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Cotton spraying in Sudan.

The capital of Sudan is Khartoum, a city of some 5 plus million. Located where the Nile river branches in 2, the Blue Nile runs south south east and the White Nile south south west. What I remember about Khartoum was the overbearing smell of urine when the day warmed up, the magnificent London Plain Trees lining the banks of the river and General Gordons all steel boat moored there with steel shutters to block incoming lead projectiles. And about Sudan, drivers regularly tuning vehicle horns for max volume. Noise and brightness of flashing lights signalled priority expected.
The Blue Nile supports an extensive irrigation area known locally as the Gazera. It was in this area I worked spraying cotton. In many places cotton as far as one could see. Featureless of terrain and landmarks, just cotton, mostly in 90 fedan (acre) blocks. Because the landscape was featureless, navigation to the area we were to spray was difficult and never got easier with experience.
Farming was all by hand, that is no tractors or cotton pickers. All hoes and shovels. Each farmer was allotted 10 fedans of which the rent was paid by the compulsory growing 5 acres of cotton from which the government deducted payment for rent, water, transporting, milling and marketing the product. The remaining 5 acres the farmer could choose his crop and most elected peanuts which they called groundnuts. Spraying the cotton was easy apart from the difficulty of identifying the blocks. As I said the country was featureless.
Housing was constructed of either adobe or straw, depending on the status and wealth of the home owner. Our quarters were adobe and our meals and conditions very basic but up market as compared to the locals. The operator I flew for was a national company, set up by a British operator and we had 12 aeroplanes. They were crewed by 2 New Zealanders, 3 Dutch, a Spaniard, a Dane, 3 English, a Lebanese and myself. I had 3 months in Sudan and went there because we had drought at home. It was a wonderful experience. Never the less I was glad to arrive back home to a land were life, business and administration occurred in an orderly manner.
Of the very few pictures I have of the Sudan, here is one of some grass roofed houses The camels were owned and valued by a local resident. They are amusing insofar as they have the most awkward walk.