Sat 4 Dec

On Saturday evening an attractive, tall, friend of Amani called Sahar came to the house to collect me. We took several buses to get across to the Khartoum International Fair grounds. Amani (who works nearby) was waiting for us and we proceeded to visit the Nigeria trade fair. I had hopes of seeing all sorts of craftwork, maybe even some embroidered African-fabric shirts. Sadly there was nothing of the sort.

There was a stall promoting ground maize and cassava and a few promoting biscuits and savoury snacks. But the one with the greatest challenge was the stall trying to stimulate interest in sugar. (Sudan has an enormous appetite for sugar and still manages to produce enough for export.) However, this was different. This was soft brown sugar, fortified with molasses. It was very strong. You do not need so much of it, and, we were told, it is good if you are on a diet. I could not imagine all those seat al shai ladies changing their ways – let alone their customers accepting it. The other secret weapon on the stall was icing sugar. I asked the girls if they knew what to do with it? Do they bake cakes? Had they ever iced one? Would they like to try? They were quite keen so I cheekily asked for a free sample.

Having finished the Nigeria experience in about five minutes flat we wandered further into the campus and discovered an electronics industry fair with the latest exciting technology like flat screen monitors and err, well bootleg CDs of music, videos and software. I thought it would be quite dull but the girls got very enthusiastic on the stand for Sudatel (sole telephone provider). By completing a two-sided A4 worksheet they could win a car – all the answers were on the displays and leaflets around the stall. I had fun getting them to translate the questions into English – reasoning with them what to look for and then asking them to translate any and every likely text. They seemed to have a lot of fun looking for "data-clouds" and finding out what service you get if you dial 193.

When it was time to go Amani seemed to have a sudden need to check out the stalls selling CDs. "Let's see if we can find Nancy Ajram," she suggested. It was enough to get me interested. Sure enough we found a CD version of the tape I already own and love and also video CD collection of her pop videos. They rather embarrassingly insisted on buying me both as a thank-you present for accepting their invitation. This Sudanese hospitality is getting too much: it has to stop; though it was rather sweet.