Sharga Hotel Khartoum

... our non-assigned seats on the airplane. Lindsey and Sarah stole one row, Brittany sat ahead of them. Take careful note of Brittany's seat placement. Brittany was sitting next to a window with an empty seat between her and a Sudanese man on the aisle. Sarah was on food duty, she watched out for any free meals served because we were determined to take advantage of every free meal possible. Sarah was given careful instructions to wake everyone when the food was served ...

... one of those buildings. Actually Tanja took the picture, and we went on again. To be stopped two hundred meters further down the road by a guy on a moped. Within a minute a police car stopped as well. We should not have been making pictures. The two wheeled guy was clearly more upset than the policeman, because when the latter saw the picture, he just shrugged and waved us on. The other man seemed to want us have imprisoned at least, maybe worse. We decided not to take ...

... If every logical conclusion can be disproved we have to accept the inevitable. We did not come up with even a logical conclusion, so we accepted finally that these were state organised groups of people going on the Hadj, the Mekka pilgrimage. Must have been close to 50000 people. Bussing to Port Sudan or Suakin, boating to Jeddah and then on to Mekka, the last kilometres on foot. We reached Khartoum at two thirty PM and found the Blue Nile Sailing Club ...

... to pay and finally we were allowed through. We were held up to join a convoy, for safety apparently. This was made farcical when the bus in front of us stopped to let off passengers and hence left us well behind the main group. We sailed through the Sudanese border. Literally. The Ethiopians sent us back over the bridge to complete the exit stamp bit. With the 9pm close fast approaching we managed the Sudanese paperwork in record time and crossed the bridge in ...

... there was a man already waiting on the steps. The first thing he said to us was: "You want boat ticket from Wadi Halfa?" Incredible, it's as if the only foreigners he ever sees only come here for this reason. In any case, he greeted us amicably and led us into his small office, where a big fan occupied most of one corner. We found out we can't book a ticket until the start of that particular week you want to travel on so we'll have to come back Tuesday to buy ...

... animals couldn't possibly survive in such harsh conditions with very little food and water in this dry desolate environment. I also noticed there were no humans in sight. What a difference to Ethiopia, where you couldn't go a few hundred metres without seeing several children! As we sped by one rotting carcass after another, their stench invading our nostrils, I wondered: "If animals can't even survive here, how can humans be expected to?" Survival in Sudan. ******** Hot, dusty ...

... which is now under Lake Nasser. It was apparently a beautiful place. His father, the manager said, told him how he was able to walk 10 kilometers to school; the entire distance under the shade of palm trees that lined the streets. The entire old town is now under water and on some days one can still see the top of the minaret of the old mosque under the surface. With our Ethiopian visas in our passports our concern now turns to getting there. From what we've ...

... the truck supplies, food and water for approx. 35 people for about 8 days were with us. I (Rita) of course "chose" this time to get a bug in my stomach...you do not want to know the details on the condition of the toilet on the ferry (although, it was not as bad as the Jordan - Egypt ferry). We had to wait until everyone disembarked, then all those without stomach problems, including Joe, formed a human chain and carried all our stuff off the ...

... our goal is for people not to need us asap. Most donors have this speech where they tell us that after 5 years, it's not humanitarian anymore ... time to switch to development. I think normally, this would make sense, but this place, this Sudan, defies anything I've seen or imagined ... and I have a pretty vivid imagination. There's this entire gray area nobody's ever really paid attention to before, that's however becoming the norm. This "recovery" phase, between ...

Why less is more in Darfur - psychologically speaking 20 Mar 2007 18:18:00 GMT Blogged by: Nina Brenjo Women sell goods at a makeshift market near the Abu Shook camp for internally displaced people in northern Darfur. REUTERS\Candace Feit What do you do if you're an aid organisation working in Darfur and you want to highlight the plight of people in the region? You're likely to shout statistics from the ...