PIZZA!!!

Dear Friends,
Greetings! This has been a lovely day. On my birthday in August I was treated to pizza at a local restaurant by American friends and their daughter. As I near departure for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I took them for pizza today at the same restaurant. Man that pizza is good!

I realized after sitting and talking with them for a while that my bottle of water was still cold. At home in Khartoum after about five minutes of sitting my water begins to get warm. The restaurant was nice and cool so I realized that a good gauge for how cool a building is has to do with how long cold drinks stay cold...

The other thing that was realized today is that in Khartoum was have to ask for our check, our bill, how much we owe for the food. As one of my friends pointed out, in America there is a mentality of getting people in and out, rapid turnover in order to earn the most money possible on food service. Here, as with many facets of life here, people linger and talk. There is not a hurry and we had to ask for the bill. I could see once I was aware of the low turnover in customers that the same people were still at the tables and while a few people came in, there was not a mad rush in or out.

On our way out we passed a table with many, many children at it. I think that it was a birthday party! I admit that I don't eat out very often here and at the same time I have never spotted a child's birthday party before! That was a nice thing to see.

We headed to a Western type mall after lunch to shop for things that we cannot find in the dukans (little shops) on our side of the Nile. It is nice occasionally to visit a large, well lit store with roomy aisles and merchandise that really looks like what would be in a typical American Target or Sears.

The temperature is beginning to very, very slowly come down. At one point in the shade outside today and with a breeze it was quite tolerable. Unfortunately shade does not walk with me when I move, so that didn't last long!
Blessings,
Debbie