thetolerant1-blog

[thetolerant1-blog]

Definitely not going hungry ....

These are a few of my favourite things.

Top left: Boursh a carb heavy, bread based dish served with tahini, yoghurt and falafel eaten late in the day. Top right: Bukumba, a very sweet bean based dish, not too dissimilar from Apple crumble, served with lashings of strawberry jam, sugar and crushed biscuits, eaten at any time of the day Bottom: bleila a spicy bean based dish, with spicy sauce, onion, eaten in the afternoons.

The portion sizes here are huge and cost around 15 Sudanese pounds per portion and are eaten from a communal bowl, designed to share. They’re delicious!

[thetolerant1-blog]

Well, he’s been gone now for 2 weeks and is still in Khartoum whilst paperwork is sorted so he can travel to Dongola where he’ll be based until June. We’ve had a couple of phone calls but with signal problems and a with a delay on transmission calls aren’t easy. Even so, I can give a bit of an update - a slow process over there but it seems there’s plenty to do and he’s making friends with others waiting in the same position as him ........ and with the locals of course!  If anyone’s following his blog, or on FB you’ll have seen he’s been to see outdoor Sudanese wrestling, and that he didn’t escape the Escape Room!  His blog is interesting but contains some alarming anecdotal stuff - for eg telling us all that he and friends hitched a lift back to where they’re staying .... a 90minute journey that took 25mins or so. Stuff of nightmares for the folks back home!  I’ve also seen a video posted by one of his new friends in which he’s tagged - ‘what do you think about boosh Jack?’ It sounds like ‘bush’ and we all know what that is!  Of course it might just be something else, something entirely innocent .... one of the girls answers that it’s even better than Bakomba, whatever that is - LOL.  Anyway, it’s a nice little holiday before he ventures north!

[thetolerant1-blog]

who am I?

I’m the mother of a 21yr old University student who has decided to take his 3rd Year out and up sticks to Sudan, off all places. A very well travelled young man who had is 2nd Year in Fez, Morocco.  Since he was knee high to a grasshopper he’s been destined to travel.  Mainly with me and the husband, his school trips but since he was old enough , he’s been at it mainly alone and occasionally with friends. Just after his ‘A’ levels he embarked on a mini world tour alone, and arranged independently - taking in some amazing places and staying with family, friends but mainly in hostels he booked along the way & what an amazing time he had.  Whilst in Morocco,  he went on a road trip with 3 University friends who travelled in a Morris Minor all the way from Fez to The Gambia and back encountering quite a few difficulties along the way. Some heart stopping encounters and many stories have been told - a probably a lot I’ll never know. We absolutely love the fact that he’s ballsy and full of life and has the urge and excitement to go out there and put himself amidst strangers and making many friends and memories along the way. My husband is the nervy one, I am the tolerant one - tolerant of what he gets up to, frantic sometimes without contact. I’m also tolerant of my husband for different reasons!

His last meal with us last night was a roast pork dinner - there’s NO pork, ham or bacon where he’s going and so I made sure he had his fill of it before he went. And NO alcohol, which is a blessing actually - giving his liver, which has been hammered over the last few months,  a chance to recover.  (Tolerant of the husband?? He nicked most of the crackling before dinner)

 While he’s in Sudan, he’s assisting teaching English to students his own age - conversational English and at the same time developing his Arabic speaking and listening skills.  Are we proud of his independence?  You better believe it!  I’ll update on here from time to time and will share any posts from him so you can follow his journey and mine.