Try again next year!

Even in this part of Sudan, were the people are generally not as tall as in Holland, the shelves in the shops are very highly placed. So, it happened that today I was standing in the small shop close to our office in Khartoum and couldn’t reach the products on the top shelf. After some attempts of standing on the tips of my toes while stretching out my arms as far as I can, I gave up and had to admit that my height was not sufficient enough. After having asked the shop keeper to give me a hand, he willingly came my way, climbed on the first shelf and grabbed the toilet paper I wanted. After I had thanked him he smiled and said: “See you next year!”. I told him that I was planning to come and visit him sooner than that. He started laughing when he saw the probable question-mark on my face and explained that they use this typical Sudanese saying when people are too short. “Come back next year; you might have grown a bit taller by then!”.