District of Carberry

Thursday, November 8, 2007 I actually arrive in Khartoum on time. Getting off the plane is easy, but getting through passport control isn’t. The lines are painfully long, and the agents show no interest in making this a quick process. It doesn’t help that half the staff is in a prayer box just to the left of the row of counters. Timing is everything. I look around at the people in line, and the majority appear to be Chinese. That makes sense given the relationship that China has been cultivating in Sudan (diplomacy dollars). Oil workers, engineers, aid workers, and businessmen, all flowing into Sudan while US companies are either legally or morally barred from doing business in Sudan. After 45 minutes, I finally make it through passport control without a hitch—other than the 45 minutes I spent waiting for my turn. Amazingly (or not), when I arrive at baggage control, my bag is still not on the conveyor belt. Fortunately I only have to wait another 5 minutes for it to arrive. I proceed to the money exchange booth, and then purchase a local SIM card. I exit the airport wondering if my ride is here, and how I will identify my driver. I see no sign of anything (such as my name), and of course I’m immediately approached by cab drivers. After standing around feeling stupid for a while (as I usually do when I arrive in a country where I don’t speak the language or know the local customs), I call my contact to see if my driver is on the way. After a few calls back and forth, I talk to my driver who tells me he doesn’t have a car (I guess that doesn’t make him much of a driver), and that I should take a taxi to Ozone (a café that serves as a hub, especially for foreigner) to meet him. I walk out into the parking lot, with one of the rogue drivers still shadowing me, and I approach a row of yellow cabs—I watch as my tail surrenders and looks for other prey. I approach the cab at the front of the line and ask the driver to take me to Ozone. This driver doesn’t speak any English and doesn’t recognize the name “Ozone”. Immediately about 6 other drivers come over, all in their 20’s and 30’s and all speak English. I explain where I want to go, and they speak to my older driver in Arabic. He seems to understand what they are telling him, and so we set off for Ozone. We drive around in circles for 30 minutes, and stop to ask directions no less than 8 times. Finally, we accidentally pull up across the street from Ozone—not because the driver found it, but because he is stopping to ask directions and we are literally across the street from the café. Ozone is closed, and I stand around waiting for my fixer to arrive. After about ten minutes of standing around feeling suspicious-looking a I am standing there alone in the dark with my luggage, my fixer arrives. We talked for a few minutes about logistics, then grab a taxi to my hotel. Needless to say, he hasn’t heard of it and has no idea where it is. We drive to the area where he thinks it is and then call the hotel for directions. Unfortunately the directions don’t make sense to him and we circle around for a while, until he calls again to get more specific details. Eventually we arrive at the Bougainvilla Guest house. My fixer looks at me and asks who booked me there—not a good sign. I check in, and hauled my stuff up to my room—a tiny, basic room with two twin beds and a communal bath that is only a couple of steps up from the last one I experienced a few years ago in a hotel in Timbuktu. I try to log into the free wi-fi, but with no luck. Given the location, the obvious backpacker quality of the place, and the internet problems, I head downstairs to the desk ready to check out and move elsewhere. The woman says I need to configure my computer, and we try a variety of setting from her aged, photocopied instruction sheet. No luck. As we are troubleshooting, the power cuts out. Welcome to the third world…. She grabs a flashlight and heads upstairs muttering something about this being a regular thing. Finally, the power comes back, and she brings over her neighbor who is a computer expert. He gives me the correct settings and I get online—although I still can’t get my Blackberry to recognize the wi-fi. I decide to stay for the night and consider my options in the morning. I order some food from a Lebanese restaurant down the street, and head upstairs to eat on the roof deck of the hotel. The air is warm and dry—a lovely change from Washington, or from the weather in Serbia and Russia on my last trip. I’m surprised by the darkness of the skyline, and the lack of any modern looking buildings. I was expecting a few newer buildings—certainly nothing on a par with the gulf countries, but at least some hint of modernity. As I’m pondering the night scene, the power cuts out again. I then realize that the city is so dark not entirely because of the lack of glowing, new buildings, but because of the lack of electricity. As I sit and eat, I watch surrounding neighborhoods light up grow dark again as the power ripples on and off across the city. As I walk down the stairs to my room, the sound of power generators turning on and off fades in the distance…