For seven years we have advocated on every level for new policies, new pressure points, for carrots and sticks that may shift or create change on the ground in Darfur. Yet the situation has only gotten worse, not better. As US Special Envoy to Sudan, General J Scott Gration bears the responsibility to personally hold accountable those who are abusing their power in Khartoum and slowly exterminating a valuable culture.

Call General Gration 202-647-4531 and tell him of the conditions in the camps and of the refugees lives. Describe what you have learned through the videos and journals. Make Darfur personal, it is not just a region, it is an entire culture.

To learn more about specific policy asks, please visit the ENOUGH Project.

At about 4:30am, I start to hear the roosters compete for loudest.  Then the donkeys follow with their heehawing, along with some confused horses jumping in to the fray.  I toss and turn for about an hour, on my foam mattress on the floor, trying to get just a few more minutes of rest before starting another long day.  I give up.

The night sky was amazing.  The dark dome was completely filled with stars of all colors and brightness, and I had never seen a milkier Milky Way.  Although I could really use electricity to work during the night, I was OK with trading those extra hours on our powered-up machines for that view of the vertigo inducing sky.

Today will be another full day at the camp.  We have to prep for a live video conference that will happen tomorrow, connecting a Washington, DC VIP  event with the camp and our VIP refugee friends, celebrating World Refugee Day.  The camp has about 17,000 of these VIPs, so we can only invite a few.

We are also preparing for a marathon of live-streaming on the actual World Refugee Day, June 20th.  We will show camp life, walking the camp, as we regularly do for i-ACT, but this time with a camera that is feeding a live stream through the web.  You can see this at refugeedaylive.org, with the show starting at 9am EST.  You get to walk the camp with us!

On our walk yesterday, I met an older woman named Jimya.  She has one sick eye and two sad eyes.  She lives alone.  When she thinks of home, she sees her field full of trees and vegetables.  Everything was destroyed by janjaweed, but she still sees it.  She wants to go back, but not now.  Peace first, she told me.  She was collecting water.  Jimya had the two smallest container from all the women at the water station.  It’s all she can carry.

Since arriving in Goz Beida, the last two days have been a blur, more so than the five days of travel to get here.  My overwhelming impression is that for a group of people that have been displaced from their homes and forced to live in a refugee camp, the residents of Camp Djabal still have a trust and openness I rarely find. Without fail, every single person smiles back when I acknowledge them.  They let me in. I hold a grudge over things and lose trust in humanity for things so small, and here I’m meeting a group that has every reason not to see another human being without thinking there’s a large risk, yet they continue to show love like nothing has happened. I need to learn that trick.

Of course, it’s not a trick.  It’s a way of life.

Over the blur of images from the last two days, I have images of endless smiles and the sound of continuing laughter. The kid’s are obsessed with the blonde hair on my arms, and they are constantly running their hands along to make sure it’s real. I had expected, as said in my previous entry, that white people entering the camps with video cameras was a common site, but every time I show anyone their own image on the video, it’s like magic.  They are so overjoyed to see their faces, that one might suspect Darfurians are narcissists, but it’s obviously not that. I believe they are just pleased to be acknowledged, even if it’s by an inanimate object like a digital video camera.   And of course, I like anyone who thinks I’m funny. They’re either laughing at me or with me, but I don’t care.

One clear preconceive notion that has been wiped immediately away is that this is not a group that needs pity. They are not helpless. Not even close.  Neither I, nor those westerners that have walked here before me are any types of saviors to be put on a pedestal.  We all merge into the cacophony of support that any human would need being in a refugee camp, but are mostly witnesses to an undeniable force of endurance and adaptability.  The 17,000 people in this camp are not waiting around for the western world to save them…there is no moss growing on these rolling stones.  They are hard at work, educating themselves, creating homes out of the environment, and keeping the family unit in tact, all while advocating to anyone that will listen that they want one simple thing….to go home.

Ian

Today we fly from N’Djamena to Abeche. On the small prop planes you are only allowed a total of 15 kg’s (33 lbs) of luggage per person, and that includes whatever personal bags you bring with you in the cabin. Four of us flying together = 60 kg’s (132 lbs)… we had closer to 160 kg’s (350 lbs)! We trimmed this down a little bit by doing some extreme pocket stuffing. Whatever you can pack on your body doesn’t get weighed and count toward your luggage allowance. I managed to squeeze 5 kg’s of food and equipment in my pockets: laptop charger in left rear, 2 Cliff bars in right rear, 2 more Cliff bars and a Flip video camera in left side, another 2 Cliff bars and iPhone in right side, a large bag of prunes in front left, and 3 large foil-packed bags of tuna in my right front pocket!

When we got to the airport we played it cool and acted like we weren’t trying to get double our allowed weight on the flight. Gabriel and KTJ were friendly with the people working the desk and shared some of our Humanity before Politics t-shirts with them… unfortunately we didn’t have any XL’s for the big guy, I wonder if he’ll try to squeeze into the large we gave him? They were still very appreciative, everywhere we go people love the Humanity before Politics shirts. Anyway, long story short, they didn’t say a word about all our luggage and we didn’t have to leave anything behind! The team has always had to compromise and leave stuff (like extra clothes and food) behind on previous i-ACTs… we lucked out!

I’m sitting on the 19-seater World Food Program plane. Besides our group of 4, there’s only 2 other people on the flight. I’ve never flown on such a small commercial plane like this before… it’s LOUD! I’m grateful for the ear plugs that I picked up in the sleep kit on the Air France flight to N’Djamena. Last night I didn’t get any sleep, stayed up all night to test the video conference equipment. I dozed off in the airport for a few minutes while waiting for the flight. I’m really starting to feel the fatigue, but I don’t want to sleep through this flight across almost all of Chad. So sleep will have to wait a little while longer.

There is a dirty haze above the desert that makes it impossible to tell the ground from the brown clouds in the sky. It’s almost as if we are flying through a thick brown ether. The clouds on the horizon are perfect clean white cotton puffs. How far away are they, and why so different? The land below is so dry and desolate, I wonder how different the land in Darfur could possibly be. I wonder what would become of me if I was given a parachute and tossed out of the plane with nothing more than the clothes on my back? Would I, by myself - not carrying a baby or sick child, be able to walk for weeks with no food or clean water? How horrific must the janjaweed attacks have been for mothers and fathers to have felt that taking their children on the long trek across the desert to escape their villages was their best hope? Certainly they knew that many would not make it alive to the end of their trek, or if their trek even had an end. But that was their only choice, so really they had no choice. I am thinking about Adef and Achta. Achta’s baby died on her back while they fled Darfur on foot. They had to burry their baby and keep going. And now in Camp Djabal, in the past year they had to bury another of their children, baby Marymouda, far from their home in Darfur. Will we see Adef, Acta, and their children again on this trip?

I am getting restless to make it to Camp Djabal so I can see with my own eyes what the conditions are like. I feel like we have already traveled so far, and accomplished so much. But we haven’t even started our real work until we reach the camps. Our journey continues…

This environment is unforgiving. I have been in Chad during various seasons, and in June twice. This trip is one of the hottest I have experienced. An almost humid, but also dry heat that you just cannot escape or cool down from.  When there is a breeze, you almost always miss it for one reason or another. This is an environment in which only a few cultures can survive sustainably.

My culture would try. But without the vast experience of generations passed down from those who have cultivated from this land, I feel we would not be able to do it.

Women do much of the daily work, and many times most of any type of work in the camps. Today men worked together on two prototype homes that would better protect them from fires that have swept through the closely-knit sectors, destroying many straw tukuls at a time. In my experience here, this image of men working is a rare one. It is usually the women who dig the dirt, add water, mix, and form bricks. Carrying one or two upon their heads, laying the foundation, and solidifying the structure with “poto poto” or clay.

The women and girls are the ones who fetch, and carry on their heads water for the day. Each and every day they do this. Many must leave the camp to collect firewood and we continue to hear stories of the threat of violence against them for doing so. This journey takes anywhere from several hours to the entire day. Some are lucky enough to have donkeys to help carry wood. Several women I have seen this trip carry the wood upon their heads. How many miles did they walk?

In Darfurian culture, like in most, the women make the meals. We saw vendors at the camp market, many were trading their rations for other things, like meat, dried okra, or sun-dried tomatoes. Items we think of as everyday necessities – vegetables and protein like meat – are a rarity for the average Darfur refugee. They hand grind the sorghum rations with a standing mortal and pestal.

The government of Chad has allowed them a few kilometers to cultivate this season, and many are beginning to plant before the rains come. At least they can do this here, rather than risking their life to return to Darfur for the extra food. The walk to the garden is far and long, but worth the energy.

I am constantly and consistently amazed at the work ethic in this culture. I am not sure I would be able to do all the same things in one day and still smile and exude the beauty of the Darfur people of Djabal. I am not sure very many people would be able to survive in this land. Let alone in a way that is so different from their traditional life.

The strength, the stamina, the courage, the beauty of the Darfur people needs to be preserved and fostered. It must survive.

Our world gets smaller as cultures are lost. Our world must remain big and full, as we all still have so much to learn.

Paz, ktj