Emily and I spent the evening shopping at the largest market in Sudan. It is located about 1/2 a kilometer (don't give me crap, they use the metric system here) behind our house, but we rarely go. Apparently foreigners don't get good deals like the locals do. Our friend Muja (who is Sudanese) came with us to help bargain. It was great. She argued in Arabic like a champion. I got some very nice, sturdy leather shoes for $15 and we got small book bags for $5 each.

A couple quick antidotes about the bureaucratic incompetence of the Sudanese Government:

I was talking about the fires in the trenches with one of the SVP organizers. He is from a well to do family (and their house is apparently not made of mud). One day his house caught fire. They called the police and waited for someone to help them put out the fire. It took an hour for the fire department to show up, and they forgot the water!

The government here (like most governments) can't seem to contain it's growth. There is a ministry for everything. Today, while I was on the bus to town, we passed the Ministry of Ministries!