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| Friday, December 29th, 2006 | | 2:59 pm |
Given that this initially started off as a travel journal - or a close approximation thereof - I thought I should probably mention that I'm in Turkey, Safranbolu to be precise. This whole Turkey trip, while going violently against good financial sense, has been brilliant in fulfilling its intended aim: namely, to avoid xmas in the UK. I came out here with some of my best friends on the 21st, we spent a few days together in İstanbul, where we marked xmas day by walking from Sultanahmet to Taksim Square and back, followed by a lengthy kebab, beer and waterpipe-fest at a local restaurant. Then on Boxing Day Anne and Justin headed off to Selçuk, and given that I'd already been there back in September, I decided to head east to Anatolia and Safranbolu, a perfectly preserved Ottoman town, which I'd wanted to see last time I was here but hadn't been on my route. Boxing Day in Istanbul started with freezing winds and snow-flurries; I boarded the 1pm bus for Safranbolu with a degree of trepidation. It was due to arrive here at 7pm, but when 7pm came we were stationary by the sıde of the road, starinng disconsolately at a gridlocked highway under a foot or so of snow. When we finally shoved our way back onto the road, we inched along for hours through the darkness, past trucks and buses that had slid off the road, the headlights showiıng nothing but a smooth and thickening blanket of snow over everything. We finally slid into Safranbolu around 1.20am, and I officially abandoned any overenthusiastic plans I'd had to have a look around Anatolia and maybe head to the Black Sea, deciding that it was safer to just stay put here for a few days. So I've been doing nothing much since the 26th but mooching round town, dining in empty restaurants (Anatolian cuisine seems uninspiring I'm afraıd; heavy on the yoghurt and paprika which has novelty value for the first meal or two but gets old, fast), watching reruns of Cheers and Saturday Night Live from 1997 (I've never seen SNL before and seriously: do people actually find it funny? It's chock-full of people who normally make me laugh, and yet I've cracked a smile maybe once or twice at the most), writing, and hanging out in the one internet cafe in town, which, true to form, is reverberating to the sounds of hard house and packed full of prepubescent kids playing games across the network. Anyway, it's been very good for relaxation. This is normally the point that I'd throw some photos at you and have done with it, but unfortunately I've been unable to find any batteries in town capable of powering my feisty little camera, so you'll have to do without. It's beautiful here, though, in a slightly eerie way - half-timbered houses set in a ravine, a town square dominated by the twin domes of the hammam, everything covered in snow which looks somewhat incongruous, especially when perched on minarets and balanced on the dried out remains of grapevines that criss-cross over the paths. Oh, and icicles! I've never seen proper icicles before, but here they're dripping from the eaves of houses and mosques, and as I was sat in a deserted restaurant for lunch today, holding a stilted conversation with the proprietor, one fell off the hammam with a resounding crash, splintering on the table outside. Icicles can be perilous: who knew? (Actually, come to think of it, isn't there a book where someone's killed by an icicle? Or am I hallucinating?) Speaking of books (and wow, how's that for a smooth segue?) I'm supposed to be working on Novel 2 at the moment, which is partly set in Turkey; the going's been slow, but at least I have a fairly decent idea of where it's going to go, which ıs a very good thing. As for the existing novel: the publication date's set for February 6, and things have been going remarkably well pre-publication, too - apparently it got a very positive reception at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and I've already sold the rights to Italy, Spain, Poland and Germany, which seems to bode rather well. I've also made the decision to move to part-time status with my PhD so that I have more time to write; ideally I'd be cutting down on paid work time rather than studying time, but unfortunately at this point that's just financially impossible, unless a meteorite of pure gold lands in my back garden tomorrow. Or the day after; I'm not picky. I'm leaving Safranbolu tomorrow for an epic bus journey, first to İstanbul and then to Çanakkale, where I'll meet Anne and Justin for New Year's Eve. Back to the UK on the 3rd. One of my new year's resolutions is to figure out what I want to do with this blog and start using it more, so stay, um, tuned. And happy new year! | | Sunday, December 3rd, 2006 | | 2:16 pm |
Not actually dead
...just busier than a very busy thing. I will update here again, honest, I swear. For now, though, this is just to say that I've started uploading my pictures from the Big Trip Home, starting fairly randomly with Mostar. They're here. More as and when. Current Mood: Busier than god | | Sunday, September 17th, 2006 | | 11:19 am |
So I'm rather inadvertently in Herceg Novi, on the border between Montenegro and Croatia, for a few hours, which is what I get for trying to get anywhere on a Sunday. I was told that there was an 8.30am bus from Kotor (where I spent last night) to Dubrovnik, about which I was skeptical, given the whole Sunday thing, but I gamely turned up at the bus station anyway, and they gamely sold me a ticket. Around 9 I was told that the bus wasn't coming, so I should take the minibus to Herceg Novi and I'd be able to get onward transport from there. Nearly missed Herceg Novi completely (irritatingly enough bus stations around here rarely include the name of the town, while helpfully announcing the fact that they are bus stations - um, thank you, but I figured that part out), got dropped off a few hundred metres up the road, slogged back with my giant bag (5% of its weight now consists of pure Turkish Delight, thanks to the Istanbul spice market), and found out that the next bus to Dubrovnik isn't till 3.30, which also comes through Kotor. I could have slept in and spent a leisurely morning there instead! Booo. There are far worse places than Herceg Novi to be stuck, as it is a gorgeous little walled town on the sea, but it is chucking it down with rain and I really could have done with an hour and a half more in bed. But anyway. ( photos! ) | | Thursday, September 14th, 2006 | | 7:38 pm |
Skopje, Macedonia
Quickly: - Last wrote from Selcuk, Turkey. Following that, headed to Canakkale and the Gallipoli battlefields. It was an incredibly moving experience, and there was something especially amazing about being guided by a Turkish man whose grandfather had died in the Gallipoli campaign - so often, the Gallipoli campaign is portrayed to Australians as something that happened almost in a vacuum, with 'Johnny Turk' as a mere grenade-lobbing cipher; it's good to have it brought home that it means as much to the Turks, if not more, given the way that the Gallipoli campaign gave rise to Ataturk, and thereby modern Turkey. - I then went to Istanbul, where I fell instantly, unquestioningly in love. What a magnificent, marvellous city. Three days was much, much too short - I am yearning to go back for weeks or months. It has entered my pantheon of Best Ever Cities. - Thence to Sofia, by overnight bus, and then immediately to Skopje, which didn't impress me much, so I headed on to Ohrid, in south Macedonia, near the border with Albania. Lake Ohrid is absolutely stunning, and I would have been happy to spend longer there as well; as it was, I had to content myself with ridiculous amounts of photos of boats and comedy cars, to which you will be subjected in good time, you lucky, lucky people. - Back to Skopje yesterday evening - I arrived late and tired, and simply asked my taxi driver to take me to a cheap hotel. I ended up at the peculiarly-named Shell Hotel, an Albanian run place which seemed intrigued and baffled by my presence, but they fed me immense quantities of pork chops and beer, which was gratefully received. I'd decided that I wanted to go to Prishtina for the day today - largely, I admit, to add the impressive Unmik stamp to my passport - and so Sami, my taxi driver picked me up at the hotel at 8.45 this morning, to take me to the 9am bus. I'd thought that we were cutting things a little fine, as I also had to book my overnight train to Belgrade for tonight (overnight train! Possibly in my top 10 of favourite things ever). Sami and I screeched to a halt at the train station (thankfully next to the bus station) at five to nine this morning and ran inside, as he bellowed to get a friend of his to hold the bus - I booked the ticket, Sami ran off with $100 of my money to get it changed so that I could pay (I did consider at this point that if it was a scam, it was an admirably complex one and Sami probably deserved to make off with my money), then returned, saying that the bank had been unable to change it into dinars; meanwhile, the bus for Prishtina had departed. Sami ordered the woman in the ticket booth to hold my ticket, as she looked at him askance (she seemed to think that I shouldn't trust him, quite possibly as he was Albanian and she was Macedonian), grabbed me by the hand and pulled me back into his taxi, whereupon we proceeded to chase the bus through the streets of Skopje, honking on the horn to get its attention. (These stories, I sometimes think, are worth dozens of impressive sights visited by rote.) Eventually it stopped; I leapt out, Sami went through some sort of very complicated transaction with the driver with my $100, and made off with 30 euros, saying that he'd meet me on the bus back from Prishtina with my ticket for Belgrade (at least, that's what I thought he was saying - we were communicating in German, and my understanding was far from perfect). - Hopped on the bus; halfway there, the driver gave me the euro equivalent of the change from my $100; we roared through magnificent mountain scenery and then scrubby plains before arriving in Prishtina. It's a predictably odd city, seemingly ruled over by the patron saints of Mother Theresa and Bill Clinton (there's even a Bil Klinton street, on which is the Hillary clothing boutique), full of UN vehicles (almost like being back in Sudan) and KFOR landrovers. I wandered aimlessly, just trying to get a feel for the place, and rather surprisingly the day turned into a shopping expedition, when I found a fabulous second hand shop, crammed to the rafters with '50s, '60s and '70s clothes that would make a fortune on eBay (alternative job plan #548), and I picked up a shirt, skirt and dress of truly astonishing retro ugliness for 3 euros fifty. Sometimes I am truly in awe of how great my life is. - Bus back to Skopje got in around 5, and there was Sami, waiting with my ticket. Amazing! He brought me to this internet cafe, where I've spent the last three hours (oops); I'm now off out to forage for food before hopping on my 10.50 train for Belgrade. Belgrade! Oh, and I also bought new jeans for 15 euro; what with them and my red velvet embroidered cowboy boots from the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul and my deconstructed designer t-shirt from a boutique in Kas, I may just about be cool enough for Belgrade. But probably not. - 10 days till London! | | Friday, September 8th, 2006 | | 3:47 pm |
İ visited Ephesus this morning, which for some reason has been on my list of things to see for years and years; İ say 'for some reason' not because Ephesus is not worth seeing (because good lord, it is), but because İ'm not quite sure how it entered into my consciousness - possibly via The Comedy of Errors. İ admıt that İ am a tiny bit ruined out by thıs stage in proceedings; İ've seen so many astonishing relics of antiquity ın the past few weeks (Gizeh, Saqqara, Petra, Madaba, Jerash, Palmyra, Al-Bara, Serjilla, Olympos, Kekova and Apilaı - not to mention the slightly less old, but equally impressive sights of Crac des Chevaliers, the Umayyad Mosque, Göreme, Qala'at Salmaan...the list goes on) that İ'm somewhat blase about remnants of columns and scraps of mosaic, no matter how important or evocative, and it takes quite a lot to impress. The Library of Celsus ın Ephesus, however, manages it easily.   And while İ'm here...  Kayaking in the Kekova sound. We had kayaked an astonishing (by my standards) seven miles that morning, and were taking advantage of the wınd to sail the kayaks back. Kayaking was brilliant, and slightly less exhausting than it might otherwise have been, as İ got to share a kayak with our guide and instructor (yet another perq of solo travel), as we glid easily through the waves, leaving the amateurs puffing and splashing in our wake. Ha!  The beach (possibly Pamucak), yesterday evening. Bliss. Spoke to my parents this morning, who requested photos of the Glorious New Hair... ( Read more... ) | | Thursday, September 7th, 2006 | | 11:44 pm |
I am in Selçuk, after yet another all-night bus trip. Arrived at around 8.30 this morning, and planned to spend the day being customarily energetıc, but instead fell into bed until lunchtime, whereupon İ woke up and read a whole book from start to fınısh. İt was blıssful. When İ finally emerged from my room, slightly bleary-eyed, the proprietors of my hotel led me round the market so that İ could put together a picnic of bread, cheese, salami, olives and figs, whereupon they dropped me at a secluded beach with powder-fine sand and left me there for three hours, where İ ate my picnıc, read another book and strode hardily into the Aegean as the sun was setting. Also blissful. İ tend to get caught up in the travel imperative of having to see 10 new and exciting things each day, and İ forget that it can actually be quite exhausting. Days like this are necessary every now and again. Ephesus tomorrow, anyway. İ am now sat in front of the internet in my hotel lobby; it's the Selçuk festival at the moment, and untıl about five minutes ago a famous gypsy musician (whose name I don't know, sorry) was playing to hordes of terribly excited people directly below my balcony. İ have just been given a gigantic glass of red wine from someone who may be a hotel patron or part of the management; far be it from me to turn down free alcohol; as he brought it over, he said gleefully 'İ have put tablet insıde!' İt took me a moment to realise that he was joking, and İ suppose one can never be quite sure, though İ'm halfway through the glass and haven't passed out yet. Heh. He just came back - 'tablet not working yet?' İ do like a nice dark sense of humour. İn other news: - İ just booked a flight back to London from Lınz, Austrıa, for the 24th of September. My original plan was to head all the way home overland, via Berlin and Brussels to see friends, but t,me has been getting increasingly tight, and Ryanaır was offerıng 1 euro flights from Lınz, so what could İ do? Anyway: London people, İ'll be back on the 24th. Let's have (very cheap) drinks! - Sudan comprehensively destroyed my hair, and after several weeks of dragging its dry and bedraggled corpse around on my head, becomıng mildly hysterical as it came out ın handfuls, İ got ıt all hacked off ın Kaş yesterday, and now feel a frillion times better - İ realise İ am still in the middle of New Hair Euphoria, but İ am currently promisimg myself that İ will never have to put up with long hair again! - Given this blog was originally started with the intention of keeping in touch with people while ın Sudan, İ have been considering what to do with it when İ get back to the UK. Short answer: İ'm goıng to stick with it, so don't stop reading just yet. Unless you hate it, that is. İn which case, what are you even doing here now? | | Monday, September 4th, 2006 | | 9:54 pm |
...and İ am sitting ın an internet cafe ın Kaş, Turkey, behind a keyboard İ can make neither head nor tail of, surrounded by hyperactive children playing Combat Strike or chatting to other hyperactive children in China or Ukraine or wherever - and they are doing that thing that İ've only ever experienced ın ınternet cafes, of playing a single song OVER and OVER and OVER again. Furthermore, İ am goıng on a sea kayaking odyssey tomorrow and have to be up early, so yet again İ am just goıng to fling some photos at you and run away. ( iımage heavy, obviously ) | | Thursday, August 24th, 2006 | | 11:43 pm |
 Sunset, Wadi Rum No time, no time! I am supposed to be going to Jerash this morning and then on to Damascus this afternoon, so again, this is going to be a quick update with a couple of pictures to keep you happy. I last updated from Wadi Musa, the town just outside Petra. The next day I left Wadi Musa and headed south for Wadi Rum, a tract of desert not far from Aqaba, made famous by T E Lawrence and generations of backpackers since. Rum Village is sandwiched between two massive red rock faces, which lead out into some ravishing desert scenery. Thanks to the Lebanon-related lack of tourism, it was just me and my guide, which meant that I got a whole load of autonomy about what I could do AND (drumroll) he let me drive his jeep, which was brilliant (whether I was brilliant at it is another story). Slept out in a Bedouin camp that night. The next day, bus to Aqaba and then bus to Amman. Amman's not a particularly interesting city from a tourism point of view, but I'd decided to spend a couple of days here as it's a good base to visit other places, and I'd met a tour guide on the boat to Aqaba who'd offered to drive me out to see the desert castles. I met up with said tour guide the evening I arrived, and during the course of the conversation I wielded my Imaginary Boyfriend Amulet (I really should upgrade to an Imaginary Husband Amulet, as I hear they're more effective, but it seems like a lie too far), whereupon Mr Tour Guide melted away, claiming that his feelings for me were too strong and he didn't trust himself to spend any more time with me. Pah. While this trip is 98% fabulous, the 2% that is unfabulous is all down to unwanted attention from men. I've never felt at all unsafe or threatened, but it's just relentless; everyone seems to feel comelled to try it on, purely on the basis that I'm a lone female - and I can't help wondering whether they think I want to be romanced (because it's always romance, rather than crude sexual innuendo, which would at least give me an excuse to punch them), rather than just to be left alone. It's weird: rarely have I been more constantly conscious of my femaleness, as a separate category from personhood, and my lord it is wearing. I would love to be able to change sexes for a day or so and just have a break from having to deal with this all the time. But anyway. Instead of the desert castles, I took myself off to Madaba yesterday, an hour or so south of Amman, to look at some mosaics. Madaba was practically deserted, and I got to wander around practically* unmolested, which was much needed.  Bee mosaic, Madaba * with the exception of the guide at one of the churches there, with whom I had the following interchange:
Him: "You have boyfriend?"
Me: "Yes!"
Him: "You think boyfriend is better than husband?"
Me: "Well, it's up to the individual..."
Him: "I knew an Amarican woman, she said boyfriend is better than husband, because husband won't eat pussy."
I mean, what do you SAY to that? I feigned icy ignorance. | | Monday, August 21st, 2006 | | 10:50 pm |
Petra
I am way, way too tired to write anything with any degree of coherence right now, so instead I am giving you pictures.  Khartoum, on my penultimate night, taken from the roof of my hotel - looking north towards Souq Al Araby. ( Read more... ) | | Friday, August 18th, 2006 | | 6:39 pm |
Dahab II
Snorkelling today, and the backs of my legs are bright red and painful, and I may have third degree burns on the soles of my feet. Totally worth it, though: coral shaped like brains and fans and forests; purple-lipped clams and thousands and thousands of fish, fish with frills and flounces and all imaginable colours, fluttering through the water like snowflakes. Except multicoloured. Multicoloured snowflakes! Which would be cool. I may have got too much sun. But seriously, beautiful, beautiful fish. What is the evolutionary advantage of being so ostentatiously stunning? Were I a fashion designer, I would design a whole line of evening gowns based on tropical fish. (NB: it is probably a good thing that I am not a fashion designer.) Mount Sinai and St. Katherine's Monastery tonight. Perhaps God will give out some new commandments! ("Thou shalt not kill - for real, this time!") (Forgive the blasphemy. It's the sunstroke talking.) | | Thursday, August 17th, 2006 | | 8:00 pm |
Dahab
I arrived in Dahab this morning, after an overnight bus trip from Cairo that was only reasonably hellish. Dahab is on the Red Sea coast, on the Sinai Peninsula, and it's lovely - really chilled out and beachy, full of divers and backpackers and vacationing Egyptians. The sea here is flat and calm, and the red mass of Saudi Arabia is visible in the distance; on the other side are the spiky, bare mountains of the Sinai. I have mixed feelings about the place, I suppose - it's great to be somewhere so relaxed, and to be able to walk down the street in a sarong and a tank top and not get hassled for it (and that is conservative dress compared to what I've seen other people wearing); on the other hand, that does go to show quite how geared uyp to tourists this place is - essentially, it's a resort, and while that's brilliant for a couple of days, it's not really what I'm here to see. My last day in Cairo was very busy, involving visits to Saqqara (site of the oldest pyramid in Egypt, the step pyramid of Zoser), Memphis and Gizeh, where I bowed to the pressure of the touts and took a two hour camel ride around the pyramids. Be warned: while riding a camel has great novelty value for about ten minutes, thereafter it becomes increasingly painful, and I'm seriously sore today. It was an excellent way to see the pyamids, though, as my guide kept us away from where the busloads of tourists were, and there were long stretches where we genuinely couldn't see anyone else, which is very, very rare at a site that busy. It's just about worth the agony. I hadn't intended to do much shopping while I was in Cairo, and kind of rolled my eyes a little when my driver suggested we stop at some of the shops, but they turned out to be actually rather interesting. We stopped at one of the carpet schools in Saqqara, where kids from ten up are trained to make carpets by hand (they spend three hours each day in the carpet school, on top of normal lessons); we also stopped at one of the many papyrus shops, and I was really surprised by the quality of some of the work. I'd been expecting lots of tourist tat, and indeed it was there in abundance - lurid daubs of the pyramids and the sphynx at sunset; garish depictions or Christ with his crown of thorns, etc. - but there were also some really rather well-done copies of ancient Egyptian art, and I'm not sure whether I suffered a tragic lapse in taste, but I ended up buying three small pieces. I also visited one of the perfume houses, which was brilliant - dim, wood-paneled rooms lined with mirrored shelves holding thousands of tiny, intricate and elegant blown-glass bottles. These places make perfume essence, extracting the oils from flowers, and they export the essence to Grasse, where it's made into all sorts of big name perfumes. I was given all sorts of perfume bases to try - Cool Water, CK1, L'Eau d'Issey - and they're clearly the big sellers of the place, understandably so, as the essence is a fraction of the price of the perfume, and lasts much, much longer. I was more interested in the stuff that they don't export, though, and ended up buying a couple of small bottles - one of lotus flower essence, which is sweet and subtle and fresh and fruity; and one of something called 'secrets of the desert', a blend of various Egyptian scents, which Mohammed, my guide, told me is known as 'Egypt's viagra', amid much eyebrow-waggling. I'm not sure about that, but it definitely smells good, and I'm going to save it until I get home, just in case. | | Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 | | 7:13 pm |
Cairo
Good lord, why did nobody warn me that Cairo is utterly mental? I am actually loving it - it is great to be back in a big city again - but wow. The traffic is genuinely terrifying - though my stern, quelling look seems to work reasonably well at preventing people from running me over - amid the taxis and buses and cars there are hundreds of donkeys and men pulling carts, and people doing the most horrifying things on bicycles: I have seen at least two people cycling while balancing tables on their heads, and another couple balancing gigantic crates of bread; also another man cycling with an enormous roll of foam rubber tied to his back. Traffic aside, this place is brilliant, a chaotic mishmash of slightly grubby buildings that wouldn't be out of place iun Barcelona or Rome, interspersed with glorious, sand-coloured mosques, covered in intricate carvings and crenellations. I arrived this morning, and this afternoon went for a walk through the old Islamic quarter, around Khan al Khalili bazaar and the Al Azhar Mosque, and it was like an imagined Arabia, narrow passages quirking off in all directions, stone steps worn smooth and slippery leading between buildings into darkness. Most of the stalls around there are geared towards tourists, though - I got lost on the way there and ended up in the adjacent market, full of Egyptians, and I'm glad I got to see that, too - it was rather more familiar, similar to Souq Omdurman or Souq Al Araby (but with rather more stuff). I've been surprised at the amount of attention I've been attracting as a foreigner - I was used to it in Khartoum, and it's understandable there, as there are so dew westerners around, and fewer still who actually walk on the street, rather than travelling everywhere in UN Land Cruisers - but I'd assumed that here, people would be so used to seeing tourists that I'd barely get a second glance. Not so: people have been constantly calling out to me, trying to attract my attention, and rarely because they want to sell something; more because they want to talk. I ended up having fuul for breakfast in the flat of a shoe salesman who wanted to practice his French on me (poor chap - I'd've thought he could have done better than having to rely on my stumbling French), and then ended up being led silently by the hand around Khan al Khalili by Mahmoud, a young bloke who spoke no English but seemed more than happy to guide me around, and expecting nothing in return (or nothing much - I eventually had to give him the slip when it became obvious that his intentions were turning amorous). I was a little worried before coming that recent events in Lebanon would have negatively affected people's views of westerners here, but so far the attention I've attracted has been nearly all positive - the exception being the crazy guy who randomly slapped me on the back of the neck but hey, you can't blame the crazy. | | Saturday, August 12th, 2006 | | 6:52 pm |
So I'm back in Khartoum, back in what used to be my local internet cafe, with its usual motley collection of people photocopying and playing computer games and Skypeing with Saudi Arabia. There is a man sat two seats away from me who just had a phone conversation wherein every sentence contained the world 'Alhamdulellah', which is as clear an indication that I am back in the North as it's possible to get. The differences between North and South Sudan is somehow more striking this way round than it was when I moved from here down to Juba; it's the sort of thing that really brings home the fact that colonial borders were scribbled haphazardly across maps in Berlin by white men who'd never been to Africa. North and South Sudan are completely different countries, albeit not (yet) legally: geographically, culturally, climatically, they are utterly incomparable. It's very nice to be back here, though - while basking in the cool and green of the deep South, I'd kind of got into my head that Khartoum was hell on earth, no matter how good a time I'd had here, and it's been good to come back and discover that, despite the fact that it's stupidly hot, and smelly, and dirty, and nothing works, and effectively a police state, I actually really like the place. There was a crashing great thunderstorm last night and as a result much of Khartoum is underwater today; I saw a man wading across Street 15 in Amarat nearly up to his knees in water. One thing that has been really noticeable on returning, though, is the difference in the way the locals treat foreigners, and in particular foreign women. In Juba, it seems like every second person is a kawaja*, and in Yei, where foreigners are much more of a rarity, adults very rarely comment on one's foreignness (kids being a very different matter). I'd forgotten what it's like to walk down the street and have almost every person say something - whether a simple shout of khawaja! or hey you! (my own personal bugbear; it's not meant to be rude, but it gets my back up instantly), or an attempt to strike up a conversation - it's all well-meant, and I'm generally able to take it in good part, but good lord, it can become wearing. And of course being female adds a whole extra dimension. I'd only been in Khartoum an hour before I'd had two marriage proposals, one from the taxi driver who brought me from the airport to my hotel. The taxi driver who took me home last night assured me that if we couldn't find my hotel, I could come back to his place; whenever I call room service, the conversation goes something like this: Disinterested voice: "Yes?" Me: "I'd like to order some tea, please." Disinterested voice: "Which room?" Me: "237." Suddenly interested voice, quavering with excitement: "England lady! Beauty lady!" Particularly odd is the way that men always seem to try to chat you up by comparing your nationality favourably with another nationality - for some reason there are a lot of Russians staying in my hotel, and on my first night one of the restaurant staff asked me if I was Russian: Me: "No, I'm from England." Restaurant man: "Yes, Russian women no beauty! Russian women ugly! England women very beauty!" ...and then later, as I was leaving, he called after me "Sudan woman very ugly!" (which is patently untrue). It's the sort of thing that's amusing for a couple of days, but starts to drive me crazy after a while, until I just start to tune it out. I was talking about it with a khawaja friend last night (who's had far worse experiences than I have, in terms of being grabbed in the street and similar), and I was commenting on how I never experienced it in the South. It's at least partly because I wasn't exposed to as many people, as I travelled so much in UN vehicles and not on foot or in public transport as I do here - but there's also a cultural difference, I think (the flipside of which is that people in the South are far more likely to ask for you to give them something - money or gifts - than people in the North, who tend to be relentless in their hospitality). It's tempting to jump to the conclusion that it's related to Islamic culture, the suppression of sexuality, and the media's depiction of western women - it seems like a fairly glib and cliched conclusion, but there's probably at least a modicum of truth in it. I'm off to Cairo on Tuesday (inshallah) and then onwards to Jordan and Syria and Turkey on my way home. I plan to update as much as possible from the road, and there may even be pictures (if I can find internet cafes with USB ports), but if I go silent for a while, that's why... *not a typo - Southerners use a lot of Arabic words, but change the 'kh' sounds into a simple 'k'. | | Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 | | 6:15 pm |
| | Monday, July 24th, 2006 | | 8:05 pm |
Sign nailed to a tree in Freedom Square, downtown Yei  ( Read more... ) | | Thursday, July 20th, 2006 | | 6:25 pm |
 Downtown Yei. Safely back in Yei after fairly nervous-making trip back by road yesterday, me and a driver and two fully armed soldiers in a knackered old pick-up truck. I was carrying several thousand dollars for our Yei operation, and as the soldiers yawned and shifted their guns behind me, I mused rather uncomfortably about what would happen if we were attacked - giving up life and limb for one's country is one thing; giving up life and limb for a random kawaja is quite another, and really, how much money would make it worthwhile to rob the person you're supposed to be escorting and change one's career from soldier to bandit? But I arrived back safely, obviously, and am more than happy to be here. Have moved out of the UNHCR compound with its 7pm curfew (nicknamed Guantanamo Bay by its residents), and am now somewhere curfew-less, which is proving to be fabulous. Not sure how long I'll be able to stay there, but am enjoying it while it lasts... | | Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 | | 7:43 pm |
Where can you see lions?
 Look, it's me, looking out the top of my safari van! Should I ever die tragically in a freak accident, this is the picture I'd like to be splashed over all the media, please. ( only in Kenya! )In Juba now, back to Yei tomorrow, and hopefully more regular updates from there. | | Sunday, July 16th, 2006 | | 3:00 pm |
Not dead, but rather in Kenya, where I have been for the past week, for much-appreciated R&R (though it's involved rather more getting up before 7am than the name 'R&R' would suggest). Kenya has been BRILLIANT, and possibly the best thing is that I bought myself a new camera in Nairobi when I first arrived - it is a Sony Something Or Other, and I am passionately in love with it, especially because it is unimaginably better than my last, stolen camera, and wasn't even that expensive. I'm now in a Nairobi internet cafe which is blaring '80s pop, and sadly the computers are too antiquated to allow me to upload images, but tomorrow I will be back in Juba and therefore able to share with you the several frillion photos I have of flamingos and monkeys and baby elephants and lions (LIONS!). So you have that to look forward to! | | Thursday, July 6th, 2006 | | 2:49 pm |
FYI: there's a short feature on the Yei - Bor movement on BBC World News today; sadly I am not featured, but my boss is, as is the IOM barge. It was pretty awesome to be sat in the middle of Yei, seeing a feature on BBC World about the exact thing that I am working on. More later. (Maybe.) | | Tuesday, June 20th, 2006 | | 8:44 pm |
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