It is now one week since I landed in Niertiti. I am still finding my feet here, and this letter will no doubt betray the fact that I have teetered on the edge of being overwhelmed by the situation here. There are three obvious reasons for this. Firstly, the clinical side of things is insane and the resources so very limited. Secondly, this is Darfur and the recent (and ongoing) atrocities are evident everywhere. And thirdly, perhaps most significantly, I have a warm home and secure life to return home to in 6 months time regardless of what goes down here. For the 33,000 internally displaced people (IDPs), the ‘security’ of the camps here and the skeleton services provided by humanitarian organisations is all they have – and even that could be ripped away at any minute. This stark reality was beaten into me on day 1 and I don’t think I can ever really reconcile how these two worlds can co-exist.
Inside a Camp
I’d always wondered what it would feel like being inside a refugee camp. Sure, we have all seen the pictures on TV, but what is it really like. After touching down in the helicopter one of the first things I did was walk through the camps with a local MSF worker, an IDP herself. This was not only informative, but a encouraging start to my mission!
The camps are rather haphazard, poorly defined affairs, emerging from the edges of the town itself and extending out into the plains. Most residents have been here for at least a few years so the dwellings are quite impressive little mud-brick homes, with an average of 8 or 10 people staying in each (somewhat more crowded than UN/WHO recommendations). The pride the people take in their homes is impressive and I was really amazed to see how liveable such a situation could be made. I ducked into one residence and was introduced to the four generations housed within. The feisty great grandmother pulled me inside to point out her small wood-fired cooking pit and the jumble of pots and blankets that constituted their entire estate. There was no shame; and nothing to hide; just smiles, openness and profuse thanks for being there (not that I had even done a single thing for her to thank me for yet).
Bore wells have been installed at points throughout the camp with communal clothes washing areas alongside. Pit-latrines are shared, one between about half a dozen households. At the edge of each ‘block’ is a kinda carpark – only it is for donkeys not automobiles. And from what I can see donkeys are driven hard, being the grunt behind the transport of everything from food rations, to firewood, to families.
As I left the camps I felt really uplifted and affirmed, as the world had just confirmed to me that this is exactly where I was meant to be!
Reality Check
The next morning seriously brought my elation down to earth. Overnight there were gun-shots in the camp north of town and I awoke the next morning to find the bullet-ridden corpses of two young local men lying in the hospital morgue. Apart from the personal horror of murder, this shooting within the IDP camp itself shook the whole community – who have all left villages to escape precisely this wort of insecurity. I am assured that this is a rarity, but as I lay in bed the following night thinking of the crowded mud brick houses of the camp residents I realised what it meant to be truly vulnerable.
Since then I have seen dozens more reasons for both elation and dismay. If vulnerability is the defining feature of displaced persons then their response to this surely shows the depth of the human capacity to survive. So while my hospital round each day is full of kids and adults who have tipped over the edge of vulnerability; it is also full of survivors against all odds. I see seriously sick kids and adults make amazing recoveries, and know that this is mirrored in their families and communities who seem to bounce back from almost every assault.
Inside a Camp
I’d always wondered what it would feel like being inside a refugee camp. Sure, we have all seen the pictures on TV, but what is it really like. After touching down in the helicopter one of the first things I did was walk through the camps with a local MSF worker, an IDP herself. This was not only informative, but a encouraging start to my mission!
The camps are rather haphazard, poorly defined affairs, emerging from the edges of the town itself and extending out into the plains. Most residents have been here for at least a few years so the dwellings are quite impressive little mud-brick homes, with an average of 8 or 10 people staying in each (somewhat more crowded than UN/WHO recommendations). The pride the people take in their homes is impressive and I was really amazed to see how liveable such a situation could be made. I ducked into one residence and was introduced to the four generations housed within. The feisty great grandmother pulled me inside to point out her small wood-fired cooking pit and the jumble of pots and blankets that constituted their entire estate. There was no shame; and nothing to hide; just smiles, openness and profuse thanks for being there (not that I had even done a single thing for her to thank me for yet).
Bore wells have been installed at points throughout the camp with communal clothes washing areas alongside. Pit-latrines are shared, one between about half a dozen households. At the edge of each ‘block’ is a kinda carpark – only it is for donkeys not automobiles. And from what I can see donkeys are driven hard, being the grunt behind the transport of everything from food rations, to firewood, to families.
As I left the camps I felt really uplifted and affirmed, as the world had just confirmed to me that this is exactly where I was meant to be!
Reality Check
The next morning seriously brought my elation down to earth. Overnight there were gun-shots in the camp north of town and I awoke the next morning to find the bullet-ridden corpses of two young local men lying in the hospital morgue. Apart from the personal horror of murder, this shooting within the IDP camp itself shook the whole community – who have all left villages to escape precisely this wort of insecurity. I am assured that this is a rarity, but as I lay in bed the following night thinking of the crowded mud brick houses of the camp residents I realised what it meant to be truly vulnerable.
Since then I have seen dozens more reasons for both elation and dismay. If vulnerability is the defining feature of displaced persons then their response to this surely shows the depth of the human capacity to survive. So while my hospital round each day is full of kids and adults who have tipped over the edge of vulnerability; it is also full of survivors against all odds. I see seriously sick kids and adults make amazing recoveries, and know that this is mirrored in their families and communities who seem to bounce back from almost every assault.
I suppose as a fresh medical aid worker this paradox is the most important thing to hold on to. To see both the suffering and the joy; the trials and the survival; the sickness and the life. I will no doubt need regular reminders of this, so pray that in another few months I will not be either calloused or broken.
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