Journey of Arrival

As the searing heat disappears into cool of the oncoming evening the sun cast a dusty glow over the city. Stretching as far as the eye can see a vast array of unfinished brick building, standing only one or two stories, occupies the landscape. The half completed houses, steel rebar poking out from the top, plastic tarps forming makeshift roofs and windows, and ally ways lined with rubble and old bottles. This is the ever familiar scene of a third world city. Dust clouds raise and vehicles rumble over unfinished roads and children play in the street with what ever objects are available to them. This is Khartoum, as much as it is El Alto or Lusaka or Phnom Pen. It is the striking similarities that define the forgotten cities of the world, voicing a credo that seems to say “almost.”

It is a land that has become so familiar to me that I nearly call it home, hesitating only due to the realization of the injustice that statement would represent to the people who do not have the choice to leave it as I do. As night approaches and we make our way through the streets crowded with UN Land Rovers and military vehicles I am certain that everything is new to me…and that I have been here before.