So, back to men in Darfur today - and not the ones with guns.

We are still having some communications problems and the girls and I have been getting slightly annoyed with some of our men and their lack of enthusiasm for romantic gestures (well, besides occasionally travelling for thousands of miles through rebel-held territory to see us). I know this is Darfur, but JEEZ - at least they could try to give us girls something to smile about.

A friend has not gotten any emails from her guy in the field for nearly a week now and is looking more and more sour every day. I keep consoling her with the words, "It's not you, he's probably just been abducted by rebels", which seems to help somewhat. It has now become our standard excuse for lack of male attention and a bit of a running joke.

Unfortunately, someone's boyfriend did get abducted by rebels this week (the SLA held a six-car convoy of national and international NGO staff in South Darfur for five days before finally releasing them this Sunday). Since humour often fails to be funny the closer it gets to the truth, we've decided to stop using this particular excuse for now - though I'm sure we'll come up with an equally amusing yet suitably morbid alternative soon. I'll let you know.

Tags: Sudan, Darfur, aid worker, romance, men, abduction, SLA