Here I sit in a tiny WFP airplane, looking out the window with nothing but hundreds of miles of endless desert beneath me, typing away on my computer. Trying to finally get to all of the thousands of emails in my inbox. I pump out response after response only slightly annoyed by the turbulence or the rough landing on the dirt runway as we pond jump from field site to field site. And it suddenly dawns on me…the sheer absurdity that has become my life.

In many ways it’s as though my world has been turned completely upside down. I find helicopter flights mundane, instantly falling asleep as the blades begin to turn. Gunshots outside my office invoke about as much reaction as a dishpan falling on the kitchen floor. Conversation inevitably stray into “peace agreement this…bombing campaign that…” and the idea of not driving my car in town because it might get hijacked is about as big of an inconvenience as the subway train running behind schedule.

On the other hand the sheer joy of walking into a super market in the US is untold. And the amazement of arriving at an airport and seeing how smoothly it runs is something to behold. Everything that I once took for granted is now awe-inspiring or simply stuff of legends (Like Bacon Cheese Burgers and Coronas!) and the mysterious trepidation of Darfur as withered away to “normal” life. I’m not sure if it’s a coping mechanism or just the reality of any place you call home for a year or two…its probably a little of both. I’m not complaining, in fact it’s a bit charming in its own right to feel so comfortable with what I am doing. It’s just funny to realize how quickly things can change…and most likely change back again. Such is the adaptability of humans I suppose, and I think we should all be grateful for that.

Ideals and Reality

I wrote a journal entry once questioning how we as humans allow these types of camps to exist. And I hopefully wondered that if we all collectively agreed that camps where simply unacceptable then maybe they would disappear and something more humane would take their place. And yet now I find myself defending the camps existence at all cost, battling a government determined to tear them down. And this is the irony of my life…defending something I hate, choosing the lesser of two evils, and probably settling for something in-between.

And I suppose this is just the state of my head at the moment, a sea of confusion and frustration with no land in sight. But I am not so noble as to pretend that these grand thoughts of justice and the poor consume me at all times…rather it’s the small email from home or a conversation with a friend or loved one that tends to swirl my head. It is almost as though the small personnel aspects of life, the ones I can almost grasp, are the ones that allow me to actually contemplate the bigger picture.

And so for now I sit here…not knowing what to feel, which I am sure is one of the worst feelings in the world. And while my heart remains consumed with my individual personnel questions my head is allowed to drift to that of consuming ideals and grand questions…and I bet that both will remain unanswered in many ways. I wonder if those in this camp ever get a chance to think these thoughts….