A friend in the UK suggested I got in touch with a lady here called Joanna, an English woman from my neighbourhood of London who's working in Khartoum with the Episcopal Church of Sudan. We arranged to meet under the clock tower in Omdurman at 7:30pm this evening.

It's a busy junction and of course it is already dark but remarkably she finds me. We go shopping in the souq to get gifts for her twin brothers and nephews. I'm interested to go into shops for things I wouldn't afford for myself. We look at ivory, and ostrich eggs; and some filigree silver work tastefully inlaid with amber. Joanna painlessly settles on two similar sized (but differently patterned) wooden boxes, for the twins, inlaid with black, white and silver pieces of shell. She gets the nephews each a glass bottle with coloured sand trickled in so as to make shapes of camels and mountains, and even a round sun.

Suitably satisfied with the shopping, we drive down to one of the swish eateries on the Nile. Most customers are sat outside. We choose a table with views up and down the river but apart from the traffic going over the bridges you wouldn't really know it was there. There are waiters and menus and I realise I am in new territory. Compared with anywhere I've been so far this is up-market. I brace myself for the prices on the menu but they're not too bad. Chicken dishes are about US$7 (that's equivalent to 18 bowls of ful). As it happens, I've changed some dollars today so (unusually) I'm reasonably flush. We order a pizza and a half roast-chicken and agree to share.

We have a pleasant evening and a refreshing chat. I've had a change of scenery and quite enjoyed myself.