passing the famousAbu Simbel site on the way,  we had then attempted to cross the Nubian Desert along the railway line but had to give up half-way after 5 days and about 120 miles, and had flagged down a train that took us out of the desert.

 

 We arrived a few days later in Aliab, a small town in Northern Sudan after yet another day of trying to ride our bikes in the sand, more often than not pushing them when the sand was too soft.

 

 

We decided to spend the night at the train station, a small one story building made of mud bricks with a kind of patio providing shade for the people waiting for the train (6 trains a week on the line Khartoum -  Wadi Halfa, 3 going North and 3 southbound, no trains on Friday). The station master allowed us to stay under the patio, where we were very quickly surrounded by dozens of children who were probably wondering why on earth we were riding bicycles instead of  the more suitable donkeys...

 

We then went in the village to look for food. Upon our return to the train station we noticed right away that our bags had been opened and found many things missing: maps, forks and knives, Swiss army knife, some tools, the medicine box. The Station Master told us that there was not much we could do about it, it was getting dark and there was no police in the town anyway. But He would see what he could do the next day. So we slept. After all we still had our bikes and could still travelon. Insha'Allah.

 

We were woken up early the next morning by the Station Master accompanied by a man he introduced as Mr. Ibrahim Gassim Esied, the school's Headmaster, who told us in very good English how sorry he was about the theft and invited us to have breakfast at his school. The school was on the outskirt of the town, same one story mud brick buildings, no tables or chairs in the classrooms, children sitting on the floor, teachers by the blackboards. But there was a desk in the headmaster's office. And the only thing on that desk that morning was a cloth bag. You guess what was in the bag.

Ibrahim was quite proud of this feat, and we had no idea how he had managed to do it: no telephone to call the parents, no cars to go to all the homes, no emails... We were extremely grateful but realized that some important items were still missing, including the maps and the medicine box. The headmaster was visibly upset, summoned all the teachers to his office and spoke to them at length in Arabic. We were then treated to an amazing breakfast of, among other things, goat meat, sardines, yogurt, dates, sweet noodles, flat bread and tea ( I was keeping a journal on that trip).

About one and half hour later the teachers returned, one of them holding another magic bag. That bag had all the remaining missing items. ALL of them. We learned from the headmaster that he had instructed that all the school children to be sent home. ALL of them. And that all the visitors items had to be returned, no questions asked. Some were living quite far and had only their feet to get them there, and back.

The students were not punished, they were just reminded that foreigners should always be treated as members of the family. Things should be given to them, not taken away from them. We experienced this hospitality many times during our journey through Sudan;  were offered wonderful food when asking for a bit of water, had our bicycles repaired and our shirts mended for nothing, were given bed and board when we asked if we could pitch our tent by their house.

These memories, from one of the poorest countries in the world, are worth far more than the few hundred bucks I was forced to give to MG, far more than the fat end of the year bonuses.

Priceless, as my credit card company would say....

 

 

Note: the photographs used to illustrate this little story, although all from that area, were taken from the Internet. I always traveled without camera, wanted nothing between my eyes and the sceneries I was in, nothing between me and the people I met.