Community

So much of ones sanity is dependent upon those around them. Those individuals that you live with, work with, laugh with…they become a support system, a type of conversational release lever. In Darfur that ability to commiserate with your fellow compatriots becomes a type of life line to the world of normalcy.

We are, in a sense, a family…all be it a highly disorganized, dysfunctional, and rather eclectic family. But in a way we are all in the same boat. Each person here knows the frustrations of working here. Daily we face the same grind of security threats, population displacements, arguments with the government, with HQ, with donors. Each one of us knows how hot it really gets, how hard it can be to drive through a wadi, and how difficult Sudanese Arabic can be to learn. There is a collective knowledge here that we all depend on, because no matter how much those back home love us and willingly listen to our stories, they will never truly know what life is like here.

The intensity of life here seems to speed everything up, especially friendships. It only takes a few short months to develop a network of friends that would be impossible to live without. Due to the sever lack of night life and other recreational activities, friends become your only true break from the world of work and poverty you surround yourself with the rest of the day. Often it is just a break for tea or a small dinner party…but it’s those brief moments that allow you to feel normal, to feel relaxed.

But it is the intensity and reliance on these relationships that also contribute to the down side of relief work. While friendships may form a warp speed, they also seem to disappear even faster. Contracts end, personnel gets shifted, and people simply go home. In the blink of an eye the group you had over for dinner the night before is gone, dispersed to every corner of the world. We all try to fight the fight of keeping in touch, emails and phone calls, the possible meeting during and R&R…sometimes we win, more often we lose. It is like university at light speed…yet when our four years is over there is no Darfur Alumni group or class reunions.

I suppose it’s the yin and the yang of our work and I should be thankful for the time we had together…but as bags are packed and airport runs are made its hard to always look at the positive, saying goodbye just gets old after awhile.

 

The System

I have often wondered whether I am the type of person who works to change the system or simply works around the system. Now to those of you who have know me since my days in high school you may be laughing about how obvious this answer must be. But there has always been apart of me that feels that the nobler, and possibly more effective thing to do is to fix a broken system, take it head on and work for positive change.

I still believe that might be true, but here in Darfur the philosophical point seems a bit mute. Here my priority is to get the job done, system or no system. The job got done last week. After a bit of political maneuvering around the UN, we were able to partner with some wonderful medical INGOs who where willing to brave the road north with us and administer the medicine to battle the Cholera outbreak. We gave nearly 150 patients IV treatments in our school house turned clinic and distributed another 2800 Oral Re-hydration Kits to the community at large. The number of cases has begun to shift down wards and enough light has been brought to the plight of the people in the area to get people talking about a more permanent clinic in the region.

That’s not to say that the finger pointing and denials of responsibility don’t continue amongst the “Big Boys” of the humanitarian world, but at least in our small little corner the work got done, supplies where delivered, and lives where saved.

And lets not pretend I have really grown up all that much since high school…we all know how much I love working the system!

Special thanks to the medical teams that partnered with us, you’re the best!

 

F$&%#&^K!!!!

The worst thing is letting people down. It’s that look on their face, the one that’s trying to say “its all right, I understand…I know you tried your hardest” but in all actuality is saying “I knew you wouldn’t come through, I knew I would be abandoned.”

The Cholera outbreak had started two weeks ago, but insecurity had kept the humanitarian community away until we arrived. The outbreak was worse then everyone had thought and was getting bigger each week. The thing about Cholera is that its strips the person of their dignity just as much as it strips them of their life. Uncontrollable diarrhea and vomiting dehydrate the body in a matter of hours as life slips away. The disease is a putrid mess, usually infecting those trying to care for the sick. We had come to run the assessment of the situation, do some hygiene promotion and chlorinate the water sources. More then anything we were there to drum up support from the UN and medical community back in Nyala to intervene.

After some phone calls and emergency meetings we were told that a helicopter with a medical team and supplies could be sent up the next day. For a brief moment I had that feeling in your heart when you know your actions have made a difference. And it was almost true…no one would have come up to East Jebel Marra if we hadn’t driven there. Even though the UN still has the roads closed due to security we had made the right choice, our actions would save lives…

That feeling always seems to come to a screeching halt. Its three days later, no helicopter has arrived and I am back in Nyala trying to fight for any assistance I can get. The UN has hijacked the operation, various groups vying to get their name on the intervention so they can say “UNICEF prevented a Cholera outbreak” or “WHO battles Cholera in Darfur!” What a load of shit! We still have people on the ground there calling us twice a day with new death reports and yet no one moves. We are willing to drive up tomorrow and carry all of the medical supplies and doctors in our own vehicles and still no one moves. The various NGOs and UN agencies are fighting about who will supply the medicine and the endless buerocracy known as the UNINTED NATIONS drags on! The closest commitment we can get is a helicopter some time next week to Saboon…which might still do some good except that the Cholera outbreak is in Gubo and the two metric tons of supplies aren’t going to fit very well on the backs of the donkeys that would have to make the two hour trek…of course the same trek would take 5 minutes by helicopter.

I head back on Friday, with more supplies to chlorinate the water and run hygiene promotion campaigns…its something I suppose, but try to tell that to those who are already dying. Fuck, we are supposed to help people and we finally have a clear cut case where our direct intervention can save the lives of hundreds and we bull shit about who is doing what and getting what credit! I’m tired, really tired…

pray for the dignity of those who suffer