So many new things all at once!

Dear Friends,

I am writing in letter form without pictures because I am using my small Acer in the apartment. So far this is the only one of my two computers which has been successfully hooked into the wireless system here in Sudan. The Apple is being temperamental. The Apple is the one with the primary picture collection, thus Facebook and the Blog are rather dry right now. I have also been told I need to be cautious in my picture taking for a while.

This is most definitely a different world. I would say it may be the most like Palestine of any place I have been. Some parts of Khartoum remind me of Kosovo, Nairobi is definitely a developed city in comparison. I have not seen any of the large kind of shopping malls here as I saw in Nairobi. There was a Sarit Center and a Nakamatt there. I have now today been in a center that was one large room that contained household goods, bedding, dishes, things of that nature. Two of the men from the college and the man who has been doing the repair work on the apartment accompanied me to seek out an automatic washing machine. We discovered that the most commonly available machine is NOT automatic. They are larger, taking more floor space, because of the separate compartment which is included for spinning the clothes. We went to three stores before we found an acceptable one. It will be almost $700. US, which in my opinion would even be expensive in the states -- but then it has been one heck of a long time since I purchased a washing machine in the states.

We also found a water cooler machine that I will be buy as soon as I have more money wired to me from the states. In China I had a machine that produced room temperature water and hot water. I always swore that the next one, if there was a next one, would also have COLD water. Lo and behold, this one has cold water! Very exciting!

As I listened to the men speaking Arabic in the back of the car today I realized it didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before. I asked them if it was indeed Arabic that they are speaking. It turns out that in the Arabic countries, perhaps this would be Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, etc., it is a different Arabic that is spoken. And there is Classical Arabic and regular Arabic. This was true in Greek in seminary. There is Attic Greek, written and spoken in Biblical times by the elite -- and then the Greek of the Scriptures, Koine Greek; the Greek of the marketplace. Well what they were speaking almost sounded like Tagalot, the language of the Filipinos. Go figure.


As we drove around today in the college car I was struck again and again by how different Khartoum is from Nairobi, let alone anything in China or North America. I can tell that it is an Arabic culture and that is not so much a shock since I have spent time in the Middle East. It is the head coverings of the women. They wear the scarves. They wear beautiful, bright colors. It is the men in the long white gowns. The men with the beards. There are no Asians and I don't think I've seen any other Caucasions except at the college. Black or Arabic. Jerusalem is an international city and there was more diversity.

So on Friday, yesterday, was a day off. Now, I can't quite figure this out. I of course might have realized that in a Muslim country Friday would be a day off. I was thinking like a North American though and had the work week at Monday through Friday with Saturday and Sunday off. Church of course on Sunday morning. So today I went in to the college and met with the Principal and he told me that Friday is the day off in this culture. Then he told me that church is in the afternoons because the people work on Sunday mornings. This is the I can't quite figure this out part. So there is a day and a half off, not two days? Are they workaholics? I am sure that eventually this too will become clear.

There are no Costcos here. This goes along I guess with the no mega shopping malls. As I shopped in a little corner grocery today and surveyed the supply of shampoo, no shower gel, I found myself thinking that. There are no Costcos here. However, I did find out that BBC is available in English on TV! That made up for a lot of things! Once I get the washing machine and water cooler taken care of I may think about the satellite dish and the TV. Preaching is supposed to be a newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other hand, well then as I can't read Arabic I may have to have BBC in one hand and the Bible in the other hand:)

Tomorrow God willing (Inshallah) I will have my washing machine and clean clothes. And in the morning I will meet the sister of one of the young men from the college and get a little bit more help with shopping. There don't seem to be a lot of buses here. There certainly is not a subway system. And I found out that a new car would cost almost $20,000. US. There is a used car market, but I didn't found out how much that would be yet. I may have to learn to get around here by taxi.
Blessings,
Debbie