The holiday

---

I am writing this blog by Sudanese time (very late) For the holiday, I went camping in the desert with another teacher at the school, her b/f and another friend. It was great! It was 7 hours straight driving with short toilet breaks in the middle of nowhere. When we finally got to our destination (i still cant rememer the name of the place, no matter how many times Im told!) we looked for a good spot to camp. Obviously it was off the road across lots of sand, near a very small tree. So we started driving in that direction, all seemed to go well until the sand got a little TOO soft....and we moved slower and slower and slower and slower until we werent really moving at all. We got stuck in the sand! So we all got out and dug the car out of the sand, put some rocks under the wheels and all pushed..... This seemed at first to be working great, the car was moving....about 2 centimeters! We were stuck again! So we all dug the car out, collected rocks and pushed the car (I think my efforts at 'pushing' the car was about as pointless as a cat flap in an elephant house, but its the thought that counts) This time the car moved about 3 or 4 centimeters before we got stuck again...So once again, dig the car out, collect rocks. push the car. And (believe it or not) we moved 2 centimetres and were stuck AGAIN! This was all going on while the sun was going down and it seemed more and more pointless. Finally, we set up camp next to the half burried in sand car.

For the first time since ive been in Sudan, I was cold at night. I had to out a jacket on! this is something I wont forget....I needed a jacket in Sudan! And then I woke to a beautiful sunrise. It really was amazing. Although, I had forgotten the about the car.....which I was reminded about by another round dig the car out, collect the rocks and push the car. Eventually, after another couple hours, the car was moving and it didnt stop again till we got to the road.

It was still reasonably early, so we walked up a mountain to have a good look araoun. When I say mountain, its more like a big rock (sudanese version of Uluru) The veiw was great but the best part of teh mountain was coming down. One side of the 'mountian' was all sand...it takes 10-20 mins to get up the mountian but about 2 mins to run and fall down!

The rest of the day was spent relaxing by a quiet spot next to the nile. The people from the house close by and some passing children all came over to say 'hello/salaam alekuum' to the foreigners who all thouht we were mad for wanting to sleep outside.

The next day we had to go back to Khartoum, but before we could get back to a nice refreshing shower we stoped to collect some sand. It may sound slightly strange and Im sure anyone who saw us filling up empty water bottles with sand would have thought we were crazy! But This sand was going to be our sand pitt for the kindergarten and Marys' garden from the nursery rhyme "Mary Mary quite contrary'... ahh, the life of a kidergarten teacher!

---

Comments

[anonymous]

Yay! You're still alive! Haven't heard from you in so long... Miss you heaps! Shivy