World Humanitarian Day 2016: South Sudan and Rape and Being an AidWorker

I just wrote about this in the Cassandra Complexity, a blog I help co-edit with friends but here's a rougher more personal account.

August 19 is World Humanitarian Day where humanitarian aid workers like me remember our colleagues who were killed in the line of duty. Today, I am also now thinking about the particular vulnerability that women face: being raped in the line of duty.  

A few days ago, the AP published a report about the South Sudanese army's attacks on a popular expatriate lodging, "Terrain House", in Juba, Sudan where three female expatriate aid workers were raped by multiple soldiers. The rage and sadness I felt about the UN's refusal to deploy peacekeepers to protect these civilians threw me into a sad dark place. I'm currently on sabbatical in Sarajevo, Bosnia and this sadness was compounded by all the dark European movies I had been watching at the Sarajevo Film Festival.  I cried through the movie Cameraperson because it had a lot of scenes that hit close to home - women chopping wood in Zalingei (reminded me of almost getting shot on my way to Kass in South Darfur), a baby being born and dying in Nigeria (reminded me of dying babies in Haiti post-earthquake in MSF's obstetric hospital, Afghanistan (the fear I felt there driving around at night), and scenes from Liberia (where I had my first security fright thanks to a dumbass Congolese man that I was traveling with). I was already feeling raw when I read this report. 

I then learned that the US Embassy (my Embassy!)  had also failed to do ANYTHING to protect these American citizens and had "made some phone calls." Eventually the Government of Sudan sent in someone to rescue the people but the local staff of the hotel and 3 women were left behind to be rescued the next day by a private security force. What must it have felt like to be the people "left behind"? I couldn't stop myself from instantly imagining myself as one of the three expatriate women left overnight with the rapist soldiers. It's every woman's worst nightmare. For my sanity, I had to stop. 

Aid workers started lamenting this issue and expressing our rage and sadness.  Female aid workers everywhere are deeply shaken by this event. Some are privately expressing how afraid they feel but that they feel worse for abandoning South Sudanese women who bear the brunt of the sexual violence. The most frustrating part was the false sense of security that being nearby the peacekeepers provided. Our so-called "safety and security systems" (including useless TRIP forms filled out on line) are not always going to be there. It's obvious that we, as women,  are usually alone out there sometimes, and as every woman everywhere in the world has learned since puberty, you have to take responsibility for your own safety and security.

Our "security professionals" are often ignoring women's needs or have REALLY outdated viewpoints on how women can protect themselves. In Bangkok, at the recent women's day- our security personnel at the UN told women that they should "smile more" and in Jordan, the UNHCR security personnel who was giving me a brief there said I should "dress decently" (to which I responded, since I'm a decent person anything I wear is, by definition, decent). 

I'm too angry and sad to write a more professional polished piece - so I give you instead, a piece that i wrote about this in 2012. It was inspired by events that took place in 2012 after I had finished a year working in Nepal, Pakistan, and Afghanistan for the UN.  I took a Hostile Environment Awareness Training course before I went to Libya with the British government for the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative. I was really nervous as in mid 2011, there had been an attack on the hotel where i had worked in Kabul right after I left and I realized I had never felt safe in that country. I didn't know how I would react to the simulated situation. I was most nervous about the "fake kidnapping" part - and as it turns out - I was fine, but one of my colleagues was not. She was a survivor and experienced a flashback during this section of the training. Our mostly male trainers had no psychologist on standby and were not prepared to support her so I was called in. In order to deal with it, I decided to take action and become an activist on this issue. 

Gender-based Violence and Security

This blog post was published by USAID to coincide with the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence event, “Who Takes Care of the Caregivers?  Providing Care and Safety for Staff in Gender-based Violence Settings,” taking place on Thursday, Nov. 29th 2012 in Washington DC, hosted by the Inter-Agency Gender Working Group, funded by USAID. It is no longer available online but a copy of it can be found here. The Tips that I wrote for travelers can be found here. 

Gender-based Violence (GBV) is an issue that impacts aid workers – not just beneficiaries and not just staff that works in GBV settings. This post examines agencies’ duty to care for their workers by preventing and responding to GBV. 

“Keeping International Workers Safe:  Preventing and Responding to Gender-based Violence”

Sarah Martin, Consultant and Specialist on Prevention and Response to Gender-based Violence

The sexual assault of the journalists Lara Logan, Mona Eltahawy and two unnamed British and French journalists in Egypt shocked the world and brought the issue of gender-based violence (GBV) against Westerners working in conflict areas to the forefront. Clearly GBV does not only affect the "locals" in these areas. Not only are journalists at risk but also aid workers–and not just in conflict settings or in GBV program areas.

I recently interviewed a large cross section of women travelers who work in a number of fields (including international development, human rights, humanitarian action and international business) about their experiences as women while traveling and working overseas*.  Many of them brought up their frustration that sexual harassment and sexual assault were never raised in security trainings and that agencies refused to address this as a real security concern. Increasingly, aid agencies are providing more “realistic” security trainings that simulate “hostile environments to prepare their employees for gunfire, kidnappings and other events in the field.”  While some of these trainings talk about sexual assault, there are no discussions of how to prevent sexual assault or how to react or support colleagues if they are assaulted. Sexual harassment in the workplace as a security issue is often ignored. In addition, the purveyors of these trainings are mostly male and show little awareness to the issue of sexual assault or the gender concerns of female trainees. I recently attended one such training where one of the participants relived her own sexual assault from years ago while undergoing a simulated “kidnapping.” While they took her out of the simulation, there were no psychologists or female trainers available to talk to her. 

Female development and aid workers have the same security concerns as their male counterparts: crime and landmine accidents and armed robberies do not discriminate. Security measures, trainings, and manuals are the same for men and women, and most agencies take a ‘gender-blind’ approach to security. Most security officers are men, and many of them come from a military background. This gender-blind approach to security, however, leaves out a major issue.  Women also face another security threat that most men do not encounter – gender-based violence, namely sexual harassment and sexual violence.

Rape myths promote the false idea that women are only sexually assaulted by strangers. While this can happen, women are much more likely to be attacked by someone familiar to them – a co-worker, a driver, or a friend. Most of the women I interviewed shared stories about fending off sexual harassment by colleagues or actual cases of sexual assault in the field. 

Rarely is their organization prepared to handle these issues. While there has been some action taken on “building safe organizations” – the focus has been preventing sexual exploitation of our beneficiaries by our staff. But there is not sufficient attention paid to sexual harassment of our staff by our staff or adequate support for staff that have been sexually assaulted. There is little information in the security manuals that I have reviewed about what medical care a survivor may need or what rights a sexual assault survivor might have. Nor is there guidance on reporting to local authorities, human resources or guarantees of confidentiality. Responsible employers must be prepared to understand and deal with the fact that their employees might become victims of sexual assault [1] and should be prepared to support them. This means bringing the issue of sexual assault up in security trainings and sensitizing the trainers and security personnel on how to address the issue – but not by restricting women’s access to “dangerous areas” but by making sure female employees are informed of the dangers, provided with information on how to protect themselves, and given sensitive and adequate support by their organizations in case the worst happens.

[1] Global statistics show that 1 out of 3 women has experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault.

 * From the chapter I wrote entitled “Sexual Assault: Preventing And Responding As An International Travelers in the book Personal Security: A Guide for International Travelers, by Tanya Spencer, ISBN: 9781466559448 commissioned and published by Taylor and Francis, LLC.

Old Emails: 2006 Sudan

Collapsing tents, mud slides, and missed planes. That would summarize up the South of Sudan in a nutshell.  After three days in Juba, the “capitol” of South Sudan, we now have a birds eye view of what is going to take to rebuild this country.

First up: Lodging and Accommodations. In order to even work in Juba – one must undertake a very convoluted and treacherous relationship with the “tented camp” purveyors in Juba. There are three that I know of: Mango Tree, AFEX, and R2 or something. We lucked out by befriending a pretty young woman logistician who scored us a tent in the coveted Mango camp. We arrived to a sweltering hot (about 110 degrees) and the city which consists of a collection of huts and dirt roads. Our tented camp reminded me immediately of summer camp. We had a full size tent with two cots in it and a solar shower and camp toilet behind the tent. This costs about $100 per person. Also, everyone who is there has warned us that 50% of the people get malaria. And there is currently a cholera epidemic in Yei, up river from us and they pump Nile river water into our showers.

But the good thing is that they have a bar and at night you sit on the banks of the Blue Nile under the mango trees and drink beers from Uganda. The bad thing is that their main clientale are “security consultants” from Dyncorp and other ‘private military companies’ which means talking to former military men who are threatened that you can talk their language. So after arguing politics with ex military men and former Zimbabwean farmers, we would collapse exhausted in our sweltering tents to try to sleep.

We did get to go see the Dinka Bor women and children. The Dinka are famous for being extremely tall, extremely skinny, and extremely dark skinned. The women are amazing looking. They are preparing to board a barge and go up the Nile to a town called Bor where they will wait for their men who are living in Cattle Camps to retrieve them. Ironically, the UN determined they were not safe commuting back to Bor with the men and the cattle so they set up this way station camp. And then Cholera broke out and 18 people died. We have the opportunity to go up the Nile with them which I am dying to do. The Nile is almost completely undeveloped here and people live as they did hundreds of years ago. The Sudanese in the south are extremely conservative in their culture and continue to wear traditional dress and do scarification on their faces to mark their tribes. I hope we get a chance to go.

Anyway, after two days of running around town and trying to get flights set up, we got booted out of our camp and had to go to AFEX next door. Well it appears that the rains came early this year. After a mighty clap of thunder, the sky opened up and the deluge began around 3am. The tents at AFEX are not as sturdy, I think and my colleague Betsy’s tent collapsed upon her in the night. She had to climb out of the tent and stand under an awning of a neighboring tent trying to find me. She eventually went to the mess hall and sat in the swamp drinking coffee. It was a swamp. The sand is mostly clay and sand. Small rivers run through the camp. Someone said they awoke to their computer floating next to them. All of our stuff was soaked. After slogging out into the mud to try to find our driver, we noticed that the parking lot had turned into a lake and across the river from us, a local village was dealing with a small mudslide. The South African pilots and Zimbabwean de-miners and various security men told us that there was no way the planes would fly today. This was a problem since we had an 8:30am flight to the Upper Nile. Our driver never showed up and we missed the plane.

So: Plan B. Tonight we are sleeping in a UN compound in a ‘container’ which are slightly less leaky than the tents. We scrapped our plans and are now headed to a place called Malakal. Malakal is represented on the map as surrounded by two enormous swamps and located in the oil region of Sudan. There are landmines all over the town and the UN de-miners are uninterested in working there. We don’t have accommodations yet but hope that the Bangladeshi peacekeepers will put us up.

Today, because we had no driver and no one was showing up to work because of the rain, we decided to do a little exploring in the ‘capitol city’ of the New South Sudan. We drove over with a UN woman to see John Garang’s grave. A garish monument covered in neon colored fake flowers, Sudanese flags, and what looks like someone’s laundry sits in the middle of a barren mud field. It is guarded by four heavily armed Sudanese men in full jungle camouflage sitting in the shade. They yell at us to sign their guest book and make us stand in different positions to photograph the grave. My favorite photo is Garang’s photo surrounded by flowers and an AK47. We also went to the “Salvation Automatic” bakery to buy some bread. It’s really pathetic. The streets are avenues of mud, most of the houses are huts or burned out and the number one thing on sale was some sort of blue soap with a pair of scissors embossed in it. You can also buy what looks like used underwear.

So we head off to a different town in South Sudan tomorrow. And we will go and find returning IDPs and refugees who are telling us over and over again that they want clean water and education for their children. And the World Bank economist I met with yesterday tells me that the Government of Sudan is responsible for providing this and they have zero capacity. Most ministries only have two people in them currently. But still the people return with hope and belief that the war is over and the country will be rebuilt. One only hopes that the international community doesn’t renege on its promises and let them down.

Bests and Worsts

While sitting in a little bungalow in Kerala reflecting on the sad state of my recent manicure, I decided to reflect on some of the best and worst things that I've learned while traveling these past 15 years. In no particular order:

Best Manicure and Pedicure: Boston Day Spa in Addis Ababa, 2009:  My manicure lasted for almost two weeks – a lifelong record! I was served hot tea, had a massage chair, and nice ambience. Not too expensive either!

Honorable Mentions: Washington DC, 2003 - 2007: The pedicure place across the street from my house on 18th and T streets was reliable and fast and not too expensive. Downside: Constantly trying to make you feel bad and insist that you needed facial waxing.

Singapore, December 2009: In a mall somewhere with Suzie. I have never had such shiny toe nails. And they lasted almost two months.

Worst Mani/Pedi:
(Three-way Tie Amsterdam/Mexico City/Delhi)
Near Nieuwmarkt, Amsterdam, 1999:  They scrubbed my foot so hard they cut it open and I bled, and poured such hot water on my feet that they scalded me. I could barely walk afterwards.

Zona Rosa, Mexico City, Mexico, 2005: Again, the pedicurist believed that my right big toe just needed a good digging to get the nail bed to right itself (it’s never been the same since I dropped an ice bucket on it at Garibaldi’s in South Carolina). Not only did it hurt like hell and bleed, I got an infection and had to lance it with a needle and a match in Guanajuato a week later.

Defence Colony, Delhi, India, January 2010: I could still see through the nail polish after two lackluster coats of varnish and the lady painted over my cuticles. On the way home from the salon, it began to chip.

Best Journey in a foreign country: Train from Fort Cochin to Alleppy, India, January 2010.Inside: chai salesmen, sleeping business men in the bunks above me, and an ambience unchanged from the 1920s. Outside: Water buffalos and green palm trees and canals and bridges.

Drive from Port Elizabeth to Cape town, South Africa, October 2003Most spectacular sunset ever seen somewhere  between Mpmulenga and Knyssna, riding along the Garden Route, riding an ostrich for the amusement of German tourists in Outhoorn, drinking a Castle beer at Ronnie’s Sex Shoppe in the Klein Karoo, crossing the Drakenberg Mountains, coming down into Cape Town to see Table Mountain.

Riverboat ride north of Bangkok, April 2002.Trees so filled with fireflies that they seemed to glow and levitate, heavy smell of dark brown water of South East Asia, green jungle on every side.

Worst Journey in a foreign country: Car ride from Nyala to Kass, South Darfur, Sudan, October 2004We were shot at and it broke out a window. Old pimped out hoopty that we rented broke down and the Janjaweed helped us get back on the road. Lots of tales about bandits that got all the cars on either side of us but not us. Potholes. Tense and frightening. Two weeks later we heard a woman from USAID was shot at the same point we were at. She lost her eye.

Motorcycle Ride from Sigiriya to Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka, September 2005Styrofoam helmet, aching back from too many books in my backpack, scared out of my mind by the weaving and dodging traffic, screaming buses and 18 wheelers. “A supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again”

Car ride from Port-au-Prince to Gonaives, Haiti and Gonaives to Cap Haitien, Haiti: February 2005A backbreaking trip across the moonscape of a devastated land, it took four hours to go about 60 miles.  The 2nd part of the journey was over an extremely treacherous mountain pass with no guard rails, potholes and people in every treacherous hairpin turn. Afterwards, the driver informed me  about the brake problems in our car.

Best meals in foreign countries:Side of the road from Boguila to Bangui, Central African Republic, March 2007A piece of freshly caught fish grilled over a charcoal flame with hot peri peri powder and tomatoes and onions, washed down with a cold coke, eaten with fingers. It might have been made better by the fact that I was on a 10 hour land rover trip squashed in the front seat with another person and with a big barrel that reeked of oil behind me.

Beirut, Lebanon, August 2006:
Everywhere we went, we would get some sort of street food and it was ALL divine - from zataar filled croissants to labneh to zataar pizzas with fresh goats cheese on them to the Arabic and Italian ice cream parlours where we conducted our meetings. At night, we went to divine little bars and drank "Malcom Lowry's" and ate fresh Ceasar salads prepared by beautiful men while listening to the latest lounge music. All war zones should be so gorgeous.

Le Quartier Francais, Franschhoek, South Africa, October 2003: Freshly caught salmon trout grilled and served on a plank of wood accompanied by a divine South African Sauvignon Blanc by the glass in a beautiful old French Huguenot farmhouse overlooking a vineyard. Downside: My traveling companion had a stomach virus and couldn’t even eat her broth although she tried valiantly.

Califa del Leon in the Colonia Condesa neighborhood, Mexico City, Mexico, May 2006: My first Taco al Pastor - roasted pork served with cilantro and pineapple on a fresh tortilla. All you can eat until you can’t eat anymore. Washed down with a cold beer and eaten on the street corner in a beautiful neighborhood in Mexico City on my first night there.

Camel Market, Khartoum, Sudan, December 2005:Freshly slaughtered lamb purchased and then brought to Sudanese women who stir fried it over charcoal briquettes with salt and pepper -served with a leafy green like arugula, tomato salad, freshly baked bread, and peanut sauce. Washed down with lukewarm plastic bags of water while sitting on plastic garden chairs and swatting flies away in the mid day heat of Sudan. Sometimes the setting isn’t that important.

Malabar House, Fort Cochin, Kerala, India, January 2010: Seafood Uttalpillum (?) – a spicy mix of freshly caught Sea bar, tiger prawns, and squid cooked in a spicy tomato curry sauce with tapioca mashed potatoes served with sparkling water and a Kingfisher beer in the courtyard of the Malabar House next to a Sitar and tambla concert under a full moon. I sat under a mango tree next to a pool of water.

Somewhere outside of Saint Johann in Pongau, Austria, May 1998: I fell off the meat wagon and was trying to get back on. My boyfriend at the time wanted to stop at a famous place for Frankfurters dipped in mustard and grated horseradish. Even though I was a vegetarian, I couldn’t resist. It was delectable and I’ve never looked back since.

Pave d'Auge in Beauvron-en-Ange, Normandy, France, July 2009: A Michelin 1 star – foie gras,  a chilled red Sancerre, divine fish, vintage calvados, exquisite service

Castelmuzio, Tuscany, Italy, August 2009:
My first taste of pecorino cheese dipped in truffle honey served with a Vino Nobile. To die for! Eaten in a small little apartment overlooking the hills of Tuscany, an olive grove, and the abbey from an English Patient.

The Royal Thai restaurant at the Cinnamon Lake Hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka, September 2005:Thai Seafood Green Curry with Joel. “Make it how it should be made” he answered in response to do you want it spicy. We sweated and ate and sweated and ate until we almost passed out and had to stagger back to our hotel rooms. We came back the next night for more.

Hotel La Cayenne, Les Cayes, Haïti, 2001-2003 :
Poisson au gross el or Lambi Kreyol for dinner. Served with a big boiled plantain and spicy rice and beans and cold Prestige beer. Or Spaghetti with avocado and hot sauce for breakfast. Something about that hotel and the food brings back good memories.

Little restaurant near a great small Fado joint in Alfama, Lisbon, Portugal, February 2008:Grilled sardines, a bottle of vinho verde. Divine!

Worst Meals in a Foreign land:
Saclipea, Liberia, December 2004:Boiled cow head with hard rice in eaten out of a communal bowl with five Liberians and a Congolese. “That white woman can’t eat that hard rice!”

ICRC party in Nyala, Darfur, October 2004: Ate nothing but rancid “La Vache Qui Rit” cheese and sandy bread for three weeks, came to a party at the ICRC rooftop and lined up for the barbecue. My mouth was literally watering. The par-cooked goat meat that I swallowed almost without chewing was bad. I had to decide whether to make myself vomit then or hope for the best. I hoped for the best and got food poisoning. That’s when I learned about Oral Rehydration Salts thanks to my friend Mamie and the MSF clinic.

Most Monotonous Diets in foreign lands:
Everything at our hotel in Pretoria, South Africa, March 2004:
All you can eat buffet. You had to fight off hordes of German tourists to get to the food and then it was bland, over cooked, and sauced with what seemed to be paste. Terrible in its nothingness particularly compared to what I knew South Africa was capable of.

Traveling through Kinshasa, North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri, DRC , May 2005: Almost every day we ate beef brochette, pommes frites, and a beer. By the end of three weeks, I was dying for vegetables and was pretty convinced that I had “trigger finger” from gout.

The MSF Cafeteria, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2007-2010:Every day you have your choice of dried out breads, processed mystery meats and cheeses packaged in plastic wrap or odd salads such as canned beans, celery, canned corn, and olives in mayonnaise or red peppers, canned black olives, fake tofu/feta, celery, and raw onions swimming in olive oil with no vinegar. Deep fried cutlets that when cut open are made of spaghetti. Soups that are either grey or brown and taste vaguely like paste or canned beef flavor. Buttermilk or milk to drink. “But it’s free!”

Worst book to read in a war zone:
David Rieff’s Bed for the Night in Darfur in 2004. Will kill any sense of hopefulness that you might have and replace it with despair.

Best Book to read in Haiti before the earthquake:
The Comedians by Graham Greene. I was reading it all night and woke up in La Cayenne hotel to open my door to the blinding bright Caribbean light. Outside was a Haitian man in mirror shades, a red speedo, with a big gun. I thought it was the tonton macoute. I closed the door and splashed water on my face. When I reopened the door, he was still there. Turns out President Aristide was coming to the hotel and he was in the advance body guard team.

2nd best book to read in Haiti before the earthquake:
The Comte de Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas – French. Rackish. Dumas was rumored to have black blood. Keeps you endlessly entertained and is long enough that you don’t have to carry another one around with you.

Best Song to enter a war zone to:
“Rock the Casbah” by the Clash. I listened to this as I drove overland from Syria to Beirut during the August 2006 Israel-Hezbollah clash.

Best song to dance to in a refugee camp in Sudan:
“African Queen” by 2Face Idiba  – at the Bulls eye night club in Kakuma Refugee Camp near Lokichoggio, Kenya.

Song I’ve heard on every continent that I’ve traveled to:
"Aisha" by Khaled. Sung live in a nightclub in Cairo, innumerous car radios in Beirut, on an iPod at a Save the Children party in Darfur, at the nightclub in Honduras, at a house party in Papua New Guinea, at a hotel party in Mumbai, India.

Books I didn’t like about places I’ve been to:
The Catastrophist, Kinshasa, Congo. All I remember is that the author kept describing the so called irresistible woman as having extremely thin hair. What woman wants to be described by a man who is obsessed with her as having thinning hair? Why did that even occur to the author as a way to describe the heroine? There was something in there about someone spitting in someone’s face. Everyone was annoying and I wanted everyone to die by the end of it.

The God of Small Things, Kerala, India. At this point, I don't know why I didn't like it but I recall not liking it.

 Books I did like about places I’ve been to:
Anil’s ghost in Sri Lanka
The English Patient in Tuscany, Italy
The Comedians, Haiti
The Heart of the Matter, Sierra Leone
Country of my Skull, South Africa
Berlin by Anthony Beevor, Berlin, Germany

Do You Remember Where you Were?

Do you remember where you were when you heard that Anna Nicole Smith died?

I was at work - trying to deal with a massive headache so I logged on to defamer.com (my favorite gossip source) and got the news. It's the lead story on Wolf Blitzer's "Situation Room". It was even sent to me by CNN "breaking news".

I love my celebrity gossip - its my hobby, and obviously I"m not alone in the world. I've decided that when I'm on Jeopardy and Alex Trebeck asks me about my hobbies, that's what I'll answer. I love reading about the vapid lives of the extremely rich and famous. It's ridiculous the way we adulate them. But when I spend all day long thinking about raped women and the injustice that they are subajected to - i need something light and fluffy to engage myself and allow myself to turn off.

It's been my policy ever since I made the mistake of reading "A Bed for the Night" while working in Darfur. I have to cut off my brain sometimes. So tonight, rather than re-reading all of the papers I have on impunity in Darfur, I'm going to think about sad silly Anna Nicole Smith and her little orphaned daughter.

So long live US Weekly and Defamer.com - thanks for making your contribution to making the world a little easier to deal with.

Juba Jubilee

Greetings from Juba, South Sudan! It’s so hot and humid here after cool temperate Uganda. I’m sweating like a pig.

I’ve returned to the same tented camp as I stayed in before, “the Mango camp”. However, its 8 months later and things have changed.

I’ve got my own tent here – which is nice – and they also have internet connections now so I was able to Skype/chat my fellow advocate Sean in Brussels and Camilla in the US simultaneously. The line of army green tents (1-10) is still the same but for privacy reasons, I guess, they have put these ugly rattan screens in front of the ‘porch area’ on the front. They look ramshackle and like they are about to collapse in front of the tent. There are also a lot of bugs in my tent and the front flap won’t zip up correctly. As some of you may know, I do not like bugs. I’m afraid to kill them and I don’t want them to jump on me. I’d rather handle a lizard, a snake, and a mouse than some bugs. There are some HUMONGOUS grasshoppers in here. When I pulled down the mosquito net over my cot, one was inside! Yikes – I scooped him off the bed but I don’t know where he is now. Hopefully not in my suitcase amongst my underwear, waiting to jump out on me tomorrow morning. I also have a ‘head lamp’ style flashlight. It attaches to the top of my head on an elastic band like a coal miners lamp. I used it to go into the bathroom this evening and since it was the only light there, all the bugs swarmed in front of my eyes and face. Not ideal.

There’s been other changes too. Where in April, they had small wooden tables and chairs arrayed under the mango trees along the bank of the Nile, now they have white plastic tables and chairs under tents with electric lights and fans in them. Helps with the heat but the ambience is not the same. There’s a separate bar from the dining table and they play cheesy 80s music. There are a lot of white railings put up along the Nile bank and ‘car port’ type covers guiding the entrance. I liked it better when it seemed super rustic but I suppose that is the nostalgia talking. It’s easy to remember the mango trees and the moonlight and the nile and to forget the rivulets of sweat streaming down my back and the sticky heat.

A friend of mine in Uganda asked me if I would like to take a position there in her UN agency yesterday. While I’m tempted, I’m not sure if that is what I want to do. And I’m a lot not sure if I want to move to Africa. Today in the Kampala/Entebbe airport was a perfect example of why. We got to the “Royal Daisy Air” check in counter 2 hours in advance of our 1 hour flight, as requested. There was one person in front of us. So we lined up behind him. The sullen Ugandan woman at the counter next to “Royal Daisy Air” said something so softly, I could not hear her. I walked closer to hear what she said and she said “you have to stand in that line” (which was where I was before I walked over to hear what she had to say). Then we got to the front and handed over our passports, tickets, and South Sudan passes (a special type of Visa that the Southern Sudanese issue in lieu of the Northern Sudan’s visa). They wanted to charge us extra for our baggage weight (which was 15 pounds over the 30 pound limit for two people) – but instead of just telling us that, they made a whole song and dance about how we knew that there was a weight limit and pointed to a small box on the airplane ticket which we could not read which was supposed to have told us that. We got into a discussion about how noone had told us that and we couldn’t leave anything behind. Finally it became clear that we could just pay $20 and it would all be fine. Then they wanted to reject the $20 bill we gave them to pay for the overage because it wasn’t printed after 2004. Supposedly there was a huge counterfeiting scheme that took place with pre-2004 US bills so noone will take them anymore. But not actually – they will take them but for a lower exchange rate. Does that make sense? Not at all. So as to make sure we could move around southern Sudan, we had to pay $50 to exchange our 1996 and 2001 US currency $100 bills for 2004 US currency $100 bills. Nothing is simple here. NOTHING! And this is the most advanced country in Africa after South Africa! What in the hell would it be like to live in South Sudan?

In Uganda– there are paved roads and newspapers and radio stations and taxis and high rises. In southern Sudan, there are unpaved rutted flooded clay paths and you have to use satellite phones and our taxi forgot to pick us up from our meeting tonight so we had to hitch a ride from some Canadian guy. Oh – and I also wanted to tell you my favorite Ugandan news story from the paper this morning. It appears that there was a Canadian fellow with the last name of Hornsleth who moved to Uganda. He wanted to help Ugandans so he started buying pigs and would distribute them to poor Ugandans but only if they changed their name to Hornsleth. Now there are about 1000 people with that last name. And last week, many of them applied for visas to go to Canada and meet this guy (who was thrown out of the country, I think). So the government doesn’t want to give them visas because they all changed their names. So none with the last name of Hornsleth is now allowed to get a visa. Hurray for Africa!

On the milkroute in Sudan

Malakal, South Sudan

We finally left Juba with excruciating hangovers. The UN had a party on Friday night that was dress in your best African finery party. I declined (although I wanted to dress in my white nightie and wave my hair and say I was Karen Blixen in Out of Africa). After much frantic dancing, chugging of scotch with the country director, and talking of politics with the US Embassy rep, I retired to my tent at 3am. We had to arise at 7am to make our flight to Malakal. After eating lots of paracetamol and eating Cliff bars, we boarded the flight to Malakal. Little did we know that the 8am flight to Malakal arrived at 3pm after making approximately 10 stops throughout South Sudan. We flew down to the border with Uganda. We flew up to the Nuba Mountains. We stopped in Rumbek. We unloaded motorcycles and loaded up fax machines. We landed on dusty runways with the remnants of planes lying next to them. Cows crossed the runways. We aborted landings due to dust storms. Finally we landed in Malakal, a small town on the Nile river. After much frantic negotiation, we agreed with OCHA that we would stay with them for $10 a night.

That night, they introduced us to the Seventh Day Adventists’ -- the only organization working out in the countryside. After a delicious meal of tomatoes and rice, we got up early to go to the internal displaced camps.

After a long drive along the flat plains of the river, we crossed over in a small canoe and went to a small place on the Nile called “Canal.” Its name is derived from the canal project that Sudan and Egypt launched in the 1980’s to excavate Jonglei canal to deliver water to Egypt. The project--initiated by the North of Sudan with little regard for the environmental or economic impact on the South--infuriated the SPLA and they kidnapped canal company workers and started fighting around Malakal in 1983. Now it’s a small town filled with IDPs who fled the fighting further inland and have settled by the river. It’s marked by a big rusting crane and a bulldozer beached in the middle of the village. It’s also a big transit point for people returning from Khartoum, Ethiopia, and other places trying to come back to their homes. According to the town officials, there are up to 100 new people passing through and looking for assistance every week. As there is no food assistance provided to returnees, the locals have to share their limited supplies, which is increasing the poverty among the permanent residents. Some returnees don’t move along back to their towns because either their villages don’t exist or it is very difficult to get to them. Because Canal is bordered by a river on one side and a landmine field on the other, it cannot expand, creating overcrowded conditions. The result: growing pressure on the local community. “We are all Sudanese,” the Paramount Chief told us. “We cannot deny them because we are here together to celebrate the peace. But it is getting difficult.”

Malakal, the major town nearest Canal, is filled with and ringed by landmines. The town itself was occupied by the Government of Sudan soldiers (from the north) and was constantly under siege by the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) (from the south). Additionally, there was a splinter group that operated here called Southern Sudan Defense Forces (SSDF). Many of the local tribes also have arms. “You say there is peace, “ a displaced man from Canal complained, “but where is the peace? How can there be peace if so many have guns and are allowed to steal my cattle?” We moved closer to town to a settlement called Obel 1. We ventured in to the main compound to talk to a collection of men all sitting under a tree playing dominos. (All of the women were out gathering firewood and grass to sell.) As it turns out, three men there wanted to tell us their story. One was from Khartoum and had just arrived in Obel five days earlier hoping to go to Akobo where his family was living. He had been away from the area for over ten years. Another was a refugee from Ethiopia who had left his family behind in the refugee camp while he tried to visit his mother in Waat to see what the conditions for return were like. The third told us of attempting to go to Waat in the first convoy in many years.

“It’s a long journey – the main road has many landmines on it so we have to make a new road through the forest. Instead of taking 2 hours, it takes us 48 hours. And it’s difficult to get water for that journey. There is no water in Waat. They are drinking out of a small lake from the rainy season and they are sick there. When we were going up that road, two of our trucks broke down. We also saw that many dead bodies along that road. Four had been killed by bullets and three had died from thirst. They died while they were sleeping under a tree and alongside the road with their clothes under their heads as pillows. We just need that road cleared so we can get back to our family and our people. We don’t need much. We just want our government to help us.”

This is what the peace in new Sudan looks like. The disarmament process has barely started so weapons are everywhere. Landmines cover the area. In fact, three children were killed two days ago when they found a landmine and tried to play with it. The Land Mine office told me that new arrivals are building their houses in the mine field because they don’t know. He actually went in someone’s house and pulled a mine out of their floor. The Deputy Governor has denounced the UN de-mining effort as inadequate because it will take years to clear Malakal of mines. The UN would like the forces who laid the mines (both the Government of Sudan and the SPLA) to remove them, or, at the very least, to mark where they are. The immediate priority for the UN is to clear routes for humanitarian purposes because there are few roads that are passable. Because of the lack of adequate clean drinking water, the people have to draw their water from the Nile. Cholera has travelled up the Nile from Yei to Juba to Bor and over 150 people in Malakal fell sick from cholera yesterday. The hospital is so overwhelmed that they have moved the patients to a stadium.

After two days, we felt ready to leave. Sadly, the World Food Programme air flights aren’t as sophisticated as other airlines. We called to see if we were on the manifest and to see when the flight would arrive. “It’s been canceled” they told us. Later, we found out, it hadn’t been canceled and in fact there had been four flights. Our host told us a story. “They told me there were no flights so I frantically booked the UNMIS flight. When I got to the airport to wait for the UNMIS flight, the WFP flight landed. I asked the pilot if I was on the manifest and he showed me that I was. So I called WFP. I said, ‘when is the flight arriving here?’ They said, it’s cancelled for today. So I put the pilot on the phone. They then apologized and said – ‘we didn’t know you were actually at the airport’. “ Such is life in the New Sudan.

Collapsing tents, mudslides, and missed planes

Juba, South Sudan

Collapsing tents, mud slides, and missed planes. That would summarize up the South of Sudan in a nutshell. After three days in Juba, the “capitol” of South Sudan, we now have a birds eye view of what is going to take to rebuild this country.

First up: Lodging and Accommodations. In order to even work in Juba – one must undertake a very convoluted and treacherous relationship with the “tented camp” purveyors in Juba. There are three that I know of: Mango Tree, AFEX, and R2 or something. We lucked out by befriending a pretty young woman logistician who scored us a tent in the coveted Mango camp. We arrived to a sweltering hot (about 110 degrees) and the city which consists of a collection of huts and dirt roads. Our tented camp reminded me immediately of summer camp. We had a full size tent with two cots in it and a solar shower and camp toilet behind the tent. This costs about $100 per person. Also, everyone who is there has warned us that 50% of the people get malaria. And there is currently a cholera epidemic in Yei, up river from us and they pump Nile river water into our showers.

But the good thing is that they have a bar and at night you sit on the banks of the Blue Nile under the mango trees and drink beers from Uganda. The bad thing is that their main clientale are “security consultants” from Dyncorp and other ‘private military companies’ which means talking to former military men who are threatened that you can talk their language. So after arguing politics with ex military men and former Zimbabwean farmers, we would collapse exhausted in our sweltering tents to try to sleep.

We did get to go see the Dinka Bor women and children. The Dinka are famous for being extremely tall, extremely skinny, and extremely dark skinned. The women are amazing looking. They are preparing to board a barge and go up the Nile to a town called Bor where they will wait for their men who are living in Cattle Camps to retrieve them. Ironically, the UN determined they were not safe commuting back to Bor with the men and the cattle so they set up this way station camp. And then Cholera broke out and 18 people died. We have the opportunity to go up the Nile with them which I am dying to do. The Nile is almost completely undeveloped here and people live as they did hundreds of years ago. The Sudanese in the south are extremely conservative in their culture and continue to wear traditional dress and do scarification on their faces to mark their tribes. I hope we get a chance to go.

Anyway, after two days of running around town and trying to get flights set up, we got booted out of our camp and had to go to AFEX next door. Well it appears that the rains came early this year. After a mighty clap of thunder, the sky opened up and the deluge began around 3am. The tents at AFEX are not as sturdy, I think and my colleague Betsy’s tent collapsed upon her in the night. She had to climb out of the tent and stand under an awning of a neighboring tent trying to find me. She eventually went to the mess hall and sat in the swamp drinking coffee. It was a swamp. The sand is mostly clay and sand. Small rivers run through the camp. Someone said they awoke to their computer floating next to them. All of our stuff was soaked. After slogging out into the mud to try to find our driver, we noticed that the parking lot had turned into a lake and across the river from us, a local village was dealing with a small mudslide. The South African pilots and Zimbabwean de-miners and various security men told us that there was no way the planes would fly today. This was a problem since we had an 8:30am flight to the Upper Nile. Our driver never showed up and we missed the plane.

So: Plan B. Tonight we are sleeping in a UN compound in a ‘container’ which are slightly less leaky than the tents. We scrapped our plans and are now headed to a place called Malakal. Malakal is represented on the map as surrounded by two enormous swamps and located in the oil region of Sudan. There are landmines all over the town and the UN de-miners are uninterested in working there. We don’t have accommodations yet but hope that the Bangladeshi peacekeepers will put us up.

Today, because we had no driver and no one was showing up to work because of the rain, we decided to do a little exploring in the ‘capitol city’ of the New South Sudan. We drove over with a UN woman to see John Garang’s grave. A garish monument covered in neon colored fake flowers, Sudanese flags, and what looks like someone’s laundry sits in the middle of a barren mud field. It is guarded by four heavily armed Sudanese men in full jungle camouflage sitting in the shade. They yell at us to sign their guest book and make us stand in different positions to photograph the grave. My favorite photo is Garang’s photo surrounded by flowers and an AK47. We also went to the “Salvation Automatic” bakery to buy some bread. It’s really pathetic. The streets are avenues of mud, most of the houses are huts or burned out and the number one thing on sale was some sort of blue soap with a pair of scissors embossed in it. You can also buy what looks like used underwear.

So we head off to a different town in South Sudan tomorrow. And we will go and find returning IDPs and refugees who are telling us over and over again that they want clean water and education for their children. And the World Bank economist I met with yesterday tells me that the Government of Sudan is responsible for providing this and they have zero capacity. Most ministries only have two people in them currently. But still the people return with hope and belief that the war is over and the country will be rebuilt. One only hopes that the international community doesn’t renege on its promises and let them down.

Disco Dancing in the Refugee Camp

I’m staying with JRS: The Jesuit Refugee Services in Kakuma camp on the border between Kenya and Sudan. We are about 100 kms from Lokichoggio, the infamous staging ground for humanitarian activities into South Sudan. It’s not much to look at but it looks just like every border town in every country of the world. There are many bars, some run down looking hotels, a bunch of gas stations, and a lot of shops. Because the area is so dry and inhospitable, there is no farming here – the locals are called Turkanas and they are cattle herders. They are infamous cattle raiders so there are a lot of guns here. Therefore, its mandatory that you travel with an armed escort to get to the refugee camp. In practice this means, you drive around to the local bars when its time for the security escort and pick up the NGOs who are drinking and then find the police and then everyone heads back to the camp.

Everyone lives on the grounds of the camp here – which is unusual from my experience. There are two compounds that I’ve seen. One is for the UN(two layers of barbed wire fences, dogs,and security guards, curfew at 6pm) and one fo the NGOs (a little less secure – a security guard but not much else). There are about 90,000 refugees here – Congolese, Sudanese, Somalians, and some Ethiopians. This camp has been here about 14 years. It’s really more of a city than a camp. In fact, JRS told us that when Kenya Telecom first ran their cell phone network out here, it was a mess because the somalis had already started up a mobile phone network from inside the camp. The somalis are amazing businessmen. They have the best mobile phone network in Africa, I hear, despite having no government – but they will tell you it is BECAUSE they have no government. Kenya is pretty amazing to me as well – well paved roads, street signs, barrier rails – all the markings of a civilization. I hear it will be much different in South sudan when we get there. Because of the civil war, there aren’t even many buildings in the new capitol, Juba. In order to operate there, everyone is working out of tents. I imagine it is like M*A*S*H.

JRS is hosting us because UNHCR snubbed us. There’s a very nice Irish man in charge here named Mark and he and I hit it off right away. He asked me if I was Irish when I arrived. Anyway, the JRS house is quite nice. Four bedrooms with their own bathrooms. Electricity, a sitting room with satellite tv and internet. A small little kitchen with an electric kettle and a fridge. Everyone eats at a pretty dismal little cafeteria here with a television set in it tuned constantly to football. Because I watched all of the European Cup 2 years ago in Zimbabwe, I can now talk football a little. We had our choice of spaghetti with minced meat sauce (basically spaghetti bolognese), ugali (which is like very thick sold grits), kale, and a stewed intestines for dinner. I had spaghetti.

I thought that would be it for the night but it turns out that the NGO compound has their own ‘local’ called Catherine’s place. We went with George and Joseph, two fo the Kenyan staff from JRS and Mark to the pub where we sat under a tree and drank Tusker beer. Some of the guys played pool at a pool table under a lightbulb in a shed. We had a pretty intense conversation about the situation of the Somali Bantus who were resettled in South Carolina who were from this camp, I think, and ended up in Columbia. Then we headed back to the house. But that was not the end of the night! You could hear reggae music playing from somewhere and it turns out that there is a disco here in the camp! So we headed out to the disco, called the Bullseye.

What a sight! They have neon lights, a black light over the dance floor, grasshut covered roof, and booming music! The clientele is almost all male sudanese refugees. They are all very very tall – most about 6’5 and very thin. The predominant style for young Sudanese men is called “yo-yo” which comes from the term “Yo, what up?”. So they all wear basketball jerseys, baggy pants with their boxer shorts hanging out, baseball caps, doo-rags, or bandanas tied aaround their head. They are also called ‘basketballers’. Thomas, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who knows the guys at JRS was hanging out with us and explained it all to us.

The music was standard hip-hop and reggae but suddenly it switched to trashy 80s disco! We had to hit the dance floor then! So Betsy and I went out to dance to Michael Jackson, Prince, Abba, and Ace of Base. It was quite an experience as we were definitely amongst the shortest and whitest people on the floor. My skin was glowing under the blacklight. We got home at 2:30am and the disco was still going strong. Now its Sunday and we were supposed to head out into the camp to talk to refugees but our hosts from JRS are all sleeping off the Tusker beer. And they have locked us in!!! The guy who was going to drive us came over but he doesn’t have a key so we talked to him through the window. So – here we sit, waiting for someone to wake up. Waiting waiting.

Very Bad Girls in Darfur

Copied from my travel journal...
December 8, 2005
Nyala, Sudan

It’s the “Friday night” of Sudan right now. All offices close on Fridays and nothing happens here. But not for Refugees International! We’ve spend the past two days sitting in the Government of Sudan’s “HAC” – otherwise known as the Humanitarian Affairs Commission. Since IDPs are not protected by international refugee conventions (having not crossed an international border), they are technically the responsibility of the government of Sudan. And so, while the UN and international NGOs and their local NGO partners provide all the services in the camps and do all the work, the government of Sudan can still say who goes in and who doesn’t. So – you’ve all heard about the firewood problems in Sudan, I think. Where women go out to collect firewood and then get attacked and raped. We went out on firewood protection patrol with the African Union on Tuesday morning. This involved hanging around the AU camp until they were ready to go. We drove our own vehicle surrounded by pickup trucks filled with Nigerian peacekeepers. I attach photo. After driving into Ottash camp, we then picked up the AUCIVPOL(Civilian police from Uganda, Senegal, and Ghana) and then the Sudanese police. The Sudanese police have no car of their own. We drove out into the bush and felt like we were on a safari. Is that a woman there? Is that someone with a donkey? Oh no! Camel herder- do you think he’s the Janjaweed? After about 20 kilometers, we pulled over into a clearing and got out of the car. The Sudanese police sat under a tree and we went over to shoot the shit with the Nigerian peacekeepers. They posed for photos with us and told us that “Sudanis not Tamam”. (Tamam is our favorite word here – it means OKAY, I think. Everyone says it to us. Our cook at our guest house greets us each morning by shouting loudly, TAMAM TAMAM! Conversely, the children in the camps greet us by shouting OKAY OKAY OKAY!)

We asked the Sudanese police how they would hear a woman if she was being attacked. They said – she will come to us afterwards. Okay, I get it – it’s RETROACTIVE policing we are doing here. Anyway, after 2 hours, we piled back in the cars and drove off. No problems whatsoever. The next day we were supposed to meet the Commissioner of the AUCIVPOL in another camp called Kalma camp. This camp is infamous because its about 100,000 people and they got fed up with the government of Sudan police and the HAC and threw them out of the camp. They are not allowed to go back in now. We had a permit from the HAC, drove to the police station on the outskirts of the camp and there encountered our first problems. The stamp on the permit to travel within Darfur did not match the wording on our travel permits (to travel around Sudan) which also did not match our visa to get into Sudan! Basically this “police station” was a hut with four beds in it where the guys sleep. They have their toothbrushes stuck in between the reeds of the hut wall. And on one of the walls they have a really gruesome painting of man kneeling on someone’s back and stabbing him. They told us it was a reminder to always be watching your back because there are spies everywhere and a spy will stab you in the back. They said it was from the Quran.

After a lot of back and forth, they then said they had seen us taking photos (of the ladies selling oranges at the checkpoint) so wanted to make sure we had photo permits (which we did). Nothing would satisfy them so we all had to pile into our car (because of course they didn’t have one) and head back to the main HAC office in Nyala. We could have refused and just driven off and what could they have done? They had no car to chase us with! After arguments with them, they said to us “You two ladies are not enough to do an assessment. You would need more people. We think you are spies.” I think that would make us the most incompetent spies of all time, if that were true. Finally, we agreed to apologize and get the correct paperwork. All the international NGOs laughed when we told them this and wrote letters in support of us.

Fast Forward to Thursday morning. We go to the AU base to go on another firewood patrol. We get to the Ottash camp and the firewood patrol has already left. The CIVPOL doesn’t have radios, cars, or any way to help us find them so we decide to interview them about their experiences in the camps. We walk outside of the CIVPOL office and stop to take some photos of the kids and a woman at a well. The HAC spy us and signal us to come talk to them. We ignore them and start to go back to our car. They come to fetch us and start yelling at us. We plead ignorance. We go to the “HAC Shack” and talk with them. A woman narcs on us. She was hanging out with the children and saw us taking photos. So we have to show them our camera.

Embarrassingly, some of the photos were of Sally and I in the local market trying on clothes and looking silly in our guest house. I erased the one picture I took of the children. They claimed that I was spying on the camp by taking photos of the African Union. Six of them gathered around me and my camera and clucked their tongues. “You are spies!” they said. Once again we had to give the guy a ride to the main HAC. The guy laughs when he sees us return. “It is you again! You are very bad girls.” After much talking, finagling, scolding, telling tales about the US, complaining about the IDPS and how they are all spies and politicians, and discussing Jackie Chan, they gave us our permit. But there was no one around to stamp it! We came back to get it stamped in an hour. The guy was still not there.

As tomorrow is the last day we are in town and all the offices are closed on Fridays, we became frantic. I went to a meeting and Sally and our driver/translator drove around town until they found the guy with the stamp’s house. They picked him up. He stamped the paper. They picked me up. We all went to a photocopy shop. We all went to the National Security office. More discussions. Some tea. Cigarettes were handed around. More discussions. More talk. Then we all got back in our car and drove to the guy with the stamps’ house. Then he turned into the nicest guy in the world. He introduced us to his mom, his wife, and his newborn daughter. Invited us to dinner. Gave us chocolates. As we sat awkwardly around his apartment and watched Sudanese tv, they passed around some spray deodorant which we all sprayed under our arms. And then we left.

Sleepless in Sudan

Just read the blog of Sleepless in Sudan - really awesome. http://sleeplessinsudan.blogspot.com/

Although I've been dreading this mission since we suddenly got our visa at the last minute (hurray?), now I'm actually excited to go. Darfur is mystifying and horrible. Last time, I was so overwhelmed by my anger at the 'international community" and their inability to do anything to stop the violence that I ranted and raved for pages upon pages in my diary (which was saved on Mamie's computer and since she left, I no longer have access to). Probably for the best since it's depressing reading.

While I'll not be able to match the pure passion of "Sleepless", I'll do my best while I'm there.