Heron on the Nile
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  Na'faj Ahmed from Karko Wed 5 Jan 2005  

An hour later I meet, as arranged, a chap called Ahmed, the son of the village chief from Karko in the Nuba Mountains; a village I visited with my Dilling friend Adam. He proudly showed me a language dictionary he has just completed between his local language and English and Arabic. It makes for fascinating reading. For example, why doesn't English language have a specific word for the "gap between two teeth" or the "sperm of a young man"?

Old man of Karko (April 2004)
Old man of Karko (April 2004)
He has recently been involved with lawyers in the UK. Some woman from his village has become the cause of some controversy. Apparently she was recently featured in a British newspaper as a victim of slavery (UK). Subsequently she's published a book and made a TV documentary recounting stories of kidnap, rape and raiding parties. A court case has arisen and Ahmed is being called as a witness.

I tell him of my visit to Karko in April 2004 and how I'd meet an old man who claimed to have lost contact with his daughter he believed to be living in London. Ahmed feels sure it is the same woman so we pop back into the library and I call up the photos from my Sahel Sojourn travel diary. He is fascinated to see half a dozen photos of his village including, he confirms, the father of this woman.

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