Heron on the Nile
picture gallery >>>
<<<< >>>>
  Barah Barah afternoon Fri 28 Jan 2005  

lunch at Barah
lunch at Barah
We're invited into a freshly swept, sterile, rakuba (shady outdoor area) furnished with beds and a low table. At last, a break from the sun. No, better than that, a chance to go to the loo, take my shoes off and wash my feet. I lie on one of the beds and make small talk with junior family members until rhada (lunch) is ready.

I guess it's an hour later when we set off to the edge of town; more gardens, lots and lots of birds. Then we take a donkey cart and visit two or three more. I see a squirrel-ferret kind of mammal at the edge of the field but the owner says it's nothing unusual; they are often here eating his crops.

Small holding, Barah
Small holding, Barah
We walk along a track with thick vegetation on both sides. It is no wider than a lorry. This "toboggan run" is sandy so the lorries that frequent it tend to keep their speed up. Salah warns me that should a vehicle come we will have to move quickly. Enticingly I learn that this narrow channel is actually the home straight of the desert route from Omdurman. Now that would be a fun trip to make one day.

We arrive back in the market square just before 7pm prayers. Annoyingly for Salah a bus is waiting to fill its last two places so we set off immediately - no time for a prayer, or a coke or anything.

After half an hour, a few miles before we reach the refinery, we see high in the twilight sky (at about 1000m) mysterious, illuminated, cigar-shaped clouds.

<<<< >>>>