Chances are it’s either Jlo or Jojo, Marley or Hendrix

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Reading of ceasefires, yet hearing of heavy fighting; there’s a sweet smell of flowers in town and our neighbours hosted a wedding last night, no gunfire, must be the ceasefire in effect; logistics pipelines are failing, we can procure nutella that doesn’t go mouldy and cheese that doesn’t melt in 45 degree heat but I’m still waiting for my jabbana from Khartoum; going to be an interesting week…

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One thing you will notice upon arrival in my beautiful city is the complete and total domination of trash - black plastic bag trash to be specific. Each day vendors of all goods from bread to soft drinks to camel-hide shoes package their goods in these cheaply manufactured black plastic bags. Once torn apart (they’re so weak they’re only good for one use), they are then unceremoniously flung out the door and onto the street for the grazing pleasure of passing donkeys and goats.

But then came some good news- in August of last year the state governor was so apalled and disgusted of the state of his town that he went on the radio to announce a total ban of these black plastic bags, and people found using them would cop a whopping 80 000 SDG (around USD 40 000) fine. This governor was serious about cleanliness, the environment and heck, serious about global warming!

Everyone agreed that this was at least one step in the right direction, until a week later when some enterprising merchant found a loophole in the new decree - he started using orange plastic bags…

*lesser known among other scourges such as HIV, corruption and Gustav the Burundian crocodile

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I’ve learned some amazing work skills out here, but I thought I’d list some of the newly found skills and superpowers I probably should not put on my CV:

1. Child and donkey dodging driving techniques (98% proficiency level…)

2. Auditory differentiation between celebratory and non-celebratory gunfire

3. Proficient at squat toilet utilization in complete darkness (paper and water approaches)

4. Advanced hand-gesture communication methodology, including appropriate laughter interjections

5. Identification of up to seven (7) militia / rebel types by outfits, uniforms and swagger

6. Production of sesame based beer products

7. ‘Novice’ level badminton skills

8. Man-hand-holding in public places

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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.

So I suppose this experience with the ballistic vest and helmet make a good metaphor for how it feels to be back in Darfur.

I’d like to say that things got better in the month that I was away on vacation, that government and rebels were doing more talking and less fighting, that humanitarian access to the field was improving and a general sense of hope persisted among the population about the upcoming elections in April. Yet expectedly, things continued on their soft and almost unnoticeable slide further into the Darfur abyss. A suffocating weight similar to the vest and helmet started to make itself known when I really got up to speed in a briefing meeting yesterday. More skirmishes between government and rebel forces, more raped and strangled bodies left in the field, and NGOs evacuated from deep field locations. Oh, and then preparations for elections!

A friend of mine recently arrived in town to work with another great aid agency, she called me after two days suffering from swollen feet as she’s hardly been able to move. From office to desk to vehicle to guesthouse - we joke that it’s one long episode of Prison Break (less attractive people, more plot holes!).

I understand why nobody here really blogs or tweets. Messages home discuss small things like house parties or the creatures that flitter under the doorways in the night rather than uplifting news from the field. The fact that most people are not even in the deep field flips the apparent benefits of working in aid on its head - very seldom does an international worker have regular contact with beneficiaries and communities in the field here. I can count on one hand the number of times I have strolled through communities where my agency has activities. It’s a model of necessity though, remote management is now essential for security and safety of staff, and also means that we focus on resourcing Darfuri people to implement life saving activities that improve the lives of other Darfuris (which is the only sustainable outcome of any humanitarian relief- capacity building of individuals).

If we are prisoners in a sea of paperwork and emails,  daily recipients of bad news, and targets for criminal gangs and kidnappers - how do foreign aid workers get job satisfaction out of such a dire circumstance? After all western aid agencies are increasingly being shed of their mantels of ‘impartiality’ and ‘neutrality’ in the field.

Thankfully I believe, the answer lies in the same way that you find job satisfaction from any office or desk job in urban Australia, London or Seattle, Washington - finding value in the relationship with those that you work with.

What I love most about Sudan is its people. Really, yes. Some of them take up arms and kill each other and do horrible things that both I and the reader swear we would never be capable of, but living and working alongside an amazing staff give me hope about the future of this country. It’s liberating to hear them identify deception, corruption and trickery among leaders, to talk with disgust about the way that people are being treated  and mistreated across Darfur and also the aspirations that they have for the future.  They also work each day to improve the lives of others living in Darfur. Sudanese humanitarians.

My time in north Sudan is coming to a close in the next few months and I have the pleasure and luxury of an exit. What I will remember more than the work I’ve achieved is the friendships that I made in the process. I’ll look back and remember the political discussions with the WATSAN staff over chai, talking about girls with my HR officer and swapping english and arabic phrases with the guards under stars and satellites at night. I think that if you find value in the people you work with - you discover a sustainable satisfaction in this business of helping others.

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He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust. Feet trample it down— the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor.

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I’m grateful to be going home for Christmas, there are few things more important than friends and family. Please remember in your thoughts and prayers some folks who probably won’t be as fortunate as myself:

CAR: November 2009 - Two French aidworkers were kidnapped from their compound in the  Central African Republic town of Birao on the border with Chad and Sudan

CHAD: November 2009 - Frenchman Laurent Maurice, an agronomist, was kidnapped on Nov. 9 near the border with Sudan, the International Committee for the Red Cross said. The ICRC suspended its activities in the region on Nov. 10.

MALI: November 2009 - Pierre Kamat, a Frenchman, was kidnapped on Nov. 25 after visiting the town of Tinderman, officials said.

MAURITANIA: November 2009 - Albert Vilalta, Alicia Gamez and Roque Pascual disappeared on Nov. 29 from a convoy run by a Barcelona-based humanitarian aid organisation to deliver computers and other equipment to poor communities. Mauritanian security sources said an attack took place on the road between the capital Nouakchott and the coastal trading city of Nouadhibou.

SOMALIA: April 2008 - A Briton and a Kenyan working on a U.N.-funded project were seized by gunmen and taken to Jilib, 280 km (175 miles) south of Mogadishu. They are still being held.

SUDAN: August 2009 - Armed men seized two foreign civilians working for Darfur’s peacekeeping force on Aug. 29, the first time the joint U.N./African Union mission has been targeted by kidnappers. A Nigerian man and the Tanzanian woman were taken from their residence in the town of Zalingei in west Darfur. October 2009 - French aid worker Gauthier Lefevre was captured in Darfur on Oct. 22. The 35-year-old is head of the ICRC’s office in el-Geneina, west Darfur, and his captors have demanded a $1 million ransom. Sudan has refused to pay. Sudan arrested three Sudanese in late November suspected of helping to kidnap Lefevre.

Thomson - Reuters

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in an attempt to escape the brainpower required to put together a meaningful blog post, ive compiled some recent tweets from my twitter* feed if you’re not already following me! Enjoy:

Arabic awesomeness: “Hubba hubba.” means “Step by step.”

300 gunmen on camels attacking two villages?!?! what is this, 2005??

hearing news of Chad women carrying children many kilometres across the Sudan border to access Darfur feeding centres,

“What are these foreign objects, I’ve never seen them - is it safe?” a sincere colleague commenting on the ice in his coke….

Winter has arrived, it’s 20°C and the Darfuris are wrapped up like eskimos…

Just visited a village where the local status symbol is a bicycle tyre pump. Awesome.

Touched down in a remote field site for one week & left my bag on the plane- guess I’m wearing a jalibya!

Attack helis keep zooming overhead this morning… is there something I don’t know?

UN quote of the week “While they are no longer ’sectors’, i feel ‘cluster’ is too political, so i’ll use ‘enhanced sectors’ in the meantime”

Aforementioned BBQ cancelled RT @willswanson: … organizing an inter-agency BBQ can be like the Middle East peace process

just gonna pretend that guy who fired up his kalashnikov outside our compound was celebrating guy fawkes night. ugh.

Spent last night celebrating the end of my ‘6 weeks with no diarrhea’ streak in style, the party continues today with ORS shots!

No. of UNAMID troops guarding loading of steel in EGN market: 20, No. of UNAMID troops confidence-building in my field site: 0

*Twitter is just another social networking site on the internet, yet I am increasingly amazed at what a great tool it is for advocacy, meeting and being challenged by like minded people and generally wasting time.

Eid mubarak everyone!!

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