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Back at the college I join my staff colleagues for a farewell breakfast and final goodbye. Ustaza Amal has prepared an excellent spread. The students present me with a commemorative thank-you plaque. It is made using a circular orange basketwork food cover as a base. Laid over it is a peg and string work depiction of a baobab tree - the symbol for North Kordofan. Around this are small pieces of coloured leather bearing words in black ink saying something like "for he's a jolly good fellow".
Walking out of the guesthouse must be a little bit like leaving Big Brother (ok, without the crowds). Leaving my self inflicted isolation, my home for the past month, where I have made friends with the staff and the other guests, I have decorated my room and made it mine; I have developed rituals and traditions around meal times and TV viewing. I have not met another Khawaja. I have been recognised wherever I go, public property; a minor celebrity. I've been fudulled and overcharged usually when I least expected it. I thought I had a good relationship with those friendly people at the internet café but then they tried to charge me the equivalent to six hours on the internet for writing a CD. On the other hand the repairman who super-glued my sunglasses proudly announced there is no charge for visitors.
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