This blog entry is going to be full of superficial observations as, having been here just a week, that’s the level we’re adjusting to at the moment. We look forward to getting to know people and getting a deeper understanding of Sudan from them but at the moment we’re just finding ways to cope with daily practicalities.
BUGS are a lot more exciting here. We’ve not met any mean and nasty ones yet but there are plenty of others. Scratch that – an evil camel-spider just ran under my table – argh! Ants are everywhere and today they have all grown wings and one is landing on me roughly every ten seconds as I write this (there are 6 on the screen). For the first 2 days Bethanie was hysterical at even the flies. This was challenging when Mummy was travelling alone and neither kid would let her out of their sight – she spent the overnight stop in Lokichoggio ‘sleeping’ fully clothed and unwashed with Bethanie sprawled on top of her to make sure she couldn’t leave her side. Caleb was very good and brave as he’d have really liked a cuddle too but couldn’t have one. Now the kids are much more accepting of the bugs and we all like our lizard friends that eat them up for us. I wasn’t so keen when I got jumped by a lizard this evening as it had been hiding in our laptop case – but I think he was more scared than I was!
THE WEATHER has so far done BOILING day and night (over 100F), an electric storm that went on for hours, wind that made us wonder whether our roof would lift off, and torrential rain that sent a fine spray through the joints in our corregated iron roof all night and caused the foundation trenches for the new clinic building to need some re-digging. We’ve had one blissfully cool day (Sunday) after the rain, where even at 2pm the weather had only reached 80F. It’s tiring weather but not as hard to cope with as I imagined – you just get used to drinking constantly and we have fans for at night.
FOOD has been good so far – A local lady, Tabitha, cooks for us at lunch and makes rice, lentils and beans pretty tasty. We join together in “kitchens” for the evenings and we’ve got some great cooks in ours. It’s hot cooking in a tukel over a charcoal stove – but I’ve come round to thinking that back home we pay good money for a sauna and here I’m getting one for free! In the team dining room we have a big chest fridge so we can generally have cold water and cold Coke which is a huge blessing.
DAILY LIFE is so far just trying to do normal things in a less-than normal situation. The team’s day starts with devotions at 7am and we follow this with breakfast and around 9am I do an hour’s school with Caleb. Today I then spent 2 hours handwashing a bucketful of our clothes (only about 3 days worth) with Bethanie helping, whilst Caleb and Justin built wooden moulds which the concrete support columns for the clinic will be poured into. After lunch is always siesta time and then it’s either time to start cooking or to wander towards the dining hall to see who is around for a chat/play. John, the Kenyan foreman has made good friends with the kids and Caleb is very proud of the Mabaan bracelet Christiane has made for him.
Dinner is around 6pm and then it’s a race to get the kids into bed before too many night creatures come out. Evenings are generally spent sociably in the dining hall. We are very grateful for our brick house – it only has two rooms but we have a separate kitchen tukel and dining hall spread across the compound so it is not too claustrophobic. 
I’ll stop here as there are now 8 bugs on my screen, several down my back and it’s time to retreat under my mosquito net!
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