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StopDrowning – Sudan – Day 1 (ish!)

15th March 2015 - By Dan Graham

After a very eventful few journeys – we are finally relaxing after the first day of the training programme here in Khartoum, Sudan.

As with most things in Africa, there is an element of “last minute” about the preparations and details.  However, after working together on many projects over the last eight years – the team of programme directors know exactly how we work, and are well connected to make things happen. More on that in the next blog post.

Our arrival into Sudan was delayed by 24 hours by a very large sandstorm.  We were abandoned in Istanbul by the airline.  To be fair, they did give us a hotel room for the night – and we got to spend the day wandering around Istanbul before boarding the same flight the next day.

To cap off a moderately chaotic journey – someone decided to (inadvertently) set fire to the plane.  Despite it being a non-smoking flight, someone had gone into the toilet to have a smoke – and then disposed of the smouldering cigarette into the bin full of tissue paper!

Thankfully, one of the cabin crew spotted smoke coming from the toilet door, and was able to put the fire out before any serious damage was done.  There was a very stern message from the pilot!

At last, we arrived in Khartoum airport (slightly behind schedule, of course) to then wait for a very very long time to get our visas on arrival.  Despite our local partners being well connected in the visa department, the lady in charge of the stapler and stamping was in no mood to do any favours – and took her sweet time.

We finally got into bed just as the mosques started their call to morning prayer.

About Dan Graham

Dan is one of the co-founders and trustees of Nile Swimmers. You can read more about him on the "Who we are" page from the menu above.

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