My further travails in Sudan

---

Well, it's been a while since my last entry, so probably just a quickie. Sudan is still extremely hot, though the air-con (blasts of cold air) do keep me a bit cool at night.

I've just seen my first cockroach. It was bloody huge. It was out in the garden, but Pat informed me that there'd been an even bigger one in the living room earlier!! After a twitchy half-hour, during which I resembled someone with Tourette's, head constantly twitching to make sure it hadn't come anywhere near me, rolling up my trouser legs to stop it crawling up them, spraying my bedroom with the strongest, most lethal bug-repellent you've ever smelt, she informed me that she had zapped the living-room one stone dead. I know logically that cockroaches are clean, that they are totally harmless - it's mosquitoes I need to be wary of - my legs are bitten from top to bottom despite liberal sprayings of industrial-strength DEET - they still freak me out totally. The thought of one actually crawling on me makes my blood run cold. So much so that, come bedtime, I found it almost impossible to sleep and was awake at 5.30am!!! Spent Wednesday totally zonked. But, fell into bed at a little after 10pm on Wednesday night, totally crashed and didn't surface until 8am. Result!

So, it's Thursday and I need to get some lesson planning done. But before I do that, back to yesterday. I walked to the British Council to post a letter - it took me about an hour to get there in the searing heat. But, it did mean that once I got there I could sit in a cool, air conditioned space for a while. I'd got directions on how to get there (and I'd visited once before, but that was at night when everything looks different) and, in the end, it seemed to be much further than I'd remembered. But I'm sure that was because when I went before I was with Pat and Serge, who know the way, and we went at a bit of a pace. On my own, and having no points of reference, it was slow going. But as I said, I eventually found my way. The journey back was much quicker - it didn't seem to take me any time at all.

On the way back there were street vendors and, as we needed tomatoes etc. I checked out the prices. One guy told me 3 Sudanese pounds a kilo for one lot of tomatoes and 2 Sudanese pounds a kilo for a different lot. So I asked for a kilo of the ones priced at 2. I also asked the price of cucumbers. No answer, he just put a pile of cucumbers in the bag with the tomatoes and asked me for 7 Sudanese pounds. I queried this and he said 3 for the tomatoes, 4 for the cucumbers. I pointed out that he's said 2 for the tomatoes and four was way too much for the cucumbers. Getting no joy, I just said no way and walked away. Sometimes, I just can't be arsed with trying to negotiate a non rip-off price for basic foods. It can be fun bartering for non-essentials - I used to love it in the markets in Peru, so much so that my mates would get me doing the bartering for them - but I draw the line at foodstuffs. So, once I'd got home again, I had a cup of tea -what else?- then went to brave the local market. And, you know what, I achieved success. The tomatoes were 2, a huge cucumber was 1, rocket was 1 for two bunches, etc. I felt right chuffed with myself. And I cooked the most delicious bean tagine imaginable. Mmmm

If ever I work out how to add pictures - OK I know I added a couple of Canada ones but I was in Britain and I was helped (well, actually I watched him do it!) by a computer buff who knows absolutely everything to my total non-existent knowledge. So, watch this space.

That's it for now.

---