I was ready for the heat but not for the dust. Fine red dust is thrown into the air by passing cars, and habuk= sand storms. In the evening we ventured out for food. The local food was good - fool=beans, tamia=falafel, and bread, , all tainted with the fine red grit. (No cutlery; fiddly trying to break bread without using the forbidden left hand). In the light of headlights the dust looks much worse and I realised I was breathing it and eating it. That night, as the dust hurt my eyes, and irritated my throat, I felt a rising panic. What am I doing here? I'm in a dusty city in the middle of the desert...when I could be in a cool green English countryside...or under a palm tree on a pristine coral white beach in the Andaman Sea. Why indeed.
The weekend was good. I met most of Norma's new friends here. Very genuine and nice people. Yesterday four of us went to the market. Plenty of fresh fruits and veggies. A whole field of water melons (that I can't eat, as they taste like cucumber). A boy followed us with a wheelbarrow collecting our purchases. Mostly its not cheap. You are supposed to bargain, and Norma successfully knocked a few Sudanese Pounds off here and there. Mireille speaks Arabic, so that helped a lot as without her we often wouldn't have understood the price. Very sadly it looks like I just missed the mango season.
My Arabic vocabulary is growing slowly. I can now count, also slowly, to 100.
It is very warm. Yesterday daytime 43C, and at 10pm it was down to 39C. With plenty of water, light clothes, shade, ceiling fan, occasional AC, it certainly beats shivering. I have the laptop on its end like an open book to get more circulation and avoid overheating.
The flight here was smooth. The check in guy was absent minded, didn't charge me for my excess baggage. Neither did anyone object to me carrying a 19" monitor as hand luggage. We flew south between the Nile and the Red Sea, that looks like a black stain or scar in the desert monotony. Arrived in the nighttime. I could see the Nile split into two. The Blue Nile flowing from the East, from Ethiopia, is half the width of the White Nile. The airport has is one of the nicest, simplest, quickest of any capital city. No queues. No hassle. But greeting Norma, we weren't allowed to kiss, thats taboo here, apparently its illegal to kiss in public, and forbidden to even hold hands. Sometimes laws are simply wrong.
The first two nights I didn't sleep well. The heat, the clickety click of the ceiling fan, the busy mind and the praise to Allah every few hours kept me awake. But last night I slept well. I did wake twice to hear Allah's song, though the nearest mosque is far enough away to moderate the volume. This particular singer's chant and nasal tone remind me very much of some distant Hindu temple in India, such positive association with travelling, adventure and open road. We're fortunate, as many mosques have terrible loud hailers and tuneless rants. I was quickly able to get back to sleep.
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