Since Gallabat, the border town where we crossed, has no hotels the local police invited us to stay with them overnight. Before falling asleep last night, I listened to the outside noises shielded only by a shabby screen covering a decaying window and marveled that Paige Parker from Rocky Mount was going to sleep on a paper-thin mattress laid on a wobbly metal bed inside a Sudanese police station. I slept like a babe in the warm, thick air.