First 10 Days

Khartoum

The past 10 days in Sudan have been a period of intense orientation and preparation for our work. We spent 3 days in Khartoum meeting staff, receiving equipment, obtaining travel permits, and sitting through briefings about the situation in Darfur and security issues. What little we managed to see of the city aside from the hotel and office included a Turkish restaurant, an Italian restaurant, a mall with a huge supermarket, and a drive along the Nile River. The city proper is vast with three distinct sections joined at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, but we experienced only a subset of one district. Rumor has it that there are some interesting sites north of the city, including pyramids, and we hope to explore some of them on our R&R.

 

Nyala

After Khartoum we flew west to the capital of South Darfur called Nyala – a small city that is the hub for all humanitarian operations in South Darfur (and maybe for West Darfur as well). Apparently, there are over 2,000 foreign aid workers here although we keep seeing the same handful of faces over and over again at the inter-agency meetings we’ve attended. With such a large foreign population and the extent of their operations here, there is an economy to support and take advantage of it all. The only thing we have been wanting that we cannot find here is ice cream.

 

Kalma Camp

We visited our programs  in Kalma Camp which at one time had the reputation of being the largest IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp in the world. It now has about 87,000 IDPs. Driving through the camp, we were surprised how ‘organized’ it seemed, but then again, we’ve never been to an IDP or refugee camp before. When we talk to someone who has been to one of the oldest camp - Zam Zam camp in North Darfur– they tell us that Kalma is very disorganized. The biggest surprise to us was the market along the main road through the camp. There were stalls of IDP merchants selling vegetables, household goods, beds, stools, radios, etc. This made us realize that the IDP population is not just the beggar-bowl culture that we only see on the news.

 

Our Programs

Our programs in the camps include community centers where women weave mats, make stoves, and attend literacy classes; children attend a sort of daycare while the women are working; tailors (only men are tailors in Sudanese culture) come to make clothes; and there are proper toilets and UN water bladders for washing (water sanitation and hygiene are huge problems in the camps).

 

In addition to community centers, we also have the only veterinary clinic in the camp providing immunizations and care for sick and injured animals. Animals are very important for the livelihood of the people here that this is a critical service to IDPs who managed to bring their animals with them when they left their villages. This could not have been an easy task given that Janjuweed usually loot all animals.

 

We also have several food security projects: a mills program where mills are set up throughout the camps for IDPs to come and have their grains milled into flour, a livestock distribution program of chickens and goats, and a tools/seeds/nursery program.

 

There is also a shelter program to improve the shelter conditions of the IDPs, and a health/hygiene education, soap distribution, and other non-food items distribution to IDPs.

 

Kass

Kass is 75 km. away from Nyala and G and I will be all of WE – Kass as of Thursday. We are flying there by helicopter and are vehicles will meet us there. We have been loading up the trucks with everything you can guess to start up a rural field office: electric generators, water pump, office furniture/supplies, mosquito nets, jerry cans for extra fuel, and we are contemplating a washer and hot water heater but have decided to put them on hold for now – conflicting with our Peace Corps culture a little too much. This past week we interviewed people for staff positions to run the same programs above but for us in Kass. Already there are guards, drivers, and a housekeeper ready to get us started.

 

Once in Kass, we will assess the IDP situation in the town and camps. Kass is unusual in the sense that some IDPs are living among the villagers and not in a camp, making program implementation more complex. We also have a mandate to extend our programs into rural villages with the hope of mitigating the influx of IDPs into Kass as well as attracting IDPs back into the villages from the camps. Of course, all of this really depends on how secure the IDPs feel about the situation in the villages. So our first tasks are to ‘meet-n-greet’ other organizations and government agencies in Kass, and assess the security and viability of our programs.

 

Us

Generally, we have been exhausted most of the time. I was sick for a day with fever but recovered quickly. We both often have doubts about being here, but we are also fascinated and excited by the challenge. I know more about egg production by a chicken then I have ever dreamed of, and while G attended a goat distribution in a camp yesterday, I visited a village about 25 km away where IDPs have started to return to help a colleague conduct and assessment. I saw men on horseback from the main road and didn’t think anything of it until I saw some camels, too. Even then, I was just excited to see some animals before realizing that I was actually looking at the Janjuweed.

 

Its very hot here even though they say its ‘winter’, but there’s a nice breeze most evenings when we go sit on the roof and enjoy the fresh air and changing light. Mosquitoes and creepy crawlies are not too bad. Sudanese food is actually good – pita-like bread, lots of rice, tomato-cucumber salads, beans, roast chicken, eggplant dishes, yoghurt; and we hear there is lots of dairy and produce around the more fertile Kass region.

 

The next update will be after we get to Kass. We’re looking forward to our first helicopter ride.

Peace.