Khartoum Water

The 600ml bottles of water are available in a shrinkwrapped 12-pack

Continuing my quest for healthy living in Khartoum (you can read about this here), I managed to convince my husband to purchase a water dispenser. He had been buying packs of 12 (600ml) bottles of water (SDG 9 / US$3,60) which lasted fairly long - at least 5 - 6 days. Since I'd arrived, he's had to buy a pack every second day. I did a quick calculation and worked out that he (well, the company) would recoup the expense of a dispenser (SDG 477/ US$190) in less than two months.

Our nifty new water dispenser. It has a cold and hot dispensing switch but so far I've only used the cold. Purified water on tap...

On Wednesday we drove across town to the very upmarket Afra Merkez (Afra Supermarket) Once we'd made our purchase and loaded it onto the back of the Landcruiser, my husband stopped off at the dealer where he'd been buying the 12-packs. That day he bought the appropriate 19 litre bottle of water. Cost of this large refill bottle? SDG8/ US$3.20.

Now, who can argue with math figures like these?

A dog on a building across the alley from ours. It's quite a common sight to see dogs on rooftops. They belong to the people in the buildings below and instead of having a dog in your courtyard, he spends most of his time on the roof !

A online friend, Lynda, who has a fascinating blog written from their farm at the foothills of Kilimajaro, commented on my blog that the local people probably think I am a strange Western woman who runs around on the rooftop shining a torch before dawn every morning. I was still chuckling about this while jogging on Saturday morning when I heard a dog bark. Not a far-away bark (as it would be if coming from the ground) No, it was an ear-level bark. When I stopped I looked towards the sound and saw two yellow eyes across the distance. Then I remembered the photo I had of a dog on a nearby rooftop. I had snapped this tailwagging canine on a roof across the alley a few months ago when my husband first took me up onto ours. I retrieved the photograph from my archives and have posted it above. I'm sure this animal is quite fascinated (or confused?) by the strange bobbing light on the building just above him!