Sunny Sudan

My new flat mate moved in two days ago. This is something that had the potential for disaster given the previous living arrangements! However, the gods have favoured me this time cause she is a lovely Irish girl of similiar age and interests, she's social and intelligent, and cooks very well! I wish I could explain how happy this makes me, given the unfavourable odds for this outcome.
Glyn- you asked about the worst food; sheep's heads and boiled cow legs (ankles). To be completely fair I haven't actually tried either of these so maybe they are truly delicious of which my friends have tried to convince me.

I think it is summer here now. It is too hot to eat or sleep. Clothes seem absurd, espescially longpants and shirts! Even the water that comes out of the taps is near the boiling point. I have recently made new terms for my friendships- any plans we make together have to include cold juice and air conditioning!

I have decided to write a special "3 months in Review" post this time.
Over the course of the last months I have learned many things about this country and have had to adjust to a great many cultural norms. Some of them I welcome with open arms such as the warmness of the people, the food, no alcohol, no "crime," daily marriage proposals etc. There have been a few other things that have been harder to swallow such as the prevalance of female genital mutilation, the fact that the cops down the street are watching me and not protecting me, the display of indifference many of my friends show towards Southern and Western war victims in the city, the overbearing presence of NGO's in the city driving prices up for EVERYTHING, and the idea of female and male roles.
Having said that I have managed to find a couple of sanctuaries to escape this daily attack on my mental well being. One of them is pictured at the top, my friend's Ethiopian coffee room, another is cooking Indian food for my friends, nothing like rolling out some chapatis to release stress!

Here is a list to give you an idea of what shopping is like here:

cheapest thing to buy: Sugar, about $ .20/kilo
most expensive: Shampoo and conditioner, $20 for Pantene 2 in 1!
easiest thing to find: Olives and a feta like cheese
most difficult: Pesto, I looked in 5 "supermarkets" but finally found it!
non-existent: pork, butter, tater tots, sushi
ever prevalent: "fairness cream," almost as bizarre as self tanners. Instead of girls looking like pumpkins, they look ghostly.

Finally, I have gotten used to seeing various armed police and solidiers in the streets in their variety of different uniforms- it is similar to a village people performance. It is usually hard to take them too seriously when they have an ear to ear grin and have ditched their second hand combat boots for more leisurely flip flops!
I laugh everytime someone (not everyone) thinks I am rich, espescially after visiting their sprawling multi-story houses/compounds complete with ornate furniture. Even after explaining student loans and working through university this is an imposibility for them to believe that anyone who is white can be poor. At the other extreme some think that I have been banished by family- why else would I live in Sudan by myself unless in exile???

Yesterday I had my extra "fortnightly" day off. The morning was spent buying dishes for my new (original) flat, when the two former roomates vacated they took many of the dishes with them... I have now moved 4 times since I arrived! Buying dishes in the souq is certainly an adventure and not something I would try to do on my own! I had some friends over for tea and then we went to Souqanaga for lunch.

Naga means camel, so guess what this kindly butcher chopped up for us? Yup, camel. The first course we (my friends -no raw meat for me since the stomach infection) had raw camel livers with onions, salad and roasted camel meat. It is really tasty- similar to goat but leaner, I could eat it everyday! Second course was mutton, which isn't as tasty and really chewy. Here is the process- the market is huge, so you go around to different vendors and buy meat and vegetables then you bring it to a cooking station where an unhygenic lady who just finished picking her nose will cook ( or not cook in the case of livers) and prepare salad and everything for you then you eat it with bread and wipe your greasy mouth with your hand/arm ( thats just me). As delicious and fun as this is as per usual there are not a lot of women there besides the ones who are working.

Afterwards we went to the beach near the presidential villas, which are oversized condos, built for the sole purpose of housing presidents and thier overbloated entourage during the African and Arab summits- a huge waste of money. It makes me ill looking at it...

Tomorrow is the Prophet's birthday so it is a national holiday - yipee!

I have recently aquired a new flat- huge, no cochroaches and by myself!!! Because sometimes it gets lonely living on your own and I never have time to cook my friend Rna has invited me to stay with her family a couple of times everyweek.
Last Thursday night, we drove around downtown Khartoum for entertainment than returned to her house for home made traditional Ethiopian coffee- so delicious!




On Friday everyone in Sudan sleeps until noon, because it is the only day off. Our breakfast was 5 more cups of incredibly strong Ethiopian coffee and traditional Sudanese food I can write in English, but very tasty- one is garlicky porridge and the other sugary couscous.
At around 6 we went to one of Rna's mother's beauty shops (she owns 5) and I got my hair done (extensions) and hands hennaed, I think it took 3 hours cause we had "lunch" at 9.
The process of henna- 1st, you stick your hands in a pit of smoldering cedar for 30 minutes for the ink to absorb better, they call it a sauna, my hands smell like a (forbidden) tasty smoked ham by the end! Secondly, the expert draws an amazingly inspired design she seems to pull out of thin air. It takes over an hour to dry and you can't move your hands at all. When it dries you pick off all the remnants and wash your hands for 15 minutes. It lasts about 3 weeks.
The shop was fun considering they speak Arabic really fast so it is hard to catch anything. They told me to come back everyweek and then I will be fluent.
Anyway the picture is of Rna and I on Friday night at the end of the day.