Khartoum

I arrived in Khartoum yesterday evening from Nyala. I got a lot of presents just before leaving - quite a few clothes. I think that they were telling me that I dress like a bum, which is true. Anyway, the pair of pants fits me like a glove! The local shoes also. The hat, too. I don't know how they did it!

The only problem with last minute gifts is that you have to enter them into your baggage! So I did some ruthless last-minute sorting again. I threw away some of my really old, torn T-shirts (the ones in which I dressed as a bum) and got rid of some of the papers that I no longer need. Everything fits in, and I have all my baggage from my 9 months, old and new, in a dufflebag and a small backpack at around 16 kg.

Speaking of kg, I scared myself today. I spent the night in the MSF transit apartment here in Khartoum last night. There is a scale in the house, so I got on it. I weigh 65 kg, or 142 pounds. I don't think I have weighed so little since I was 14 years old. It's true that I look like one of those skinny old men from a concentration camp - I don't have a muscle anywhere. But in fact, I feel fine - I have already started to recover some sleep-time. I hope working on the apartment in Lyon, eating everything that one does not find in Darfur, and drinking a few beers will get me back into shape.

I leave Khartoum this afternoon, arriving in Dubai a little after midnight. Then I leave Dubai around 8:20am. This is fine, because Dubai is one of the world's largest duty-free shopping centers in the world - I have a few electronics goodies I want to purchase. My credit card, which hasn't been used since my break in Zanzibar, is going to start smoking!

I will arrive in the Paris airport tomorrow at 1:30pm. I'll be there for 2-3 days for MSF debriefings, a trip to the embassy for an extension of visa space to my passport, etc. before going back to Savoie/Lyon.

It is just now registering in my little mind that I am leaving Sudan!