I landed on Wednesday morning on the 6th of October. Flying over the desert for hours I could barely believe that I finally made it, which might have had to do with the lack of sleep.
Let me start from the beginning. I had stopped over in Cairo for 2 nights to see my friend Wiam- whom I hadn't seen for 3 years. Besides wandering the streets of Cairo and watching the sun go down behind its skyline I meet so many of her wonderful friends- Including a couple of fluent German speaking guys from Cairo and a Spanish doctor who specialized in tropical diseases and insisted that I take his details in case I need some medical advice- he stayed in Sudan just a few months ago. If one would have asked me to have a guess what would await me in Cairo, this certainly would not have been it.
I also watched the practice of a choir project Wiam was part of, for which an eclectic mix of Cairos finest people, it seemed, come together for a week each day after work. Together they write and practice songs- political and comical all leading up to a final performance at the end of the week. With a certain degree of risk as political comments are not really tolerated.
Most of the people who will actually kindly take the time to read this blog will know that I have arrive by now in Shendi- a town 3 hrs North of Khartoum after 2 weeks in the big city-where I was waiting to get my papers sorted and my blood taken- to make sure I don't have AIDS.
So below a quick summary and I shall try to write about interesting events more in details in the next blog
Arriving in Shendi was not really a suprise- check out the wikipedia page- we knew there was not much there from the beginning so we were prepared.
Apologies let me explain we: I am teamed up with a Norwegian Volunteer called Lykke who is pretty awesome and I could not think of a better person to life with for 6 months in a place where the highlight of the city is the teashop and where there is a curfew at 8 for the female students/ women in town. ( or at least that was our first impression of Shendi).
We met the Dean of the Department of Art on the same day and were told that he does not really like foreigners.... welcome to Shendi the "Hochburg" ( home) of the tribe where the president Bahshir is from. ( If you are not up to date with Sudanese politics- voicing your opinion in public could go wrong and the ICC is pretty keen to have a close encounter with him with regards to the war crimes committed in Dafur) but of course all this is 'propaganda' and the west portraying the political situation incorrectly. More about that at a later stage.
Things took time to become arranged in Shendi but as we weren't teaching for the first week we just explored our new home town and got our stomachs used to the Shendi water. We started meeting students and preparing our lessons. One week later we were besides some little hick ups settled in a teaching routine and had moved into our little house in the prairie ( minus the grass). We had a couple of students who took it onto themselves to show us around and gently guide help us with the local customs. We had spent several more awkward conversations with the Dean but were slowly learning how to take him. He is after all taking good care of us.
So the weeks flew past and suddenly it was the week before Eid- the Muslim equivalent of Christmas as it was explained to us several times but actually is the celebration the sacrifice of the lamb instead of the Abraham's son. So turning up to the classes seemed to have become optional for the students and every other evening there was different celebration/ party going on at the university, so that we were quite relieved when it was the holiday and the other volunteers arrived to pick us up for our trip through the desert to Port Sudan followed by the return to Khartoum to spend the Eid Celebration with our friend Osman's family.
Unfortunately 4 of us caught a virus so we were rather boring visitors who needed to be looked after. Which was amazingly enough nothing that would taint their joy of having us around. If being sick is always this pleasant I would not mind it coming round more often.
Now we are on the second week of the Eid holiday and 5 of us remained in Khartoum working away in different jobs/ volunteering and enjoying the pleasures of a big city. Like speaking English at a normal speed and taking part in different cultural events like the football game of the two main teams of Sudan.
So now I am feeling like am up to date. If you want to know more about Port Sudan, Eid or Kartoum read on in the next blog.
