Take 2

I am not sure what happened to my last post, so I will try again....

I never knew lip balm could be so dangerous....After such a lot of sun and heat, my poor old lips were peeling off my face..So, after investing my hard earned meagre dinar in a lip balm, I proceeded to apply it during class, while the students were working. Imagine my horror, when at the end of the 4th class (so I had been ignorant of my ways for 4 hours), a group of giggling girls came up to me to inform me that what I was doing was extremely provacative and not to be done in front of men! Oh la la, even the simple act of applying some balm to my cracked old lips is sexualised! I checked with one of the teachers and he said, no it is OK, just come here to the office and when no-one is around, put it on then! lol. I wonder what I will blunder into next? A little like the Quiet American, or in my case the Noisy Australian...Is there nothing women can do that does not excite these delicate men?? Anyway, lip balm is not just lip balm here, obvioulsy it is an elabourate form of foreplay... If only I had known, I would have enjoyed the application more..

It is eid at the moment. I have to say I find the slaughter of sheep in the street a tad distressing. Probably more it is the treatment of animals prior to the slaughter - dragging sheep along the ground, throwing them into trucks one on top of the other, tying them alive to the top of cars - most distressing to me. So on the morning of eid I hid in the house until all murders had occured...Then I went out and had a roast lamb lunch :) What do to? I eat meat, but I think I believed it grew out of the ground shrink wrapped or something.... Now I know differently.

Christmas day was just amazing. We (10 of us) hired a bus and drove to Meroi, these are the pyramids in Sudan. I have to say it was SO beautiful I was stunned. We were the only ones there, it was isolated, desolate and could have been 2000 years ago.. Compared to Giza they are a delight. No tourists, no cameras, no gaudy trinkets.. It was great. We then plonked ourselves on the ground, really in the sand and had a picnic Christmas lunch. I will try to attach some photos.

My days are getting better and better. Ahmed is away (there is no link there!), and I am forced to entertain myself. Since Christmas it has been so hectic - and especially now over eid - we have so many invitations. But it is surprising how you can enjoy the little things. Walking along the Nile, eating at local restaurants, discovering fabulous fresh vegetables to make salads... The last few days have been great.

Last night we went to Nubian wrestling. It was so hilarious, the stadium was like in Gladiator, it was like the Colesseum, just lots of people seated around a dirt arena, marked out in the dust with chalk. Then the wrestlers, the showmanship, the prancing, parading, the macho intimidation, the cheering and booing, it was quite a night!

Today some of Anna's students (a fellow vouluntter) hired a boat and took us sailing up the nile. Again we had eid sheep for lunch (!), it was a lovely day. The weather is perfect at the moment. Tonight we are going out to a club (can't wait to see that!) for New Years.

Tomorrow we are going on a walk in the mountains surrounding Khartoum. One of the teachers at University has invited me. So Anna and I will go - it should be lovely. Then we are having lunch at the Greek club, then an eid dinner with another fellow we know. Friday we are going to a beach apparently. Can't wait to see that.

The teaching has settled down, hamdoola. I quite enjoy it now, so to speak. I am going to do some vol work with an organisation called SAFE, it is about giving Sudanese free education. But importantly I am sourcing out some NGO work. I have a few leads which I will follow up after eid - inchallah. I will commence doing some training work for the British Council after eid as well - management courses. It will be good for contacts and for money. Also it is good to pass on skills and knowledge. I will be working with lots of NGOs, so again that is good.

I am not sure what you hear about Sudan back there. We hear nothing. I could be living in country Victoria....how close I feel to the violence. But hopefully I will get some better insights once I have secured some NGO work. The govt keeps a lot from us.

Overall I am really happy and really settled. It has taken 2 months... It was a bit of an assault on all levels when I arrived. The thing I still find most difficult is the overwhemingness of human distress. I have 2 families near me who live under plastic sheeting. I give them occasional food and buy little things for the children. Everywhere you turn there is abject poverty - and you can't help them all. You give to one beggar and 10 more immediatley appear, and then you end up disappointing 10! I think a sign of how much it has gotten to me happened the other day. I was waiting for a bus when a legless woman started crawling along the road full speed to reach me. I actually found myself hoping beyond hope that the bus would arrive before beggar. Mmmm - what to say? I never thought this would be me, but that book, the one called Emergency Sex or something, the one about how some UN workers have 'emergency sex' to block out the horror of what is around them, sort of makes sense to me. There is only so much you can absorb... Life here, like the country itself, is full of contrasts. Alchohol would help I am sure. Help me at least.