By the time I felt well enough to travel back to El Obeid, it was the last day of the semester at the university. As I felt more than a little guilty for taking what turned out to be an extended break in Khartoum, I decided to go straight to the Extra Institute when I got back, then call in at the supermarket on the way home to restock my fridge.
It was great to catch up with my friends in the Speak Out Club, even though I was tired from the journey. After we had finished our session I found out I was invited to eat with Mohammed, Hammid, Saleh and their guests from Ethiopia and Northern Ireland, who were visiting El Obeid as part of "Connecting Classrooms", a British Council Initiative. I suggested going home to freshen up and change, but Hammid insisted I looked fine and we set off to pick up the guests from their hotel.
This was the last night for the 3 guests from Ethiopia, who were travelling early the next day. All of the group had spent the last week visiting various schools in and around El Obeid, as Mohammed and Hamid had done on their visit last year to Northern Ireland. When we arrived at the "Roast House" restaurant we were joined by some of the teachers from the local schools, all looking very elegant in their colourful tobes - suddenly I felt shabby and grubby in the clothes I'd been travelling in all day. I had been to the Roast House many times, but I'd never been upstairs before or fully explored the menu!
One of the Irish guys, Russell had sausages - I haven't seen sausages since I got to Sudan - they were lovely! There was plenty of food everywhere in true Sudanese style. It was wonderful to see my friends being such fantastic hosts, their guests were truly bowled over with everything; the schools they'd visited, places they'd been and the way they'd been looked after and made to feel totally at home - things I suddenly realised had just become an part of my everyday life in Sudan. After a wonderful evening we said goodbye to the Ethiopian guests and wished them a safe journey home.
The next day I went to meet Mohammed and had a lovely breakfast at his home with his family before we headed off for a picnic. Our destination turned out to be not very far from my apartment, a beautiful spot at the local reservoir. It was the first time I had seen an expanse of water in El Obeid - I never knew such a place existed, and when I said as much to Mohammed's wife, she said she had lived in El Obeid all her life and not visited it either! Of course a picnic in Sudan is not just a small blanket on the ground, a few sandwiches and other cold foods - there were plenty of plastic chairs, large mats, salads, bread, agashay (meat cooked over coals),
cold drinks, fruit and tea. We spent a lovely day walking, chatting, eating and drinking before saying a tearful farewell to the Irish visitors. As I watched the emotional hugs and handshakes all I could think was, if it's this hard parting after 5 days, how will it feel saying goodbye to all these wonderful people after 9 months here? Luckily I still have 5 months to go before I have to worry about that!
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