...Everything feels a little bit better! I've started to settle, once again. Things are going a bit better with my employer (but I still plan to leave the house as soon as I get a payed job) and thanks to the upcoming winter I don't die from heast exhaustion as soon as I leave the house.
And hey, I think I've managed to leave many problems behind me and be able to concentrate more on my life and my mission (saving the world and all that). I'm fine again so don't worry. I'm having a great time!
Last Thursday I drove a car in Khartoum for the first time and that was an experience I will not soon forgegt. In Sweden we have trafic rules, as in most other countries. But not in Sudan. The only rule they apply here is to honk and drive and hope for the best. Luckily there wasn't too much trafic on my virgin trip so me and my passengers made it out unharmed. We got to a big party in Khartoum II where we mingled for a while before the police came and stormed the place, took all the alcohol that was left (pleased with that I can only pressume...) and turned the music off. For a while we were locked in since the police were looking for any Sudanese, but nothing serious happened. The police usually leave foreigners out of it because they don't want to get mixed up in international business, but a Sudanese who gets caught with alcohol can probably look forward to a couple of nights in a not so nice prison. Luckily, my Sudanese friends made it out unharmed.
Me and Alberto were supposed to go to the pyramids last Friday, but that never happened. So instead, me, him and Alessandra went to Omdurman (the old Mahdi capital) to have a look at the whirling dervishes. Every Friday they gather in their mosque and leave from there to a big field where they play drums and recite "la illaha ilallah" (there is no God but God) until they reach trance. This trance is supposed to open up a your heart so that you can have direct contact with God. Some people flip out completely and whirls around and around and around until they almost fall down. Unlike most muslims, the sufi's are dressed in clear red, green and yellow, plus that most of them are wearing dreadlocks, which made me feel like being in some kind of rastafari festival where everyone was flying high. Since it was the first Friday of Ramadan, we were honored to see the sufi leader of Sudan at the gathering. He was a fun man dressed in a clownish hat in bright colours and bells.
We had our first inoficiall feminist meeting, which was interesting. We will have help from a juridics student and a gender professor, among others. Our first goal is to talk to a couple of the more liberal imams and ask them preach equality in the mosque. A sudanese man will take this on. I doubt that an imam would even talk about feminism/equality with a khawajia. Instead we will do it nice and easilly and promote everything that's about equality in the quran.
Except this, not much else has happened. Have mostly been hanging out with Alberto, drunk sweet tea with mint and smoked sheesha.
And hey, I think I've managed to leave many problems behind me and be able to concentrate more on my life and my mission (saving the world and all that). I'm fine again so don't worry. I'm having a great time!
Last Thursday I drove a car in Khartoum for the first time and that was an experience I will not soon forgegt. In Sweden we have trafic rules, as in most other countries. But not in Sudan. The only rule they apply here is to honk and drive and hope for the best. Luckily there wasn't too much trafic on my virgin trip so me and my passengers made it out unharmed. We got to a big party in Khartoum II where we mingled for a while before the police came and stormed the place, took all the alcohol that was left (pleased with that I can only pressume...) and turned the music off. For a while we were locked in since the police were looking for any Sudanese, but nothing serious happened. The police usually leave foreigners out of it because they don't want to get mixed up in international business, but a Sudanese who gets caught with alcohol can probably look forward to a couple of nights in a not so nice prison. Luckily, my Sudanese friends made it out unharmed.
Me and Alberto were supposed to go to the pyramids last Friday, but that never happened. So instead, me, him and Alessandra went to Omdurman (the old Mahdi capital) to have a look at the whirling dervishes. Every Friday they gather in their mosque and leave from there to a big field where they play drums and recite "la illaha ilallah" (there is no God but God) until they reach trance. This trance is supposed to open up a your heart so that you can have direct contact with God. Some people flip out completely and whirls around and around and around until they almost fall down. Unlike most muslims, the sufi's are dressed in clear red, green and yellow, plus that most of them are wearing dreadlocks, which made me feel like being in some kind of rastafari festival where everyone was flying high. Since it was the first Friday of Ramadan, we were honored to see the sufi leader of Sudan at the gathering. He was a fun man dressed in a clownish hat in bright colours and bells.
We had our first inoficiall feminist meeting, which was interesting. We will have help from a juridics student and a gender professor, among others. Our first goal is to talk to a couple of the more liberal imams and ask them preach equality in the mosque. A sudanese man will take this on. I doubt that an imam would even talk about feminism/equality with a khawajia. Instead we will do it nice and easilly and promote everything that's about equality in the quran.Except this, not much else has happened. Have mostly been hanging out with Alberto, drunk sweet tea with mint and smoked sheesha.
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