The Last Few Days....

Dear Friends,

I've just finished listening to the haunting Call to Prayer of the mosque closest to my apartment. Khartoum has a lot of mosques and each one of them has distinct architecture and colors. I am discovering that I enjoy sitting in my covered porch area with a lit candle listening to the morning call. It brings me into prayer as a Christian.

Yesterday the college sent a man to change lightbulbs, hang pictures and fix a broken chair. I was sitting on the chair at the computer when the leg fell off -- fortunately nothing on me broke! It was pretty amazing watching him nail the chair back together...I would have thrown it out.

Thanksgiving is of course tomorrow in the states. I've decided to celebrate by going to one of the two local pizza joints here in Khartoum North and getting a vegetarian take-out pizza. They also have sweets that I have admired at the pizza place and I am going to treat myself to some of those as well. I am grateful to have a new home and thankful for a place to buy familiar foods.

Sunday and Monday I was included in dinner plans with one of the other teachers at the college and his family. We went out for Egyptian food as the family is from Egypt on Sunday, then went on to church and afterwards went shoe shopping! I came home with a lovely pair of purple shoes from Egypt that are designed to be worn with henna tattooes. My henna is fading fast -- but once I understood how the shoes were worn (they have pointy toes and human toes don't go all the way to the end of the point!) I could see how they would show the henna to best advantage. It was great fun shopping with the family!

Monday we went to an Indian restauraunt for "lunch." Now I must explain that in Sudan breakfast is eaten around 10:00 a.m., lunch around 4:00 p.m. and dinner at 8 or 9:00 at night. Needlesstosay I am going to have to do some balancing when I am teaching because I need to eat breakfast in the early morning and lunch around noon! At any rate, a friend of the family joined us for lunch on Monday and we had a blast! I love spending time with women friends, we have the mutal language of laughter in common and it is a beautiful language!

I was told that there are places where I can go and have a coffee and nice pastry for a fix when I need one. I explained that when I was in Nanjing I found some Western places for a fix when I got too homesick....and after seeing the shoe stores on Sunday I realize that there are more modern in stores in Khartoum than the ones that I have hitherto been exposed to.

One of the questions that will face me at some point is: will I try to get a car or not? Another question has to do with language study. The colleague whose family I ate with took me to the Arabic school on Monday and it had already closed by 2:30. I am not having much luck getting hold of the people who teach there. Maybe I need to be content with December as the month for preparation for teaching in January.
Blessings,
Debbie