So Eid was called on a Monday night – contrary to the expectations of several important Qatari astronomers and most of the general population who thought it would be Tuesday. We’d chosen that evening to Iftar on the corniche – far enough from the cannon to avoid hearing damage, close enough to know when it was allowed to sip a little water. The call came through that Saudi spotted the moon and had declared the start of Eid, but that Qatar hadn’t announced anything. A bug bit me between the eyes, my face swelled up… still no news. Mr A called a contact at the Emiri Diwan who wasn’t certain. We waited. Finally we gave up and came home, turning on the TV to find a long bearded man announcing the end of Ramadan in Qatar. It turns out that Sudan, Saudi, UAE and Qatar were able to see the moon on Monday night. Odd then that Egypt (geographically between these countries) didn’t see it until Tuesday night, but then who am I to question religious men with very good eyesight and large telescopes?
This news meant our flights to Sudan no longer fitted with the national holiday. We split up – Mr A headed to the Airport, walked straight through the queue with a quick flash of his pass, and rebooked our flights within 10 minutes. I on the other hand was responsible for getting hold of US Dollars printed after 2003 – the only way of buying things in Sudan – so I joined the end of a queue for the Exchange. Where I stayed for over an hour, while the Ramadan ‘entertainment’ belted out beside me from a 3-storey high fake castle, several Qataris jumped the queue and two Filipino guys started a fight. By the time I got to the front I had totally forgotten about the whole 2003 thing and bought $200 we wouldn’t be able to use in Sudan.
This experience may have traumatised me a little. Back at home in holiday mood, Mr A prepared me a Tinto Verano (aka red wine with lemonade) which I spilt all over my dressing table, my packing and several extension leads and plugs. I then screamed at Mr A to help me clear up and lay on the bed weeping for a while.
Convinced it would be chaos with thousands of Eid travellers (the result of having believed doomsaying colleagues), I made us get up at 4am to get to the airport, only to find it quieter than we have ever seen it. Deserted in fact, apart from a chirpy little bird in the lounge.
Our half full flight (strangely Khartoum didn’t seem the most popular of destinations) was an amazing mixture of striking, tall African ladies in jeans, small Arab women entirely covered in black from the top of their heads to their fingertips, ladies swathed in huge lengths of multicoloured fabric and men with wide white turbans and flowing white robes, all of whom clapped when we landed. We were in jeans.
In Khartoum we found airport security somewhat keen to scan our bags, which was not ideal as Mr A was carrying some contraband champagne, a present for our hosts. He did some hasty negotiating, offering his rucksack as a conciliatory prize for not looking in the offending bag, and then finally a Boss agreed with our view of things. Hurrah for champers in a dry country.
We did some hanging out in Khartoum – Mr A and F talking about politics and any other topic they could both pretend they knew something about, and Z and I sharing our thoughts on being a ‘trailing spouse’, home-baked bread, luxury chocolates and Claudia Roden – and took surreptitious pictures of the “Mugran”, the point where the White and Blue Niles converge, from behind the tinted windows of the backseat of the car (taking photos without a licence being one of the numerous illegal practices in Sudan).
Then we headed south to camp by the White Nile, which is really wide at that point and feels almost like a sea. The drive took just over an hour and took us out of Khartoum via hectic, bumpy roads with competing tuk-tuks, cars, buses and people which then fell away to one, straight road with occasional mud-built villages either side.
We put up our tents and had a lovely swim in the river at sunset, hoping the occasional brush on our legs was a Nile perch not a crocodile.
The boys laboriously made a fire (‘careful we don’t run out of matches’) for very tasty supper, only slightly disturbed by the large squishy insects that began dropping onto us from the trees above us. The next morning the girls took control of making a fire. We quietly collected some kindling (avoiding the enormous thorns poking out of anything resembling twigs), screwed up some newspaper, and loaded on some charcoal. One match and a little judicious blowing later and we were away. Ah, the warming feeling of being better than men at things they think they have a caveman-like monopoly over. A feast of sausages, bacon, eggs and tomatoes, eaten while avoiding huge dung beetles and a small scorpion (‘the smaller they are, the more dangerous’), was delicious.
After brunch we took some kayaks out on the river. Mr A had a few problems and only made it one metre from shore before he violently capsized, depositing his sunglasses somewhere on the riverbed (half an hour after waxing lyrical about the benefits of sunglasses in sunny climes). I, in an identical kayak, paddled off quite happily. We were the only people around and the river was so calm. Mr A was a little miffed at my obvious superiority and threw himself out again a little later, muttering something about his left leg being numb. A likely story – his leg seemed to recover rather speedily once we were back on shore.
On our last day we were woken by birds chirruping outside our window, and then wandered around the markets of Omdurman which felt more African that Arabian. In a moment of reckless abandon we stopped for fresh juices at a stall, only to realise that it was made with tap water – after a couple of sips we scarpered like the dirty-water-fearing-foreigners that we are, leaving the juice-maker to ponder what he’d done wrong. We also popped into a museum to admire very old British guns (it’s interesting the pride people can take in showing you the guns your ancestors used to shoot at theirs). All in all it was an unlikely but thoroughly enjoyable city break. Coming from Doha it was refreshingly green and colourful, though if you’d come from anywhere else you might think it looked rather dusty.
Now we are back in Doha which has returned to its pre-Ramadan ways – all the bars are open and people are doing some work. We have made friends with our neighbours and their daughter gave me a beautiful fossilised stone for my collection, and I’ve been reassuring newly-arrived, culture-shocked Londoners that there really are nice people to meet and things to do in Qatar. Time is flying; next week we will have been here for one year…………..
Much Autumnal love to all,
A xxx
Our half full flight (strangely Khartoum didn’t seem the most popular of destinations) was an amazing mixture of striking, tall African ladies in jeans, small Arab women entirely covered in black from the top of their heads to their fingertips, ladies swathed in huge lengths of multicoloured fabric and men with wide white turbans and flowing white robes, all of whom clapped when we landed. We were in jeans. 
The boys laboriously made a fire (‘careful we don’t run out of matches’) for very tasty supper, only slightly disturbed by the large squishy insects that began dropping onto us from the trees above us. The next morning the girls took control of making a fire. We quietly collected some kindling (avoiding the enormous thorns poking out of anything resembling twigs), screwed up some newspaper, and loaded on some charcoal. One match and a little judicious blowing later and we were away. Ah, the warming feeling of being better than men at things they think they have a caveman-like monopoly over. A feast of sausages, bacon, eggs and tomatoes, eaten while avoiding huge dung beetles and a small scorpion (‘the smaller they are, the more dangerous’), was delicious.
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