Fun Times...

The other day I heard someone say something I haven't heard in a long time:

"Ah Kevin, you are hilarious"

This would have been a big boost to my morale if Stephen (one of my friends) had been amused by my dry Scottish wit, unfortunately he was amused by my attempts to speak Arabic.

Speaking of morale, this week has been a difficult week in all sorts of ways, and not just because I lost my sunglasses. For some reason I've found myself being even more short tempered than usual (and I am not alone in this), and have probably shouted at more people on the building site in the last 5 working days than in the total 6 months before. Clearly, this is not a good development and you can be assured that I'm doing everything I can to address it. Before I push John too far and he starts fighting back...Because he is much stronger than I am.

All that being said, in my defence, some of my strongly worded comments have been in his best interests. He has a distinctly 'African' approach to health and safety, and this has led to us not always seeing eye to eye. Credit to him though, he's always willing to take my comments on board.

This week has been punctuated by plenty of late night visits to the clinic to address our ongoing problems with solar power (turns out solar power doesnt even work properly in Sudan, so if you were thinking of using it in the UK then don't). This is the same problem I reported previously, although this time there was a happier outcome.

On Wednesday evening I found myself up there at around 11pm standing watching as the nurses attended to two seriously ill children (one of whome was literally gasping for breath) thinking "this is rubbish, they are both going to die". We've had a number of dead children in the last few months, mostly to killer Malaria, and this is the outcome I have come to expect. It's all pretty tragic. But, praise God, it looks like they have both turned the corner and life to fight another day.

Not to paint too dark a picture however, this week has not been without it's fun times. Saturdays and Sundays are now usually dominated by extended trips to the market with my friends and this weekend was no different.

The market is situated in the nearest town, Bunj, and looks something like this:


I really like Bunj, it even has a hardware store, of sorts, where you can buy some basic building supplies (pretty useful in my line of work):



And plenty of shops, like this one, where you can buy basic staple foods.



But my favourite thing is that there are plenty of places to drink good Sudanese style coffee. Every week we go to the same place, here:


and hang out for most of the afternoon and accumulate in number as more and more people come along. It's a bit like Friends but without the tedious humour.

Here is me yesterday, with a few of my good friends, enjoying some coffee.


Good times...

So as I discover new ways to shield my beautiful blue eyes (sans sunglasses) and encourage my hilarious araottish wish, I will keep you posted. Keep your sticks on the ice!