I answered a classified ad from Project Trust for a year's international volunteering. 6 months later I was on a 3 and a half day train ride from Khartoum to Nyala in 1980 as an 18 year old on my way to Zalingei in Darfur. We were stuck in Kosti for 8 hours and a new friend Mergani Mohamed Ahmed Hassan took me to the market to buy bananas and he bought some ice. We heard a whistle which was the train about to leave! We had to run back and got to the tracks as the train was slowly leaving. I run to jump on the steps and slammed my shoulder against the train while Mergani cooly turned round and calmly walked up the steps. The door was locked so we had to sit on the steps till the next station and of course that was when a dust storm hit. 30 minutes later I got back to my first class compartment where the three other 18 year old assistant English teachers heading for Darfur thought i'd been left in Kosti with no passport and the next train a week away!
Alan Moorhead's Blue Nile and White Nile were great companions.
I answered a classified ad from Project Trust for a year's international volunteering. 6 months later I was on a 3 and a half day train ride from Khartoum to Nyala in 1980 as an 18 year old on my way to Zalingei in Darfur. We were stuck in Kosti for 8 hours and a new friend Mergani Mohamed Ahmed Hassan took me to the market to buy bananas and he bought some ice. We heard a whistle which was the train about to leave! We had to run back and got to the tracks as the train was slowly leaving. I run to jump on the steps and slammed my shoulder against the train while Mergani cooly turned round and calmly walked up the steps. The door was locked so we had to sit on the steps till the next station and of course that was when a dust storm hit. 30 minutes later I got back to my first class compartment where the three other 18 year old assistant English teachers heading for Darfur thought i'd been left in Kosti with no passport and the next train a week away!
Alan Moorhead's Blue Nile and White Nile were great companions.
Thank you for bringing back those memories!
Great memories, James. Alan Moorehead was such a good writer. My copy of White Nile fell apart after so many readings of it