Thursday, June 30, 2005
belated prayers
This morning I was persusing the webpage of Food for the Hungry, one of the partners in my project here in Darfur. I was excited to see that their prayer country of the month is Sudan, and that their prayer guide for the month had alot of great information and great points. Then I suddenly realized that today is June 30. Better late then never. Check it out while it is still there, and keep praying for Darfur and for Sudan, and for me even though its July.
Monday, June 27, 2005
sepia skies
I’ve watched my fair share of grey skies sweep across the ocean at sea, I’ve seen the harmattan descend on Sierra Leone to hide the cotton trees and hills from my view, and the other night I sat on the hill overlooking my new little hometown and witnessed my first real dust storm moving in from the desert to paint the sky sepia tone.
On occasion the Darfurian sky is blue, but lately it seems that the heavens above Sudan only come in the same shade as the dirty white milk powder we use here as an inadequate substitute for dairy products. The creamy sky nearly matches the colorless sandy expanse that stretches out from the edges of the city beyond the mango trees as far as the eye can see until melts into the equally colorless horizon. I watch.
An orange brown cloud forms in the distance, and the storm comes quickly. They call it a haboob, and the immediate weather change it brings is similar to someone suddenly switching on an industrial strength fan in your sauna. The cloud gathers and darkens and picks up momentum until it grow into a steadily advancing wall of darkness of dust and debris. My company on the hill comments that the sky looks a little bit like Armegeddon, and I agree.
The local children are perplexed that we would actually want to stand on the top of the hill and watch the storm roll in. “The wind is coming”… “The rain is coming”… “Go home… go home.. go home…” They try to warn us in Arabic, convinced that we do not comprehend that we will soon be enveloped in dust, and possibly soaked in the rain to follow. It comes… I am cooled…. I close my eyes to enjoy the breeze and try to forget that I am being showered in dirt.
The storms come like clockwork almost daily now, bringing momentarily relief from the heat, and leaving sand in my eyes, in my bed, and every crack and crevice of my world in their wake. I fought the dirt for awhile, but think I’ve finally resolved myself to living my life under a layer dust in
I am learning that dust in the eyes doesn’t always cloud the vision: Sepia skies are beautiful- almost orange.
Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
Henry Miller
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
wonder woman
"...Although her gentle smile and delicate frame disguises her strength, Hawa knows about tools and explains that she has learned to disassemble a hand pump, untie the heavy iron parts, and put the whole thing back together again."
Read Hawa's story here...
Sunday, June 19, 2005
too hot
Another blog all about me, but I’m so hot this week that I can’t think about anything else.
My body is radiating. My arms and back and legs are on fire. For a few days this week I honestly believed that I had a fever, the insanity and fear of which has driven me to start taking my malaria pills. I don’t have a thermometer, but I’m beginning to think that after 7 weeks of insanely raging temperatures my body has reached its heat saturation point. I give off heat like an electric blanket on a cold night. I hide in the shade but even in the shadows I sweat through my clothing. My skin cannot take in anymore heat or my blood will begin to boil. It is scorching, blistering, blazing, boiling and sweltering.
I feel better after writing this… maybe I just needed to let off some steam…
It has done me good to be somewhat parched by the heat
and drenched by the rain of life.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
reflections from the field
My head is still spinning from spending the first week of June out in the field. I’m working to make sense of all I got to see and do, but as someone famous enough to be quoted once said, “If I could think, then I wouldn’t write”. In lieu of having my thoughts sorted out and packaged up to properly to share, here are some very random snippets from my journal along the way...
…Driving into the field. The color of the sandy landscape has mutated to look like bread in its early stages of being covered with mold. The green fuzz is grass and it is hard to believe that this is the same sandy barren landscape that I had crossed days before. It is a wonder what one little rain can do to the desert. Today’s little drive included a tour of a huge IDP camp, sitting on a camel, my first spotting of Arab nomads, one flat tire, and one goat accidentally sacrificed under the wheels of our new LandCruiser on its inaugural field voyage. We actually didn’t kill this goat, just maimed and traumatized it- broke 2 of its legs, and paid the little girl who was herding the flock 5,000 Dinar. About 20$, what we paid for the price of our recklessness, was more than the animal’s value I was told by one of our local guys- especially since it will live… But the goat was pregnant and the people who owned the animal were displaced and very bad off, and it was a way we could help, he told me. I left the crime scene thinking about how these people really do care for one another. There is a lot of generosity and hospitality, and even joy, I might add, in the midst of the life-snatching poverty all around. It made me think of the beatitude ‘blessed are the poor in heart, for they shall see God.’ I wonder if the poor don’t get a better view of God than we do sometimes because they have so little to block their vision.
…I am ushered into the base and introduced to Zum Zum, an old woman with strong creases in her face and a half dozen fetish charms perfectly circling her neck. Her head is wrapped in a black chiffon like scarf- the sun radiating through its sheerness and elegantly framing her national geographic like features. If I could speak, I’d ask her story.
… We spent the afternoon after arriving in the village of Kamoon just across the wadi from Um Tagouk. Already the wadis are starting to fill with water and soon our trucks won’t be able to cross the rushing rivers. How can this actually be? Our nutrition team is working to set up a new feeding center in this village because many people walk a few hours to our other center to receive rations. We spend hours there weighing children in a scale that hangs from a branch in the shade of a tree. The organized, disorganized fashion of the whole operation reminds me a little bit of screening day. I have no translator, but I manage to entertain myself for the hours that I can’t be of much help. I have mastered in Arabic the friendly phrases “is mak manu” (what is your name), “umra come” (how old are you), “sakin wen” (where do you live) and “e-tal come” (how many children do you have). These provide a few minutes of entertainment, generally followed another longer period of my use of the phrase “dee-shanu” (what is this) in pointing to everything imaginable. A lackluster village trip turned into a friendly vocabulary lesson for me and a comedy show for the people gathered around me laughing as I attempt name everything in site flip flop, earring, braid, bracelet, watch, tree. I am certainly acquiring the most random of Arabic vocabularies.
… I just got the best night of sleep ever since arriving in Sudan. Um Tagouk is cold and the stars are incredible- almost like being at sea. I woke up somewhere in the middle of the night and realized that I was curled up in my sleeping bag. I think I must have smiled in my sleep. In Geneina I usually wake up in the middle of the night soaked in my own sweat- feeling like I have malaria again. I can’t wait to go to sleep again tonight.
…It is Monday morning, and I am on the “Um Tagouk Toilet Tour” as I call it for lack of something better to refer to my mission du jour. Today I am tasked with visiting villages which have built pit latrines and finding some creative way to express this to the rest of the world which doesn’t frequently include the phrase ‘open defecation’ in their daily discussions.
I’m traveling with our sanitation project manager Ananias, a 62 year old amazing southern Sudanese man who knows this ‘crap’ (bad pun intended). He talks about human excrement with an eloquence and dignity that reminds me of Ken Hilton, super-plumber of the Anastasis. He’s nearing completion of his task to oversee the construction of 1725 latrines in our 3 project areas. Digging a hole is just the start of the task I learn- the greatest dimension of the project is guiding the people through the change in their belief system. I think about it for a minute. People have been taught their whole life to “go” far away from their compounds and villages in the open area, and then suddenly someone tells them to dig a hole in their house and crap in it. Leaving my own knowledge behind, from their point of view it does seem preposterous. Its truly an amazing project I see as I continue my tour with the team, taking pictures of holes in the ground, avoiding the flies, and all the time wondering what words I will possibly use to share this adventure.
… I’ve moved on to Kera Village, another tiny place on the outskirts of Um Tagouk. There are about 250 people gathered around a square in the clearing. Although the space is immense, they are clustered together under a few spaces where there is any shade from a tree or a little thatched awning. Men in one place, women in another. They have been here all day and waiting for their name to be called, have their finger stamped purple, and to walk away with a bucket, 2 big jugs, 10 bars of soap, 2 blankets and one tarp. This is the first distribution of about 10 that our hygiene team is doing this week. My mind is wandering in 1,000 different directions. It is hot and hard to be engaged because I’ve been sitting here a long time, the show is all going on in Arabic and my camera battery is dead. Apart from reading body language, without a translator, all I can do is sit here and make observations… Observation #1. There are many reasons that I wouldn’t want to be a woman born in Sudan (thoughts on the harsh life of women to follow another day). The sole benefit of being a woman here is the amount of color that women to have. Men wear all white all the time. The women live in a vivid world. The vibrant colors that hide them from the world are beautiful and energetic, clashing with such elegance that even normal oranges could never attain. Does color compensate for oppression though? Do they know they are oppressed? …Observation #2 The blankets and tarps that we are distributing are stamped in an enormous poster size font “A GIFT TO YOU FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE”. I ponder the purpose of this declaration. Is it written there like a big to/from gift tag so the illiterate beneficiaries can decipher the blankets origin upon completing their literacy program? Is it written in an aid organization staking your territory sort of way? Perhaps it is just written there so hot and bored and cynical aid workers like me can see where all the money they paid in taxes went last year. It isn’t just America though, everyone stamps their stuff, but today I’m wondering why. Thanks to all my fellow Americans for the blankets from the people of Kera Village- they can’t read, but they carried their goods away with smiles, and they’ll be thankful to be covered up when the rains come.
… The days in the field are long and hot, but they are truly precious. The evenings get so cool and the sun is falling so delicately right now on the mud brick walls that mark our compound. The sky is so blue and the thatched roof of the tukul (mud hut) looks as elegant as any thatched roof ever could in the golden glow.
… I feel like I’m in a zoo. I’m sitting in the back of the new LandCruiser Buffalo which is windows all around, and there are dozens of faces pressed against the window staring in at me. Literally, on all 4 sides. I’m in Karda village in Um Tagouk. I’m with the nutrition team again and they are frantically rushing from village to village to see how many people they can possibly register for the expansion of their supplementary feeding program before the rains turn things in Darfur to chaos. In my opinion, this morning is already chaos which is why I’ve abandoned the crowd and sought refuge away from the masses here in my little fishbowl. One of the nice faces banged on the window and handed in a pot of super sweet tea, I’m trapped inside getting my sugar fix for the morning.
… Halima Mohammed Abdulai (the middle one). She is 9 ½ months pregnant according to her calculations. Her smile when she laughs as I try to say her name is almost as big as her belly which some of her local friends assess could possibly contain twins due to its enormity. Although you can't see her size hidden under her billowing tobe,I can’t imagine being as pregnant as Halima is in this unbearable heat. I can also not fathom that the reason she claims she doesn’t know if she’s having twins is because she has never seen a doctor in her whole pregnancy. I think of my friends with their 3D ultrasound pictures of their unborn babies on their fridges, and the contrast of Halima growing bigger by the day in her village where there is no accessibility to prenatal checkups of any type. Halima Mohammed Abdulai, I say her name again and again. I want to remember it so when I return to her village I can meet her new born baby, or two…
… The drive home I managed to land in the only vehicle without AC. There is enough wind to keep me cool as our convoy moves across the open road, but I am slowly completely covered by dust. The only casualty of the trip was yet another sheep- this one not so lucky to make it out of the meeting alive. It did make for an interesting pit stop however, as the animal was owned by a nomadic family who we had to go visit in order to make restitution. Despite all that I’ve seen and all that I know, I am still amazed that there are people who exist as nomads in the day and age of our starbucks world. Back to Geneina- our little primitive town that seems like a bustling big city coming from out there. Just a few more weeks until I get to go back out- the place will probably be as green as a city park by then, and I’m already looking forward to it!
…Driving into the field. The color of the sandy landscape has mutated to look like bread in its early stages of being covered with mold. The green fuzz is grass and it is hard to believe that this is the same sandy barren landscape that I had crossed days before. It is a wonder what one little rain can do to the desert. Today’s little drive included a tour of a huge IDP camp, sitting on a camel, my first spotting of Arab nomads, one flat tire, and one goat accidentally sacrificed under the wheels of our new LandCruiser on its inaugural field voyage. We actually didn’t kill this goat, just maimed and traumatized it- broke 2 of its legs, and paid the little girl who was herding the flock 5,000 Dinar. About 20$, what we paid for the price of our recklessness, was more than the animal’s value I was told by one of our local guys- especially since it will live… But the goat was pregnant and the people who owned the animal were displaced and very bad off, and it was a way we could help, he told me. I left the crime scene thinking about how these people really do care for one another. There is a lot of generosity and hospitality, and even joy, I might add, in the midst of the life-snatching poverty all around. It made me think of the beatitude ‘blessed are the poor in heart, for they shall see God.’ I wonder if the poor don’t get a better view of God than we do sometimes because they have so little to block their vision.
…I am ushered into the base and introduced to Zum Zum, an old woman with strong creases in her face and a half dozen fetish charms perfectly circling her neck. Her head is wrapped in a black chiffon like scarf- the sun radiating through its sheerness and elegantly framing her national geographic like features. If I could speak, I’d ask her story.
… We spent the afternoon after arriving in the village of Kamoon just across the wadi from Um Tagouk. Already the wadis are starting to fill with water and soon our trucks won’t be able to cross the rushing rivers. How can this actually be? Our nutrition team is working to set up a new feeding center in this village because many people walk a few hours to our other center to receive rations. We spend hours there weighing children in a scale that hangs from a branch in the shade of a tree. The organized, disorganized fashion of the whole operation reminds me a little bit of screening day. I have no translator, but I manage to entertain myself for the hours that I can’t be of much help. I have mastered in Arabic the friendly phrases “is mak manu” (what is your name), “umra come” (how old are you), “sakin wen” (where do you live) and “e-tal come” (how many children do you have). These provide a few minutes of entertainment, generally followed another longer period of my use of the phrase “dee-shanu” (what is this) in pointing to everything imaginable. A lackluster village trip turned into a friendly vocabulary lesson for me and a comedy show for the people gathered around me laughing as I attempt name everything in site flip flop, earring, braid, bracelet, watch, tree. I am certainly acquiring the most random of Arabic vocabularies.
… I just got the best night of sleep ever since arriving in Sudan. Um Tagouk is cold and the stars are incredible- almost like being at sea. I woke up somewhere in the middle of the night and realized that I was curled up in my sleeping bag. I think I must have smiled in my sleep. In Geneina I usually wake up in the middle of the night soaked in my own sweat- feeling like I have malaria again. I can’t wait to go to sleep again tonight.
…It is Monday morning, and I am on the “Um Tagouk Toilet Tour” as I call it for lack of something better to refer to my mission du jour. Today I am tasked with visiting villages which have built pit latrines and finding some creative way to express this to the rest of the world which doesn’t frequently include the phrase ‘open defecation’ in their daily discussions.
I’m traveling with our sanitation project manager Ananias, a 62 year old amazing southern Sudanese man who knows this ‘crap’ (bad pun intended). He talks about human excrement with an eloquence and dignity that reminds me of Ken Hilton, super-plumber of the Anastasis. He’s nearing completion of his task to oversee the construction of 1725 latrines in our 3 project areas. Digging a hole is just the start of the task I learn- the greatest dimension of the project is guiding the people through the change in their belief system. I think about it for a minute. People have been taught their whole life to “go” far away from their compounds and villages in the open area, and then suddenly someone tells them to dig a hole in their house and crap in it. Leaving my own knowledge behind, from their point of view it does seem preposterous. Its truly an amazing project I see as I continue my tour with the team, taking pictures of holes in the ground, avoiding the flies, and all the time wondering what words I will possibly use to share this adventure.
… I’ve moved on to Kera Village, another tiny place on the outskirts of Um Tagouk. There are about 250 people gathered around a square in the clearing. Although the space is immense, they are clustered together under a few spaces where there is any shade from a tree or a little thatched awning. Men in one place, women in another. They have been here all day and waiting for their name to be called, have their finger stamped purple, and to walk away with a bucket, 2 big jugs, 10 bars of soap, 2 blankets and one tarp. This is the first distribution of about 10 that our hygiene team is doing this week. My mind is wandering in 1,000 different directions. It is hot and hard to be engaged because I’ve been sitting here a long time, the show is all going on in Arabic and my camera battery is dead. Apart from reading body language, without a translator, all I can do is sit here and make observations… Observation #1. There are many reasons that I wouldn’t want to be a woman born in Sudan (thoughts on the harsh life of women to follow another day). The sole benefit of being a woman here is the amount of color that women to have. Men wear all white all the time. The women live in a vivid world. The vibrant colors that hide them from the world are beautiful and energetic, clashing with such elegance that even normal oranges could never attain. Does color compensate for oppression though? Do they know they are oppressed? …Observation #2 The blankets and tarps that we are distributing are stamped in an enormous poster size font “A GIFT TO YOU FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE”. I ponder the purpose of this declaration. Is it written there like a big to/from gift tag so the illiterate beneficiaries can decipher the blankets origin upon completing their literacy program? Is it written in an aid organization staking your territory sort of way? Perhaps it is just written there so hot and bored and cynical aid workers like me can see where all the money they paid in taxes went last year. It isn’t just America though, everyone stamps their stuff, but today I’m wondering why. Thanks to all my fellow Americans for the blankets from the people of Kera Village- they can’t read, but they carried their goods away with smiles, and they’ll be thankful to be covered up when the rains come.
… The days in the field are long and hot, but they are truly precious. The evenings get so cool and the sun is falling so delicately right now on the mud brick walls that mark our compound. The sky is so blue and the thatched roof of the tukul (mud hut) looks as elegant as any thatched roof ever could in the golden glow.
… I feel like I’m in a zoo. I’m sitting in the back of the new LandCruiser Buffalo which is windows all around, and there are dozens of faces pressed against the window staring in at me. Literally, on all 4 sides. I’m in Karda village in Um Tagouk. I’m with the nutrition team again and they are frantically rushing from village to village to see how many people they can possibly register for the expansion of their supplementary feeding program before the rains turn things in Darfur to chaos. In my opinion, this morning is already chaos which is why I’ve abandoned the crowd and sought refuge away from the masses here in my little fishbowl. One of the nice faces banged on the window and handed in a pot of super sweet tea, I’m trapped inside getting my sugar fix for the morning.
… Halima Mohammed Abdulai (the middle one). She is 9 ½ months pregnant according to her calculations. Her smile when she laughs as I try to say her name is almost as big as her belly which some of her local friends assess could possibly contain twins due to its enormity. Although you can't see her size hidden under her billowing tobe,I can’t imagine being as pregnant as Halima is in this unbearable heat. I can also not fathom that the reason she claims she doesn’t know if she’s having twins is because she has never seen a doctor in her whole pregnancy. I think of my friends with their 3D ultrasound pictures of their unborn babies on their fridges, and the contrast of Halima growing bigger by the day in her village where there is no accessibility to prenatal checkups of any type. Halima Mohammed Abdulai, I say her name again and again. I want to remember it so when I return to her village I can meet her new born baby, or two…
… The drive home I managed to land in the only vehicle without AC. There is enough wind to keep me cool as our convoy moves across the open road, but I am slowly completely covered by dust. The only casualty of the trip was yet another sheep- this one not so lucky to make it out of the meeting alive. It did make for an interesting pit stop however, as the animal was owned by a nomadic family who we had to go visit in order to make restitution. Despite all that I’ve seen and all that I know, I am still amazed that there are people who exist as nomads in the day and age of our starbucks world. Back to Geneina- our little primitive town that seems like a bustling big city coming from out there. Just a few more weeks until I get to go back out- the place will probably be as green as a city park by then, and I’m already looking forward to it!
Is 32:16 - Justice will dwell in the desert, and righteousness live in the fertile field. The fruit of righteousness will be peace, the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
hope of sudan
Saturday June 4 is the 10th annual Worldwide Day of Prayer for Children at Risk. Join us to pray for the Children of Darfur and see what World Relief is doing in Darfur to invest in the hope for a better future in Sudan.
Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at the head of every street. - Lamentations 2:19
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