a wedding which I badly wanted to accept but after a shower I realised that I was actually too exhausted to do anything else!

We spent the next day sorting out our stuff which meant repacking so that we could have to hand what we might need for our time in the flat.  We were in desperate need of money as we had no cash at all and Sudan does not use VISA.  I had to ring home and ask Neal to go to a Western Union office and wire us money! 

It is really, really hot.  So hot you don’t want to go out.  So hot you want to just keep getting in the shower and drying off under the ceiling fans.  The covering up is an issue.  I wrapped a scarf over my chest, shoulders and arms which is socially acceptable but means that I am trussed up and worried about falling apart when I walk!  My solution is to tuck various ends under my bra straps and this is doing the trick!

Last night I got up in the early hours of the morning and showered; then switched on the ceiling fan in the bedroom and lay there lovely and cool.  I have felt faint a couple of times with the combination of heat and exertion.  It shouldn’t take too long to acclimatise (I hope)

There is a lot more choice of food to eat here than when we were in Nazret.  There are several good café style restaurants that we have seen and have had some delicious food.  Barbequed chicken is a dish that is commonly seen on street corners and is delicious.  We haven’t eaten a bi g piece of meat and virtually no chicken for 2 months so it is a big thrill! 

The charity has to apply for travel visas for us and we also have to have an HIV test.  The we will all be shipped off to our respective posts.

We are in Wad Medani (3 hours bus ride), Raj is going to be based in Khartoum, teaching at University, and Rebecca is going to be based north of Khartoum in Ed Dammer (5 hours bus ride).  She will be very close to Meroe where there are pyramids. Apparently, there are more pyramids in Sudan than in Egypt and with virtually no tourists as well.  This is something that I am particularly looking forward to doing!

There are no land lines in Sudan and so everyone has to have a mobile phone and a dongle for the internet.  Later tonight, Rami is coming over and taking us to buy a dongle each and to get our phones unlocked.  I will let you know my new number!  My old mobile number is now defunct.  I know many people change their numbers regularly but this was my first number and I have had it since 1997 – 15 years!  Is that a record I wonder?!

Scary mask from the Ethnographic Museum in Khartoum

Another one

The stuff of Nightmares