Blogs from Sudan, Africa - page 16

Well, I stayed in bed for most of today and caugt up on some sleep. When I woke up around 2pm here, I went downstairs to the bar/restaurant and chilled with Nigel, Paulos, and Juan, who had all stayed in for the day, since I ussually go with them and conduct the interviews while Nigel handles all things camera related. Once we started watching the TV in there, I was really glad I did. One French and one Czech journalist were stopped, ambushed, and killed yesterday out in Darfur. We had to watch this on Al-Jazeera (International Arab TV station), so it a bit upsetting to say the least, b/c it almost seemed like they were subliminally glorifying those wretches who were beating those guys bodies. I actually met the Frenchman when I first got here ... read more

Well...its a little after 4am here, probably around 9pm for you east coast folks, or my special lady on the west coast of SA. I cant sleep, my side..and pretty much my whole body hurts, and the painkillers that they gave me at the hospital wore off a long time ago...so I am just kinda stuck. The reason for the title comes from the utter weirdness (severe and characteristic understatement) that seems to pervade here. Nikolai and Bronskpy (two of the Russians) went out to breakfast at a cafe today (well yesterday, technically). I was eating a breakfast pita and fresh fruit when Bronskpy and I both saw two Arab men dragging a black woman into an alleyway. Since I found out about this trip, I have been telling myself that I had to just do ... read more

So...I finally managed to get Lars (a Dutch cameraman/resident tech expert who is with us) to get my laptop connected to the internet somehow, so I guess this whole thing can start. My planeride over to Sudan was so great, we flew out of DeGaulle in Paris, and meeting everybody was so awesome. There are Dutch cameramen (Lars, Ulrich, Mikael, and Lindersst), a British BBC guy named Nigel, a Greek named Danielo, 3 Russians who are pretty reclusive, 7 American Security Contractors who are with us, as well as another Brazilian Sec. guy named Paulos. Everybody seems really cool, especially Paulos and Nigel. On the long ride over, we all exchanged stories, pictures, etc...and I handed the pictures that I brought of Shirlina (my wonderful girlfriend)...and everyone said that she was beautiful, which is a sentiment ... read more

Heading north out of Khartoum, we passed through many miles of desolate landscape. Lots of sand and rock, countless sand colored walls enclosing clusters of sand colored huts, a massive spooky petroleum refining plant shimmering behind the heat distorted atmosphere, tall pointy Muslim tombs, and a distant ribbon of Nile-inspired green. About 150 miles from Khartoum, we hopped off the crowded bus and into the desert sands, seemingly by ourselves. It felt a bit ill advised, but we could see the pyramids running along the sandy ridge just a short walk from the road, so we knew we were in the right spot. The orange sunset light intensified as we approached. The glaring flaw in this scene was the fact that every one of the 20 or so pyramids was missing its top. Apparently, around 1830 ... read more

Just for a brief layover in Khartoum... More about this in the next journal! ... read more