Ma'aslama

This week I say ma'asalama. I have made many comings and goings in this desert over the past 2 years and 8 months, but this is my final departure.  At times this week my heart has felt a weight of heaviness, something resembling sadness and loss. But then at other times I have felt a great lightness, with a sense of release and freedom on my doorstep. This perpetual roller-coaster of emotion does not surprise me. This is Sudan. She can fill you with joy and break your heart in the very same day.  No other country has left me feeling this way. Departures are always bitter-sweet, saying goodbyes, moving on to new chapters and new friends, but this one is different somehow. I feel like I have witnessed the best and worst in humanity here in this desert, this country lost in a sand-storm of greed and power and innocence and suffering, where occasionally the sands lift and clear enough to briefly glimpse the durability of the human spirit. I have been blessed to have witnessed it, but I have perhaps allowed it to alter my perspective more than I should have. 

A good friend once said to me, in response to some of my characteristic moaning about Darfur and more, " Just lower your expectations". I thought about it a lot after that. Peace can seem like an illustrious, distant concept some times. Peace talks fail, fighting continues, food aid goes missing, soldiers get fat, crops fail, villages still get burnt to the ground, women still get raped when they go to collect firewood, the UN high-ups still talk, and talk, and talk. I have cynical days. But perhaps that is a given, and perhaps that allows me to really celebrate success when I see it, even if it is in small doses. I should never have come here expecting to see a troubled country find peace and democracy and prosperity. I should never have gone to Darfur expecting to feel like I am "making a difference" on a daily basis. I should never have expected to find every single beneficiary in genuine need. I should not have expected people to appear grateful for my presence here. I was naive to have assumed a major UN agency would be driven by humanitarian principles. I should not have expected egg yolks to be yellow! And I should not have expected all my colleagues to have come here with the same ideals as my own. But I have seen a desperate nation gain their independence after a 50 year struggle. And I have watched Darfurian school children eating a breakfast of food-aid in their playground. And I have worked with several amazing people, who are here solely to contribute to poverty alleviation rather than to their bank accounts. And I have met foreigners, who obviously never had the expectations I did, who remain perpetually hopeful and positive, ready to dedicate their whole lives to this country. I applaud them, and wish them luck on their journey. Sudan taught me to finally open my eyes to the small things, and allow myself to be content with that, even if just for today. And wherever my journey takes me next, I will try to carry these valuable lessons.

And so theses notes must now find their rest, in my heart, in my pictures and words. I leave them behind, to begin a new chapter. Thank you for joining me on this journey. It has helped me greatly to be able to release my thoughts and share my pictures with you. Unlike previous transitions in my life the next chapter has not presented itself with well defined clarity, but I am choosing to embrace this and revel in the unknown, the unexpected, the unpredictable. And to rest. My journey moves onward, via a place called home, where I plan to re-collect my soul and focus on the things that bring me happiness and comfort. My alignment has been off, for a while now, and I hope to correct that before moving on. 

Juba, 2010

I'm taking with me the smell of a desert horse and the velvet touch of his muzzle against my cheek. I take with me the call to prayer as the sun rises over the desert at day-break. I retain the smiles and the shout-outs of "okay!" of the Darfurian children living in the camps that define their small lives, as they run along side the huge white Landcruiser, giving me the thumbs-up sign the peace-keepers had taught them. I take with me the adventures of Africa in places where pieces of my heart also remains; from Namibia, Zanzibar, Masai Mara, Lesotho, Bwindi and her Gorilla's, and with a school of Hammerheads in the Red Sea. It is all now with me, locked inside this wandering heart. 

I tend to let countries seep into my soul. I dive in, deep in emersion. Every place I have lived has somehow become part of me. Sudan is no different. Here below are some of my best memories. 

Ma'asalama Sudan, I wish you Peace.

Juba, when two Sudan's were still one, January 2010.

Port Sudan after a dive trip on the Red Sea

Sufi's of Omdurman

Shade never felt so valuable 

Riding to the Pyramids of Meroe

Kassala, Eastern Sudan

Desert breakfast

Desert Coffee

Desert Rush-hour 

Desert Oasis

Walking home down a Khartoum street

Treasures of Souq Omdurman

Climbing Pyramids

Camel nomads in Darfur

'Protection' in Darfur

Distribution day, Kalma Camp

Food Aid for sale in the camp market, Darfur

                       

Women dividing food rations
distribution day, Kalma Camp

Nomads watering their stock,
near the South/North Darfur border

Curious camp kids, Darfur

At the races, Khartoum

'Nullarbor'

Ancient ruins of Meroe

Riding home from the Nile, Khartoum

View from my bedroom window, Nyala

We are lonesome animals.

We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. 

One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say, and to feel, 

"Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.

You’re not as alone as you thought".

 — John Steinbeck

I am Slave

There are reportedly as many as 20,000 salves in Sudan. There are people in this city, perhaps in homes right near my own, who were stolen or sold like cheap commodities and  are forced to work in the homes of the wealthy for no wage, with no freedom, with no future. I was  out of town recently when a local film festival screened a film called "I am Slave", based on the tragic but inspiring life of Nuba woman Mende Nazer. The trailer below looks quite powerful and I hope to find a copy of the full film. 

More about slavery in other countries from the organisation Free the Slaves. 

Eritrean girl in Refugee Camp, Eastern Sudan.

The Tomb of Khatmiya Al Hassan Al Mirghani

There is a Sufi sect in a town at the base of an unusual mountain range that sits on the border of two fragile lands. A Sufi holy man is buried there, inside this tomb with an open domed roof, the locals say the rain does not ever fall inside. There is an old mosque next to it, again with no roof. The mosque was built 150 years ago by Italian colonials in a peace-building gesture, attempting to win the support of the Sufis. Peace was left broken and they left before the dome roof could be constructed. The locals are awaiting a man named Osman to arrive and rebuild it. Next to the mosque is another tomb, of a whole family, the family of the Sufi. His daughter Fatima has her own tomb with a green door. An old lady caretaker who lived there saw me and said I must place my whole hand on the door to Fatima's tomb. She said this would protect me and bring me luck. My local friends informed me this was rare for her to tell a foreigner to do this and that the old woman had seemingly taken to me. The setting sun warmed the brick work orange and at dusk it was almost difficult to separate mosque from mountains. They were as one.. offering a space of peace, solitude and eternal rest. But a sense of waiting still permeates.

A Week in the East

This past week I was working in the East for a change  right on the border with the illusive and conflict ridden land of Eritrea, (as opposed to Darfur, which sits in the far west on the border with Chad). It was magnificent to see another part of the country, and to travel by road for a change. Long road-trips are one of my most favorite past times.  This area also has incredible mountains, so the climber in me was dreaming big...  And it is also one of the main bread-baskets of Sudan, so the agriculturalist in me was equally happy. But as we drove around the farms and villages and refugee camps, stopping here and there to do market assessments and hold discussions with local traders, I could not help but feel some sorrow that we could not operate so freely in Darfur. The kidnapping of foreigners in Darfur, (22 people over the past 3 years), meant that we could not move freely without being at extreme risk and hence we were forced to largely stop field work altogether. Personally this was very difficult. I am a field person. I followed a profession in agriculture and aid-work because I do not enjoy being desk-bound. But all of a sudden, despite being located in one of the most unique and vulnerable humanitarian landscapes in the world, I found myself desk-bound, living with a 5pm curfew for more than 12 months. 

And so, naturally I was extremely happy and grateful to be back in the field last week, working along side new people, strategizing about new innovative projects to help vulnerable people, particularly women, learning more about this incredible country and all her complexities, stopping to let camels cross the road, eating local produce that people served me up proudly, being out in the sunshine. It was a refreshing week and I returned to the city feeling re-motivated and more alive than I had in weeks. It is the tangibility of work that can create a such a satisfaction that conceptualizing and paperwork will never be able to achieve, in any profession, and I must strive to find the balance and also prioritize the actions that will allow me to reach out and touch that which I am working towards. 

                                                                               

“Your work is to discover your work              and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.”                                                                                - Buddha