Christmas in the Desert

Not quite what my Xmas looks like this year..
But I can never resist this one :)

Have a wonderful holiday everyone, I miss you xx

Hungry for 20 years...

I was just reading about the Global Hunger Index and was saddened to observe two countries I deeply care about have shown no improvement in 20 years.. Sudan and Nepal, both still falling into the "Alarming" category.  Cambodia on the other hand, again, close to my heart, has improved from 'Extremely Alarming' down to Alarming. Still not exactly in a great place though, especially considering the amount of aid that has poured into Cambodia over the past 2 decades.  It really makes me think. What are we doing wrong with tackling global hunger? How can we make bigger impacts on poverty reduction? What can we do better? I am motivated though, rather than deterred, to continue to work in this field and work on innovative programmes that explore new ways to secure people's food supply. To hypothesize, trial new ideas and to embrace local knowledge. And be part of a community as we attempt this. 


Drag the pointer on the fancy  map below to any country you are interested in and you can see what it was in 1990 and then today in 2010. You can move the map across with the mr.google handy hand....

We are fishing in the desert...

A friend just posted these pictures of the returns I mentioned below.
I did not take my camera this time, as it was a bit sensitive.
But now I can share with you through these...

A day of mixed emotions.. Another day in Darfur..

Today I went and assisted UNHCR with some 'returns'.

In this case, internally displaced persons (IDPs) voluntarily leaving the IDP camps (the infamous Kalma Camp in this case), and returning to their villages, deemed safe by the UN agencies. 

We provide them some food rations, usually enough to last them about 3 months. Just enough time for them to get settled and re-established in some kind of livelihood. 

UNHCR makes sure they get other good things, like blankets, sleeping mats, jerry cans for water and, most importantly, safe transport back home - in this case, 3 days drive on the back of a truck. 

So I went out there to the 'transition site', not quite knowing what to expect. 

There, with the cool winter winds blowing desert sands over us, I found hundreds of women mostly with very young children. They had lived in these camps for some 6-7 years. Most of their children had been born in these camps. Some had been married here. They were now  ready to return to the village they had once called home. 

I helped out here and there, where I could, mostly directing the people to their transport, buses for the vulnerable and trucks for the strong, checking their cards, carrying their items for them, carrying their babies for them - as they already had their hands quite full, before they even got their blankets, mats etc.

I looked into the eyes of the children who stared up and me. Mostly less than five years old. I never know how to feel... sad for them and what their future holds, out here in this desert..or happy that they are the ones we can attempt to help..?

The people started arguing at one point, as the truck-bed was too high up for them to climb up onto.. So I pushed through the crowd, grabbed the side of the truck and jumped up.  Everyone stopped and looked at me, then began to laugh, and one brave woman came forward, handed me her belongings, I took them and took her hand and pulled her up.  Pulled her up to her future life, took her babies from her arms, settled her into the truck for the three day journey into her new life. 

Right there in that moment,  I felt like I had her future in the palm of my hand.. I was playing a part in her life. Her new life. 

And then, one after the other, men and women and children started coming forward, handing me their belongings, looking up at me, holding out their arms for me to take. And then before I knew it, we had put the last woman and her three little babies on the busses  and the army escort were blowing their horns, anxious to get away as quick as possible to make it to the first check-point before curfew. I watched them go, watched them leave for West Darfur, watched those lives I had just played a small part in leave mine. They may return to Nyala one day. But I knew they would never to return to my life.

"Masalama"... 

Hero's and Sharks...

I wanted to tell you about this amazing man I read about on the boat.  His name is Hans Hass.  A Pioneer. Of many things: Diving in the Red Sea, underwater photography, making underwater films, marine biology, conservation and of course -  diving with sharks!  He first came to Sudan in 1949, on his own, all the way from Austria, with self-designed dive equipment and embarked on a journey that many would ultimately follow...

"I am gliding like a bird. The world around me is blue and limitless. Far below me are bizzarre, beautifully decorated towers. Colourful birds - or perhaps fish - circle about these mysterious buildings... i dare to enter a region where no one else has gone before. I am alone... I live not in medieval times, but in the twentieth century - and still there are unformed continents, untrodden and unexplored."  HH. 

And here he is, with his beautiful wife Lotte, who accompanied him on all his adventures. Romantic!

(oh by the way we saw 3 Hammerheads and about 5 White Tip Reef Sharks while diving on our trip. And sharks are now even more one of my favourite creatures on the planet. Please watch Sharkwater if you have time - it will change your life, I promise you, it changed mine).

P.s. you can watch the whole documentary on YouTube in 9 parts. 

Or - come visit me and borrow my copy :)

P.P.S.  Pictures credited from Hans Hass. 

The Red Sea, Sudan

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a new side to this country I currently call home. 
A side I had never imagined living out here in this war-torn desert: 
Immense natural beauty, free and safe for the exploring. 


Below are some images of the beauty that my eyes beheld..

Pictures by CCM... Thank you. 

Way Down South...

kids in Juba, Southern Sudan's future

Sudan is on the brink.. yet again.. Perhaps the biggest of its life.  The ensuing Divorce is less than 40 days away.

I sit here in the official 'North' and look on.

We seem a very long way from this North-South debate though. Darfur obviously has its own, special blend of war to wear on its sleeve.  But more importantly, I see people who do not identify with the North-South, Arab-African, Muslim-Christian divide that plagues the rest of this country. I see people, just trying to get on with living their day to day existence; feeding their kids, praying, making it through another night. People who have little understanding of the politics of Khartoum or any knowledge that there are Oil fields in existence in their own country. 

But of course, this divorce will affect everyone in this country.  In one way or another. Even our southern Sudanese staff have started slowly disappearing of late, heading home for the  vote. Will we ever see them again? Will they need a passport and visa to work here in the future?

Some articles I found interesting....

"After the referendum, everything will change. Everything will be easy," teacher Myau Deng Adur said. "For sure we will have buildings."

Another war in Sudan could cost the country and its neighbours US$100 billion in lost economic output as well as humanitarian and peacekeeping assistance..

“The rhetoric by all parties must also be toned down – I repeat, the rhetoric by all parties must also be toned down - something we warned about during our last visit to Sudan. Only then will the public feel secure enough to turn out to register and to vote, without repercussions, wherever they live,”

"I think I realized just in time, although my old self was hard to find

You can bathe me in your finest wine but I'll never give you mine

'Cos I'm a little bit tired of fearing that I'll be the bad fruit nobody buys

Tell me, did you think we'd all dream the same?"

Tomorrow I fly out of Darfur for 10 days. 

The last six weeks has felt like six months. Literally. 

I was warned this would happen, by experienced colleagues. 

They warned, that as time goes on, living in this kind of warped environment, this twisted, unnatural situation, that the stretches between breaks would feel longer and longer.. 

Harder and harder. Despite remaining at six weeks. 

And how right they turned out to be. 

After five months working in South Darfur, with an unchanged security situation, I am almost at the end of my tether. 

I need to walk outside, alone, freely. 

To make a spontaneous decision about what to do after work.

I want to have dinner with people I did not spend all day with in the office. 

I want to not have to notify the guy in the radio-room of my presence every night between 6-7pm. 

I want to have a conversation that does not involve international peace talks, food rations, trade sanctions or complaints about incapable, under-resourced NGOs. 

I want to go for a run. 

But mostly...

I want to see the ocean. 

I want to be in the sea.

And so...

That is exactly what I am going to do. 

The Red Sea, to be specific. 

With an oxygen tank and a dive buddy that happens to be my most favourite person on the planet. 

So hopefully, when I return to you, to share my stories, they will not be infused with fatigue, frustration and cynicism. 
Inshallah, I will be fresh and energised and hopeful. 

Until then, stay safe and happy. 

xx Olivia. 

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. 
But no matter, the road is life.”

Jack  Kerouac

Namibia 2010. Last time I saw the ocean...

Goodbye the Haboub..

The rainy season, and the wild, wooly weather that comes with it, has officially left town. 
I am sad to see it go. I really enjoyed the afternoon build up of hot restless air and then the dramatic explosion of the storms that swooped in from the desert and would cool the air down for at least a heavenly 24 hours.  Now its just still... and Hot... 


The Last Haboub - 

The Wolf

In the glance of the speechless animal, 

there is a discourse that only the soul of the wise

 can really understand. 

- An Indian Poet

I recently received a care package from a lovely friend who is a fellow animal lover, which included this wonderful book: The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness by Mark Rowlands. 

It is essentially the story of a man (who happens to be a philosophy professor) and a wolf, called Brenin.  It explores not only the relationship between people and 'pets', but also the comparison of human nature, or 'Ape' nature, to that of Wolves and what we can learn form them and apply to our lives. I learnt the most important lessons of my life from two four-legged kindred spirits, one of whom left me one year ago this week,  and so this book really touched me.  

"Think of the wolf as the clearing in the forest. In the bowels of the forest it may be too dark to see the trees. The clearing is the place that allows what was hidden to be uncovered. The wolf is the clearing in the human soul. The wolf uncovers what is hidden in the stories we tell about ourselves - what those stories show but do not say."

He explores that amazingly admirable ability that wolves and dogs possess to embrace a single moment. To realise the utter joy in a simple, temporal, snapshot of time. To cast off preconceived ideas and concerns for the future, from the past, to rid oneself of the wider connectedness of all of the influences in our lives - to allow oneself to simply be. In a single moment. 

"For them, the moment their jaws closed on the pain au chocolat was complete in itself, unadulterated by any other possible moments spread out through time. It could be neither augmented nor diminished by what had gone before and what was yet to come. For us, no moment is ever complete in itself. "

My dogs taught me that. And while some days I get lost in all the complexities of this busy nomadic life I lead, and begin to forget that most important lesson, it always finds a way to  come back to me in some way or another and remind me that pure joy can be found in a single moment.  If I stop, and let the pureness of the moment gently wash over me, let it be simply what it is, with no complications. Let it bring me this freedom and clarity. And I need that. These days more than ever. 

Wills and Rip, Uamby 2004

Need some Hope? Some Inspiration?

Grab a cuppa (or three) and settle in for a good read:
DIY Foreign-Aid Revolution
And...
Greg Mortensons Ideas for Afghanistan

Enjoy :)

Nations United

I live in a big house. 

With people from all over the world...

America, Australia, Belgium

Burundi, Cameroon, Colombia, France

Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Netherlands, Portugal

Senegal, Sierra Leone

South Africa

Uganda

An Old Dinka song and a New Dinka song.

"In the time when Dendid created all things, 

He created the Sun

And the sun is born and dies and comes again; 

He created the Moon

And the Moon is born and dies and comes again;

He created the Stars

And the stars are born and die and come again;

He created Man

And man is born and dies and does not come again."

~

We'll adjust the Sudan flag

We'll alter the Sudan flag

For Sudan is confused herself

Sadiq El Mahdi is corrupted

Wol Wol is corrupted

SPLA has a knife - fixed at the barrel tip of an AK-47

Courageous men who fear nothing

These are the men that will liberate us through bloodshed

Red armies - soldiers of the Doctor

We'll struggle till we liberate Sudan

The man who suffers form mosquito bites, thirst and hunger?

He is a genuine liberator

We'll liberate Sudan by bloodshed.

Looking into the face of evolution..

When you realise the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.   

Dian Fossey 1985

A Beat for Peace

Innocence

We have been having a few conversations about innocence around here of late...

I have been interested to observe several peoples opinions on what quantifies innocence, how it differs from naivety and the belief that it is merely a facade people use to avoid confrontation and judgement. 

And I just read these words from Osho and really liked them. 

In existence there is nobody who is superior and nobody who is inferior. The blade of grass and the great star are absolutely equal...

But man wants to be higher than others, he wants to conquer nature, hence he has to fight continuously. All complexity arises out of this fight. The innocent person is one who has renounced fighting; who is no longer interested in being higher, who is no longer interested in performing, in proving that he is someone special; who has become like a roseflower or like a dewdrop on the lotus leaf; who has become part of this infinity; who has melted, merged and become one with the ocean and is just a wave; who has no idea of the 'I'. 
The disappearance of the 'I' is innocence. 

'One seed makes the whole earth green' - Osho

Return to Kalma

Well we finally got back into Kalma camp today. 

After 7 weeks of not being able to enter and assess the situation, let alone distribute food, it felt really good to be there.  It felt good to be on the ground, assisting these people, who are the innocent ones suffering the political games that the big men play. 

I spent the last five hours there, moving around, overseeing my vouchers, overseeing food, seeing people clearly happy to be receiving food on this last day of Ramadan - the day before the most important holiday of the year - Eid ul Fitr. 

Knowing that they will now be more comfortable during this period is such a relief. 

Some days, I really Love my job. 

"How hard it is to escape from places.

However carefully one goes they hold you - 

you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences - 

like rags and shreds of your very life".

~

I find so much truth in these words of the New Zealand writer, Katherine Mansfield. The words take me back to al those places where I am left, fluttering..

Kagbeni, 2007

my mother, Kosciuszko, 1975.

Samia

Khartoum asked me to interview one of our beneficiaries about the milling vouchers and get some feedback and send them a photo.  This is how I met the beautiful Samia Mohammed - lining up on distribution day for her family of seven. Isn't she beautiful? She was shy at first.. then when I kept looking back at her and smiling she finally let go, and cracked open a radiant, amazing smile for me. I will never cease to be in awe of the beauty of the women of Darfur. They are desert flowers and lift my day as soon as I see them going about the camps, working hard but always beautiful. They too give me hope.

The Wet

In Far North Australia, we only have two seasons, with two simple names:  The Wet and The Dry.

I am blessed to be here, witnessing the Darfur rainy season.

 I am surrounded by transformation on a daily basis with the afternoon storms, that I watch longingly from the roof of our house, as the thunder-heads roll in.

And there is also a slow, gradual transformation I am enjoying - the greening of the desert.  I look down on it as I fly East,  to Ed Daein and Gereida.  I see a colour that I know as Africa Green. I see healthy crops and the wadi's pulsing with life.   This seasons harvest will be good. Better than the last few years.  And for this I am hopeful and thankful. 

Mythbusting this election...

Black and White

While in the camps this week I took this picture below, the baby looked so completely content and comfortable and oblivious to all that was going on around him in these restless times in the South Darfur camps. To me his face was just pure peace and it made me smile. And feel hope.

He also reminded me of a funny story my safari guide in Namibia once told me while we were tracking our elusive black desert rhino (we found him eventually, picture from my hiding place is below). When I asked him what were the major differences between the Black and White African rhinos he explained it had nothing to do with colour and was only the shape of the mouth that really differed them ('White' apparently mistakenly being born from 'Wyd' in Afrikaans - meaning wide, referring to their mouths).  But then he told me about the mothers and I really loved the story - he said the best way to remember was that the White Rhino's keep their babies running just in front of them while the Black Rhinos keep there babies running just behind them. He told me I could remember this easily as white women push their babies in front of them in prams while black women carry their babies behind them on their backs. Made me smile.

Darfur, 2010

Lesotho, 2010

Namibia, 2010

Oh Franti...

I wanted to share with you..

..what I'm listening to...

One of my old favourites from the beautiful soul that is Xavier Rudd. I am posting 'Messages'  because it always provokes thoughts for me on what is happening in my country.. like our current politicians, battling for power in this election, with their priorities so irrelevant and alarmingly out of place. 

So now come sit down

Will you talk with me now

Let me see through your eyes

Where there is so much light

We are biding our time

For these myths to unwind

For these changes we will confront..

For this sacred land

It has seen many hands

It has wealth and gold

Yet it is fragile and old

And all the greedy souls

Just don't care to know

Of the changes it will confront..

So speak out loud

Of the things you are proud

And if you love this coast

Then keep it clean as it hopes

'Cause the way that it shines

May just dwindle with time

With the changes it will confront..

So hold nice and close

the ones who get to your soul

So that when it is cold

you won't feel so alone

'Cause the roads that you take

may just crack and break

With the changes you will confront..

Well I know you are strong

May your Journey be long

And now I wish you the best of luck.

The Lucky Country

So I am trying to keep up with this thing called Australian politics.
Never thought I'd be saying this - but I kind of dig these words from old Hawkey - "We are all bloody boat people".. It is truth. It is succinct and I think it reminds us of what we are talking about here - people seeking refuge and a new life in a big, wide, open land. Just like my Anglo-Saxon ancestors hoped for and did, arriving by, you guessed it -boats.  Human Rights Watch recently wrote to the major parties urging them to remember international human rights in the upcoming election . And just today, one of my best friends here, who's from Eritrea, sent me this article about the desperation her people are facing and the price they will pay for a chance at a better life. So you see, for me, this issue has irrevocably evolved into an emotional one. I am currently surrounded by people living in the most desperate circumstances- political and social oppression, a land that lacks democracy, employment, basic human rights and food. Not that Sudanese would hunker down in a boat for the journey to Australian shores,  but they would in their dreams if they could.

From what I can gather is going on back home (please do correct me if I'm wrong), the Liberals (no surprises there) are more hardlined on asylum seekers, stating they will focus on "stopping the boats" (so articulate Abbott). A Liberal government would also reopen Nauru detention center (the shame!!) but then are Labor much better with a East Timor "regional processing center" ?? And they have also rejected the idea of temporary protection visas for asylum seekers.

I sometimes wish I could take certain Australian politicians and bring them here to this desert, (or a village in Acheh, or an Afghan windy hilltop) and have them live with these people for just one single day. Live in the dirt and hopelessness that so many have as a daily reality. Be told that they cannot vote because they are worthless. That there is no school for their kids, no hospital for their wife in labor. That tonight, they will go hungry.

I am gutted that I cannot vote in the federal election this week. I am too far from polling booths out here in this desert. My mind and heart are there though, with the other Australians that have a voice for climate change action (finally) and to see a democratically elected female prime minitser in power for the first time in our young, (albeit white), history. So do enjoy it and drop me a line on your thoughts some time.

And for me here in my rainy desert, well, I actually feel very fortunate to have had an opportunity to understand what it means for people to flee their beloved countries/religion/language in search of something safe.  I have seen the desire in peoples eyes when I respond "I come from Australia".  I now truly understand the lottery of birth and that I indeed won that lottery 30 years ago.

Standing at the limit of an endless ocean
stranded like a runaway, lost at sea

Sitting on a rainy day down in the harbour,
watching as the grey clouds shadow the bay

Looking everywhere 'cause I had to find you,
this is not the way that I remember it here

Anyone will tell you it’s a prison island,
hidden in the summer for a million years..

Iva Davies – ‘Great Southern Land’