Ballistic vests, swollen feet and job satisfaction in contemporary aid work
A few months ago a UNAMID friend of mine let me try on a blue helmet and ballistic vest they usually keep draped over their office chair in case of emergencies. I’ve seen plenty of them around, all the UNAMID troops are issued with them and I supposs civilian staff have to don them when the world starts falling apart. I’d never really given it much thought, but found the straps pushing down on my shoulders, the ceramic plate grating against my ribs and the kevlar helmet crushing my skull to death made me realize how bulky and and immobilizing these ‘lifesaving’ devices really are. It gave me a new appreciation of the fellas who patrol around in them all day long in the Darfur heat.
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The key to peace
… is chai.
Though it looks as if they are doing less talking in Doha and more fighting in Darfur.
Perfectly Normal
A drunken guy started shooting his ak-47 at the gate of our compound around 9:00 pm on Thursday night. He was shooting over the roof of the compound just for kicks I suppose. This was the following conversation I had with security over the VHF radio moments later:
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Conflict booze
First there were conflict diamonds made famous in the movie ‘Blood Diamond’, and then there were conflict minerals and (apparently) conflict chocolate, and now there is conflict booze. Don’t throw away your precious bottle of vintage red or amber scotch just yet, but in Darfur we’re witnessing this conflict driving trade unravel in a most unusual of ways.
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alternative education
I’m sure there are other valuable things they are learning rather than being in school – like how to make bricks.
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 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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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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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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Nuba Mountains: drifting back to war?
A HSBA Small Arms Survey released this briefing on the situation in Sudan:
It is clear that security is the biggest immediate challenge in the Nuba Mountains. A combination of weak political will, an international community distracted by Darfur, and UNMIS’s underperformance has led to the failure of CPA implementation in South Kordofan. Ethnic tensions are mounting in the region, and recovery and development plans are overshadowed by the danger of a return to open conflict. Discontent over the CPA’s failure to deliver economic development is turning to anger, and many now view war in the Nuba Mountains as inevitable…
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