Catching up

Hi everyone!

Since my last post, I’ve moved out of the hotel into a nice two-bedroom apartment, joined a gym, had wonderful ice-cream and other sweet treats at a fancy bakery called “Ozone”, attended a cocktail party at the Norwegian embassy, AND attended a Coptic Sudanese wedding! I’m exhausted today :)

My life here is starting to become “normal” (I usually don’t have such busy weekends in NYC) and I have met a lot of nice people to help me out. Thank God!

The building where I live is on a very busy street, within walking distance to a supermarket, a pharmacy, a hotel and two nice restaurants. It’s not within walking distance to the UN compound, but I think I will get to and from work with the office driver.

The Rotana hotel has a wonderful pool and a great gym, so I decided to join as a member for an initial 3-month period. Because the rates are much cheaper if you join as a married couple and I was told that single women enrolment are “frowned upon”, I have found a fake gym husband (Matt agreed to it :)) He is a Brazilian guy who just arrived for a one-year mission.

The Public Relations Manager of Rotana is a nice Brazilian/Lebanese girl, whom I have befriended. (You may be thinking that there are a lot of Brazilians here, but there are only 25 in the whole country and I met almost all of them either in person or via email). Yesterday evening, after a nice relaxing day at the pool, I went to her house for some pampering time! She had a manicure and a hairdresser come over and after we got ready, I went with her to a Coptic Sudanese wedding! Can you believe that I have already attended a wedding here? It was a cool experience!

The wedding was huge! At least 800 people and it was located in a farm by the White Nile. There were actually trees there! It was nice to see some green for a change. Khartoum is pure dust! (Poeiraaaaa…) We met some other interesting people who were sitting at our table (including the pastry chef of the Ozone bakery). Coptic Sudanese are descent from the ancient Egyptians and are much more liberal than the usual Northern Sudanese. They also look different (have lighter skin). I learned that they are very united and wealthy around here. The community is small, so they help each other out in business and stuff. Since they are Christians, there were alcoholic drinks, photographers and women with cleavages at the party! It was a strange sight for me. :)Anyway, The wedding was very nice – quite similar to Western parties - The Bride wore a white gown, they danced to an American song, posed for pictures with the cake … all of that usual stuff. The main differences were all the Henna in the bride’s arms, the noise that other women made with their tongues around her when she walked by, and the Arabic music playing in the background. We didn’t stay long, but the party was supposed to last until 4am!

Today (Sunday) was my first official working day after a lot of induction training. I haven’t interacted with the locals so much because I have noticed that women are really treated differently here. I am always served last if I am being served by a Sudanese in a restaurant and there are men at the same table, a local man almost pushed me to get by in front of the line at the bank, another pulled his chair away from me when I went to sit next to him and another refused to shake my hand. So, I am respecting their traditions and have been trying to keep away. Only talk when talked to! The women are very shy and I have only interacted to a local girl who works in my office. She is very nice. Conservative and friendly

Ok, so that’s it for today. I will post some pictures next time. I need to get internet at home now!