When the company is right...

I need to get down and write this particular entry. Well, I do not really have ideas what to jot down, but I would like to recapitulate the stuff that I did over the weekend with Matthias and Maria. We realise that life in Khartoum can be depressing when there are limited stuff to do. But we tried to maximise the time and keep each other sane.

1. On Fri, 8 Feb. Fredrik decided to go to the office. Matthias and I decided to tag along - simply because; he (Matthias) wanted to print some stuff and I wanted to follow Waleed (our driver) to go to Friday prayers at adjacent masjid - which is next door to our office. But, when we arrived, it was to our dismay that the prayers were already over and the people were leaving the masjid. I was gutted.

+ Waleed prayed in the lawn. I followed right after to perform my Zohor, since I missed it as well.

+ There are some nice roses in the quad in front of the office

2. Matthias took longer time to print. I took the time to wonder around and check out the places. I went to pray in the masjid. I prayed for Zohor in the lawn at the office earlier. There are some nice things in Khartoum (in fact in Africa in general). People will pray by the roadsides, on the greens, on the pavement etc - as long as the place is clean.

+ Convenience - masjid next door to the office! :)

3. After the whole printing fiasco, we went to a restaurant by the Nile. Well, apparently, that is the meeting point of Blue Nile (from Euthopia) and White Nile (from Uganda) meet. There is so much potential for this to commercialise, but what we's seen was a few anglers fishing at the edge of the water.

+ Matthias and Maria, waiting for the foods by the Nile. Poor Maria, being tall that she is, she hit her heads against the roof of the shade many many times! We stayed till 7:00pm, when it was getting dark.

+ That is the waitress, having lost-in-translation moment with us all. I quickly asked Maria to pose, while Matthias getting serious headache deciding what to eat. Poor her, I only saw her active taking orders from tables and collecting dishes.

+ Don't you think this is nice? Sunset... by the Nile River

4. That night, Matthias and I decided to watch movie by Anthony Hopkins & Ryan Gosling - "Fracture". It was a thriller, it was good - they way I liked it, twists and turns. It was my choice over the other one by Quentin. I was not in the mood for a movie by Quentin.

+ What a good thriller movie, as always, I like the work of Sir Hopkins.

The next day, was Saturday (kind of Sundays in many other countries...)

5. I made a point with Matthias to get up early. Not!! We got up at 10:30am, called our driver Muhammed (another one), and then he sent us to the tennis club. Well, it was very tiring. It was a bad idea to start playing at 11:30 and it was blazing hot already. But we did play. Matthias is good. With my weak knee and tennis-elbow, it was almost impossible to gain points.

+ Matthias looking tired after beating me. Well, wait till I get my knee & elbow fixed, I will make a come-back

6. We got back to the apartment - knackered. Right after that, Fredrik came over to ask us to go to lunch at Solitaire, apparently a nice restaurant. So we went. I was tired and I had steak of some sort. The place has a number of Filipino workers. I passed Petronas station on the way there. We walked there, it was damn hot, we still walked. It was nasty.

+ On the way to Solitaire, we passed 'the pride of Malaysia' - Petronas. Petronas is kinda large over here

+ In the restaurant/cafe, we were so hungry. I was close to napping, while waiting for the food

OK, that is about all. Uh time flies, this Thursday, I will be flying back to Dublin. Thank god for that. I can't wait to see friends - Ramlah, Itamar, Paul and Zila. Uh there will be birthday celebration for Zila. And there will be farewell drinks for John at Bodega too. I guess I must show up, John is a great laugh and I'd miss him of course. I can still remember how he was lightened up the moment I talked about his baby girl. He became a father last year and that has changed his life I guess. And now, he said in his last email, the change is due to family reason. John, all the best to you.

+ Oh this was not captured in Khartoum, this was taken in Dublin, after my dinner at an Indian food place where Zila and Ramlah were busy flirting. Oh the 2 gals in the window are neither Ramlah nor Zila