Electricity and Shopping....

Dear Friends,
Greetings again! Slowly things are coming together here in Sudan, although I would say that in some ways it is happening more quickly than it did in China. While I am still spending the majority of my time by myself I am not lonely, and that is indeed a huge blessing. The first year in China was spent in much loneliness. Perhaps I have learned to either amuse myself more effectively or I have just gotten more used to my own company. At any rate, all is well.

I am getting a better of idea of the utilities that I will be responsible for here. There is the water which is on a flat rate, sometimes paid monthly and sometimes bi-monthly. There is the cell phone which depends on usage. There is the internet which is a monthly flat rate. Garbage is paid when the bags are put out -- that happened last week but I wasn't the one in charge of it so I'm not sure yet how it is paid. And then there is the electricity. The set-up for electricity is similar to what I have seen in Europe. It is paid ahead and not billed later according to useage as in the United States. A sum of money is paid to the company and then a receipt is given with a number to put into a meter. The meter then registers the amount of money and it subtracts money according to the usage of the electricity. I put in 50 Sudanese pounds this past week and will have to see how far this goes. When I get low I'll have to replenish the money so that the electricity continues to flow. I've been told that using the gas on the stove is the most cost-effective, that to use the electric elements is very costly.

Yesterday I was taken shopping for African dresses. It was great fun! The day before at the perfumery shop I had purchased material for two outfits, yesterday I bought material and ordered two dresses and a top from the material. Oh my goodness the material is beautiful. The shop is quite different from the tailor's shop in Nanjing, China. There were three men working at their sewing machines, and piles of material. They do not live in the shop. In Nanjing the tailor and his wife each had a machine, they did not sell the material instead it was sold at local cloth shops and they lived in their shop with their daughters. I will try to get pictures attached for the perfumery shop and the African tailor shop.

Tomorrow I will be going to the International Church service at 5:00 p.m. with an ex-patriate family. The husband is from New Zealand and the wife is from Sweden. There are apparently other Americans in the area here and I am hoping to meet some of them.

Today I have been doing laundry and generally cleaning up around the apartment. I am also reading a book on African theology. It is an anthology by a number of African women. The issues are so very different from those of Asia and the West, reading it is a constant reminder of how much I have left to learn and also leads me to a question that arose from a market area that we went through yesterday on the way to the tailor. Why are Asian, African and South American cultures so colorful in comparison to Western cultures? The texture of life is different, the colors are more intense and prolific. Sometimes Sudan reminds me of the Philippines. The Philippines was like coming home to color heaven for me -- and that is how I have felt here several times as well.
Blessings,
Debbie