I have just returned to Darfur after enjoying a week of rest and rejuvenation in Cairo, Egypt. My ‘holiday’ was nice – I visited the pyramids, camped in the desert, made new friends and avoided becoming a road trauma statistic - but I am very pleased to be back to work in Niertiti.
What’s New?Returning to the field after my break I was surprised how much news there was to catch up on – good, bad, quirky and frustrating. Construction of a new sheltered area in the hospital courtyard is complete. Built from tree branches and grass it now gives a cool shaded area for patients and their families – and room to triage patients when there are influxes of trauma patients (e.g. war casualities). A new doctor and medical assistant had arrived, as well as the new expat midwife and remote clinic doctor – finally giving us an almost full medical team. Unfortunately the remote clinic doctor will be kicked out of the country next week after only 2 weeks in the field due to a bureaucratic paper issue. It is eternally frustrating for humanitarian aid workers to be delayed and rejected by unwelcoming official procedures when the local population is so wanting for services. But in places like Sudan it is the sad reality.
Security around Darfur has deteriorated for aid organisations, with car-jackings occurring every couple of days and bandits becoming disturbingly disinhibited in their operations. Our vehicles are locked up in the compound and we resort to donkey cart for all internal movements. Our mobile clinic has been closed for one month and remains so indefinitely. The remote clinic is functioning but all travel is done with caution (especially since a nearby MSF team was evacuated after their Landcruiser was ‘borrowed’ to chase and shoot some rebels in the mountains). No personnel have been at risk, but the last thing we want is for our humanitarian resources to end up being directly involved in perpetuating the conflict!
Thankfully there have not been any big shooting incidents since I left. But there are still sporadic assaults and deaths due to local social and political disputes (including the death of a local MSF staff member who was confused with someone else by the gun-toting guys who came to his home!?!). Despite all this I am amazed at the motivation and hope people have after half a decade of insecurity and conflict. In the midst of all this they go about daily activities consistently and regularly talk of their plans for themselves and their families “when there is peace”. When there is peace!
Profiling ‘Aziza’Aziza Abakar Musa, 16 year old girl from Niertiti who comes to the Women’s Health Centre.
Aziza was 12 years old when she fled her village with her family and came to live in a camp here in Niertiti. She remembers the farm and what village life was like, but for her younger sister life in the camp is all she really knows. Her father disappeared in the raid, and her only other brother recently left to join the rebel fighters in the mountains. So now it is just Aziza, her mother, her sister and her aunt’s family living together in a huddle of mud-brick huts.
Every day Aziza helps her mother with the household chores. She collects water in buckets from the bore-well and brings it home for drinking, cooking and washing. She takes bundles of clothes to the river to wash them and dry them on the rocks. Aziza doesn’t go to school often as there is so much to do at home, but she does have a pencil case and notebook, which she treasures dearly. She accompanies her mother once a month to pick up food rations – grain, pulses, oil and salt. Sometimes she can trade some of these in the market for vegetables, fruit, or even milk. Aziza likes these jobs, they keep her occupied, and give her plenty of time to chat with other local women.
Aziza’s least favourite job is collecting firewood from the forest. It might sound like a simple job, but for young women and girls like Aziza it is a huge risk. And last month, Aziza met with this risk in a very ugly way. As usual she went with three friends to collect wood one afternoon, making sure they had plenty of time before it got dark. On their way back home they suddenly heard the beat of horses and were surrounded in a cloud of dust. Looking up they saw two men on horses with guns hanging from their shoulders yelling at them to stop and lie down. But Aziza and her friend fled, all running in different directions to get away.
It did not take long before one of the men caught up with Aziza. He threw her to the ground and assaulted her, brutally and intimately. Then his companion arrived and he took a turn as well. They dragged her back to their camp, finally releasing her in the early hours of the morning to walk through the desert back home.
I met Aziza the next day when she arrived with her uncle at the Women’s Health Centre. They were both distraught. I sat with her and the female medical assistant and we did our routine medical and psychological assessment and treatment. For Aziza this assault was not only a personal abuse but will haunt her socially for the rest of her life, making things like marriage especially difficult. Unfortunately, her experience is all too common for women in Darfur, who are particularly vulnerable in the context of dislocation and conflict. Rape is a weapon of war, and here in Darfur it is terrifyingly effective. In my desk at work I have hundreds of medical reports for girls like Aziza – and these are just the ones who seek medical attention. Most hide away out of shame and fear.Two weeks later I saw Aziza for review. She gave me some surprising news. Although initially reluctant to report the assault to the police after a few days she decided that is what she wanted to do. This must have taken extreme courage, knowing that the authorities here have a record of bias towards the perpetrators. Then she told me something even more surprising. The men had been caught, thanks to the efforts of the sheik of their tribal group who heard about the assault and personally tracked them down. They are now locked up behind bars. Realistically, no one expects them to come to trial – but just the fact that they were apprehended is a first for us here!
I check Aziza over and find her bruises and cuts are healing. Her eyes look a little brighter and she gives me a shy smile as we talk about her family. For sure, her life will never be the same again, but she is strong and maintains hope that there is a better future ahead. I hope with all my heart that this is true!
IBM Language
There are three words in Arabic that visitors to Sudan cannot avoid – insha’allah, bukra, malesh. Sometimes it seems that entire conversations can be based around this IBM vocabulary. I was at the airport the other day and arrived at check-in to find my flight cancelled. “Malesh” the attendant sympathised (or gloated!?!). When will the next flight be? “Bukra - insha’allah”, and off I went to return the next day. So for anyone planning a trip to the Arabic speaking world, learn these.
· Insha’allah means ‘God willing’ and is a disclaimer for any future plans.
· Bukra means ‘tomorrow’, which is when most things will happen (insha’allah).
· Malesh means ‘sorry’ or ‘too bad’ (or ‘shit happens’) and is usually said with a big grin when something has just gone wrong.
In Darfur this language carries a deeper meaning and conveys a fascinating mixture of hope and fate. People here are faced with huge challenges, frequent disappointments and never know what tomorrow might bring. A mother sitting beside her dying son looks up at me when I explain we are doing all we can and says insha’allah, reminding me that despite our best efforts ultimately he is in the ‘hands of God’. Our car slides down a muddy bank into a river and the driver smiles malesh, then we all pile out to drag the car back onto the road. My assistant tells me of the raid on his village and how difficult life is as a displaced person, then startles me with his dream of resuming his study bukra, when there is peace. In this case bukra still seems a long way off.
Garbage CityI will finish this letter with a brief tale from Garbage City, an amazing part of Egypt’s capital, Cairo. Cairo has a population of over 33 million and there is no official waste collection for the tons of waste produced by residents and visitors every day. But 85% of waste is recycled – all thanks to the residents of Garbage City. I met one of these residents, Hanna, when I visited a school for working children run by a local NGO (non-government organisation). Hanna took me back home to meet his family and see Garbage City first hand. Like half its residents Hanna’s family is Coptic Orthodox, and as garbage collectors occupy one of the lowest rungs on Cairo’s social ladder. And seeing a glimpse of his life left me absolutely intrigued.
The first thing that hits me as I reach the outskirts of Garbage City is the smell – a potent mix of burning plastic, rotting paper and animals. The alleys are crowded with enormous bags of plastic, paper and metal. The tiles underfoot are buried in the same and I notice a big rat lying stiffly on its back. Despite the dirt and rubbish everything is impressively ordered. I meet Hanna’s sister squatting in a pile of plastic sorting it into piles. After being sorted, cleaned and bundled they will be sold to neighbours who turn it into plastic coat-hangers, cutlery, cups, bowls and plates.
Inside Hanna’s house it is clean, nicely furnished and bright – a stark contrast to the world outside. He takes me up to the roof of his apartment building to show me a solar hot water system made completely from recycled material. For the past year he has been building these with the assistance of a Canadian engineer and donor funding. A few dozen units have been built and distributed to local schools and families. As I watch the sunset over the top of grey buildings, plastic bags blowing around, dust saturating the air and the persisting smell tickling my nose I know I will never look at rubbish quite the same. And I will certainly take more notice of those nondescript people bundling rubbish on the city streets.
