Sat 13 Nov

The last few days of Ramadan has seen frantic buying in the market place and in the road up to our house.

Our nearest market and bus station is Souq Shuhada. It is about three minutes from home. The road that connects us, though dirt, is busy throughout the day with pedestrians, donkey carts, tuk-tuks (moped rickshaws) and Toyotas. Along the road are a variety of food shops, telephone centres and barbers. It also passes a mosque, think it must be our nearest, our "parish" mosque, if you will. In the first week of Ramadan we saw a number of beggars take up positions along our road, particularly outside the mosque. Presumably their usual places are closed for the holy month? Elsewhere along the road, people sell teeth-cleaning wooden-sticks (fasting Muslims here do not use toothpaste for fear of swallowing some), shoes and tools. In this last week-or-so we have seen more and more "nice" things: glittery shoes, fancy children's clothes, perfume, wall clocks that play tunes and toys. Toys like you would not believe: plastic guns, battery powered train-sets and imitation mobile phones.

On the night of Ramadan 29th, Omdurman Souq was incredibly busy; frantic with last minute shopping and selling. There were people not wanting to go home without gifts for everyone and sellers not wanting to be left with stock on their hands. Around 11pm we heard that Eid would begin the next day (I still cannot work out why there is such uncertainty, or who decides). It seems that the town just could not calm down. The noises of the busy street continued well into the night, firecrackers, squeaking toys, drumming and traffic. I fell asleep.

The morning after, the feast day of Eid El Fitr, is like Christmas Day. The shops are shut, the streets are deserted. Presumably everyone has partied-out and is now fast asleep?