re Ciggie’s earlier about odd Worthy Oriental Gentlemens’ customs ...
Aaah, yes, Khartoum (all of Sudan, ecksh’lly) ... early 2005, arrived for a coupla days ‘orientation’ en-route to a contract task for “a large Organisation” overseeing/coordinating vessel unloading and cargo deployment into the west of the country, based at Port Sudan. After a biiig day dealing with the “large Organisition” version of bureacracy my colleague and I repaired to the bar of our hotel, the Hilton, and ordered two of their finest cold ales ... having attempted to slake our thirst, we politely enquired as to the interesting flavour and marked lack of excitement in our cold ales compared to that evident in the other denizens of the bar? Wet cardboard would have been more exciting ... but the locals were getting a buzz merely from the word “ale/beer”, the lack of alcohol within which liquid notwithstanding!
The lack of alcohol in their lives may explain a lot of their idiosyncracies ... during a later contract based at El-Fashir one of my major tasks was coordinating suitable quality liquid libations for our evening “O Groups” back at our accom. I was fortunate in that endeavour due the nature of my taskings, in that I had some considerable responsibility for the aviation tasking and resupply of inbound “fresh” from Nairobi ... especially after the afternoon weather event ...
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