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We have finally arrived out to Eastern Chad. It has been an experience to say the least.. To get out of the capital city of N’Djamena we had to go through the all the red tape. We waited for two days to receive all the proper authorizations and signatures from the proper authorities. Then it was another 24 hours until the flight.

Our flight was towards the East, to Abeche. Abeche is the largest city in Eastern Chad. It is a mixture of modern technologies and ancient traditions. The only pavement that I could see in the city was the runway at the airport. Other than that, it is all bumpy dirt roads. You will see someone with a modern cell phone and a car and right next to them is a lady on a little burro with some chickens or maybe some firewood.

In Abeche we needed to go get another round of permits to be able to leave Abeche and enter the refugee camps. This includes the signature of the chief of police and the mayor. So two signatures and few hundred dollars later we are finally ready to make it to the camps. (It’s odd paying hundreds of dollars in fees and the assistant to get the signatures when the average salary is about $40 per month.)

This morning we flew from Abeche for a 1 hour flight south to Goz Bieda. This is a small town that is the hub to two refugee camps and a few IDP, (Internal Displaced People). You see, not only are there about 240,000 Sudanese that have fled their country and arrived in Chad for hopefully a safe haven, but there are also 180,000 Internally Displaced Chadian citizens. These are citizens of Chad that felt unsafe in their villages, so they have also fled and have sought out safety.

This is the largest humanitarian crisis that we are facing today. Over 400,000 humans that have been forced out of their homes are living in camps here in Chad. That does not count the couple of million that are still in Sudan that have fled their homes. This is a logistical nightmare. The NGO’s in charged have so much to handle.

We have had the honor to meet some amazing people. These people have totally dedicated their lives to the service of others. They work for the UNHCR and other organizations, and they live and work in these areas for years. It is so inspiring to see these people at work and doing all that they can to help out at this crisis.

Today we visited the camp of Djabel. It was my first glimpse in the life of a refugee. As we entered the camp we went first to the primary school. The school seemed to be more or less located in the central area of the camp. There were 4 buildings with about 4 to 5 rooms per building. Each building is made of mud bricks and a straw roof. The floors are dirt and sand, and they have a few portable chalkboards that go from one room to another. There are no textbooks, but the students carry a notebook around with them.

The greatest surprise to me was the amount of kids studying in the 6th grade. This camp is made up of 1st through 6th grade and there are literally thousands of kids in this camp, yet, the 6th grade class had 12 kids. Twelve. The problem is that there are no secondary schools in these camps. 6th grade is the most advanced education these children can get. They say at about 5th grade the students start to realize they are about at the end of their education so they start to lose hope. The majority of them will then end up just dropping the last year.

On one hand you have these students dropping their last year of school. Yet, everyone we talked to wants more education. In fact, we had a couple of teenagers pull us aside and specifically ask for more school. They spoke really good English and they came up to us and ask if they could tell us something. They went on to tell us their dreams of becoming teacher, scientist and doctors. They expressed the desire for more educations, more teachers and more materials.

Education is so important. It breaks the cycle of poverty. It gives young ones a chance, a dream of a future, a future full of possibilities and joy. I hope and pray that we can help bring more education to these amazing people.

We have traveled for the last couple of days and have now arrived in Farchana. We will be here for the next three days. We are excited.

This is a tribute to the team who has been making i-ACT happen behind the scenes. Each i-ACT field trip involves the labor and sacrifice of many individuals — in publicity, in content, in video editing, in web design and web programming, in IT management. These individuals, in my opinion, exemplify what it is to try to make the world a better place. I try not to use the word “hero” mildly, but in this case I feel it is well-justified. If you have a demanding full-time job, a family to care for, a full set of classes and homework — and for weeks on end you come back in the evening, and until you sleep, work on all the various things that make i-ACT happen — then you are a hero in my books. I know how easy it is to feel frustrated and to get burnt out, but I’ve seen how my team mates just try to keep on going. On top of this, I think everyone really tries to not just ask for peace, but to actually be peace in all their interactions with others.

The i-ACT home team, and when they joined the i-ACT family:

• Carolyn (i-ACT 1)
• JC (i-ACT 1)
• Mark (i-ACT 1)
• Michael (i-ACT 1)
• Niny (i-ACT 1)
• Rachel (i-ACT 1)
• Yuen-Lin (i-ACT 1)
• Jie Siang (i-ACT 2)
• Stacey (i-ACT 2)
• Tsai-Yi (i-ACT 2)
• Annie (i-ACT 3)
• Connie (i-ACT 3)
• Sam (i-ACT 3)
• Cory (i-ACT 4)
• Gerard (i-ACT 4)
• Tiffany (i-ACT 4)

I tried writing down what each person has done, but I gave up because I realized that everyone does so much, and so many different things, that I surely cannot do justice to them. I did not want to understate anything, and of course I can’t ask for your approval :) Team, please forgive me for this. To you and to the countless others who form the backbone of i-ACT, please accept my deepest admiration and gratitude for all that you do.

Please allow me to say a bit about the area I am more familiar with, which is i-ACT tech. There are three main parts to the tech involved in bringing each day of i-ACT from Chad to you. One is getting the content (video, text, pictures) from there to here. The second is post-processing that content, and getting it onto the website in a way that is engaging, accessible and organized. The third is getting your messages to the field team, and their replies back to you. My team mate Carolyn has been instrumental in designing, implementing, maintaining and improving all aspects of those three parts since the very first i-ACT. She has evolved the process from being quite tedious and lengthy in the beginning, to being very well streamlined and automated today. Whereas the daily workflow used to take all night, it now takes about an hour. Building on the first i-ACT website by JC, Michael and Rachel, Carolyn has brought the website through two complete redesigns in four i-ACTs, all in the name of usability. She really puts her heart into the work, and I think it shows. All in all, it has taken literally hundreds of hours of work, but hopefully it pays off in making it easier for you to have that connection with the people on the ground.

Carolyn’s edit: Nothing could have been accomplished without the remarkable support of the rest of the team. Yuen-Lin has also been a driving force, pushing the technical envelope further (and figuring out the ahrd stuff). In the end, it’s all about the amazing content Gabriel and his various travel partners bring us from Chad — the website is just a container through which we present it to you. That said, the current website is the product of Jie Siang’s design and we’d both love to hear feedback and ideas on how the website can be improved.

G’s Journal—day 7

I become attached to specific people I meet in the camps pretty easily, and I wonder if they feel the same. I like to think they do!

Today we went back to Djabal Camp, and it already felt familiar. I knew that I would, with no problem, again find Oumer and want to play futbol with him, even though it would be wise to quite while ahead and leave the area a winner. KTJ, Ali, Mohamed, and I beat Oumer and about 19 of his friends in a “friendly” game of futbol yesterday. It is so funny how, on the field, both KTJ and I are so competitive! We went all out to beat the other team. Ali was the perfect teammate. I only picked him because he was the closest to me, so I got lucky! He gives it all for his team, sliding and bumping his way to get the ball. That game was yesterday, but I just can’t help talking about futbol. It is such an addiction to play on the sand. Back home that means at the beach; out here it means in the middle of a refugee camp. On the field, it makes no difference!

I got to see Adef again today. He did not come out on yesterday’s video, but I did write about him in my journal; he’s the one that lost his four-year-old son to diarrhea while escaping Darfur. There is something about him that makes me feel comfortable and at home. He’s someone that could easily be a “regular” friend, a no cameras present friend, you know? We showed him and his family pictures from the day before, and they laughed a laugh that came from very deep inside of them. The whole family is really good at laughing. The twins start it off with some giggling that quickly becomes uncontrollable belly laughs. Guisma has to join, many times not knowing what her brothers are finding funny. The mom and dad are also great at laughing. The small baby is always to attach to the breast to bother with anything else. There is one exception to all of this. Their young boy is a serious little man. His look is one of disapproval and even annoyance regarding everything related to our visit.

Later on, we do find Oumer. More accurate to say would be, Oumer found us. It was a good day, and it had to end with futbol, of course. I should have quit while ahead. This time, Oumer and only seven of his friends beat the four of us plus Joshua. It was a good game; we gave them a good fight. The shot that beat us was just too good to stop. I’ll be back though, so Oumer better be ready.

Paz,
g

Day 7

Only one day left in Djabal. I will be in Chad for a total of almost three weeks and its just not enough time with so many travel days. We met Adef and Achta’s family, as well as Oumar’s yesterday and today we go to school. But there is so much more to see. So many more people to listen to and bring their stories forward for the world to hear. How will we begin our day?

Ahh, the routine stop at the gendarme (local authorities), how we begin every day, why would I think differently? Hahaha! It’s a smooth five minutes with only Bouba having to get out of our car.

In the ride to the camp, Gabriel and I brainstorm. Return to the families we met yesterday and share with them a short slide show. Meet the Level 6 class and see what comes of it. Walk the camp, meet the people, our brainstorm ends where it ends everyday, be real, listen, share messages of hope and don’t forget the mic!

Only 12 students sit on the dusty mat learning Arabic in the brick classroom with two large windows that allow for the natural light to guide their studies. One girl, Selma, eleven boys, three textbooks, one chalkboard. Twelve stories of hope and determination that ride on their education. Without our help to build a Level 7, then Level 8, and so, these twelve students will go nowhere with their education. Caught between two worlds – Chadian and Sudanese, if they take one test it won’t be recognized by the other.

Bouba and I move from one student to the next collecting their names, desires and reflections from a video of Auburndale High School in Florida. Each one asks us to help them. They have asked the camp hosts, they have asked UNICEF, they have begged for more resources and teacher trainings, and a building to complete their primary school. They have received nothing.

My own determination to connect these students with your communities in order to begin rebuilding a stronger Darfur solidifies further with each students’ words. We have the capacity and the power to help make this dream a reality, but we must not forget what we can do in our own daily lives to ensure that they leave this in-between state and return to Darfur. “Today or tomorrow, I would like to return home.” In this situation, our voice is really their voice.

Selma hopes for the women of Darfur to be united. To mobilize and gain power within their community. Are these not the hopes we have for depressed communities in the United States? The communities of Djabal, Kounoungo, Mile, Gaga, Farchana, Oure Cassoni and the other camps are our community.

Educate. Activate. Empower.

Together, we can change the world.

In Solidarity, KTJ