The key to peace
… is chai.
Though it looks as if they are doing less talking in Doha and more fighting in Darfur.
Flying in Darfur
Read an interesting account of a UNHAS pilot who flew in Darfur around 2005-2006 (from what I can tell) from a new online Aid story collective called HELO: Crisis story Magazine (weird name, and the website design is straight out of 1998, but some good content at least, especially if you’re interested in humanaid as a career). Below is an excerpt:
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The War is over… so why am I not coming home?
Hi Mum and Dad,
Great news! according to the head of the peacekeepers in Darfur – the war is over! I feel like going out to celebrate, to pack up my bags and look nonchalantly over my photos, to say how I feel to Kilo Juliet Alpha 1.2 because she’s so beautiful and basically kick back and think about all the good times ahead, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when the war is over isn’t it?
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the good sudani
In Darfur it may shock or suprise you to know that we don’t actually drive around in the quintessential NGO/aid vehicle, the white landcruiser. In fact, we haven’t for years. the simple reason being that people like to steal these vehicles so they can kit them out (cut the roof off and mount a machine gun on the back) and drive around doing what bad bad people do – kill other people.
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I dream of Janjaweed
The long line of followers snaked through the scrub. Despite the exhaustion they hauled, carried or dragged as best they could their few possessions. We stopped momentarily for breath and were carried forward by those behind us, always onwards and never looking back.
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The Sudanese road trip from hell
I was looking forward to today. I rang my folks last night and talked about how it felt like the first time i was actually doing something truly recreational since I started working here. A friend from work organized a trip for some of us to head to the little known pyramids, which sit about 200ks north of Khartoum. Who wouldn’t love a road trip out of the big smoke, see some country side, visit some ancient ruins of a once glorious empire and simply forget everything that you’re coming to despise about this place.
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Ahmed’s War
As I lay on my bed last night i heard a typical *pop* outside followed by the high pitched whizzing noise of a 7.62 round flying somewhere in the darkness over our compound. Yet it never really worries me to hear gunfire at night. Our walls are 9 feet high (and literally getting higher by the day), my windows are sandbagged and the roof is also re-enforced. So there is very little chance of anything happening, especially while I am snoozing on my bed.
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Prison.break.season.1.finale
I guess one of the things I was looking forward to with my work was the liberal R&R schedule allowed to me. I get a lot of holidays and maybe it’s because my org is really nice, but it’s definitely also because Darfur makes you crazy.
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Security in post Ice-Cream-Chocolate Darfur
An accurate assessment of the security situation in Darfur by independent journo Rob Crilly:
Shadowy armed groups with shifting aims make life in Darfur hazardous
DARFUR IS a hostile land. A dry, desiccated country awash with guns and tribal enmities, it has always carried risks for the thousands of aid workers bringing food, water and medicine to the region’s aid camps.
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Lessons learned
As for man, his days are like grass,
he flourishes like a flower in the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
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10 signs it’s time to take a break
For any other workers in highly volatile and ridiculously stuffed up situations, here are 5 warning signs that it’s time to probably take a break:
Darfur’s Secret War
There is a secret war raging in Darfur. No, it’s not the protracted conflict between militia, janjaweed and governments as portrayed by the media but a conflict of deadly proportions between ratis ratis and homosapiens – and it’s unfolding to a bitter climax in my compound.
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Billy’s shop
On just about every street corner of my town is a store of some kind. Those fortunate enough to live at an intersection and have money can usually construct a concrete shack with iron doors and sell the same things as every other store in the suburbs of my town – soap, softdrink, melted toffees, coffee, sugar, rice, beans and a few other nick nacks like razors and perfume. They are pretty much the local version of a 7-11 but in true Darfurian form, they’re closed just about as often as they are open.
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Flying UNHAS
UNHAS offers the rare experience of boarding a flight and having no idea where it’s actually headed. The airport itself could’ve been mistaken for an abandonded British imperial outpost and once inside the crumbling walls I was taken to the check in and customs desk housed in a grubby demountable cube. Inside the human xray machines took extra care to squeeze and rattle any fragile looking items and confiscated both my carry on and check in luggage until boarding.
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Cloud herding and the cone of silence
When we talk about a security issue here, it’s whispered in hushed tones and muted voices. The door to the office is shut and we converse in our cone of silence. It’s actually pretty lame- we have no glass in the windows, people constantly barge in and if you’re hanging by the door you could probably even hear the air move as we gesture and point excitedly at large maps on the wall (I wanted a laser pointer so I could point excitedly from my desk, instead all I was offered was a 10 ft bamboo pole).
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Donkeys
In Mongolia we used to joke that the country’s national anthem was probably a car alarm. Every day and night you could here these alarms resonate a warning to their owners through the streets and pervade even the most sealed air conditioned offices in the city.
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A brief glossary of aid terminology
Accountability: The topic of a mandatory phone call or email sent twice a year to Geneva/London/New York.
Baseline: The ‘s**t that went down’ before the aid agency arrives at a location.
Beneficiary: A numeric representation of the population who will benefit from the activities of an aid agency. The more beneficiaries cited in the proposal the more funds the agency will receive for a project. For extra funding camels, goats and trees can also be considered as beneficiaries. The people in tv commercials for World Vision.
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