As always, it’s on the journey back when I start panicking. That’s about right, I think - any sooner and it would have ruined the precious days I had to enjoy myself in the city. I’d been ruminating on the precursors of these feelings for about 24 hours so I’d diagnosed them as a combination of trepidation, anxiety and guilt. I have felt all these before, in this situation before. Sitting in an American departure lounge at sunset took me back most immediately to my life in Atlanta: a leapfrog of a memory recollection going back almost 9 years, 3 careers and what feels like a couple of other mes.
It’s the return to me that I think I feel this over. In Atlanta it was the same – my house, my car, my job and the utter the lack of distraction: once I’m left alone regardless of how comfortable or not the situation I’m going back to, I panic. Those past times I was most frequently leaving family. I used to feel the same on my weekend trips home during university. I feel shame over this fear of loneliness. I think I’m supposed to be confidently forging my own life but I it’s times like this that I think I’d much rather just seek to live in the company of someone else. Maybe that’s the guilt I feel: having stopped paying attention to anything and anyone other than the one I’ve been sleeping with for the last week or so.
If I were to summarize the trip in a word, it would be ‘intense’. I only had 3 days in any one place. I got my new passport in London. I met my new niece. I saw my father for the first time in almost 10 years. I spent the better part of an impromptu romantic weekend in bed.
Because it feels like I live only for a week every two months, I emerge from here with a huge and overriding sense of need - not just for physical contact, but also for conversation, intimacy, food, music, even the fluff of pop culture that I used to disdain. One accomplishment of this overall experience is that I think I don’t let these feeling surface as much. Another is that if they do show they're somewhat justified. I’m better at managing the (perhaps) over-importance I place on each interaction – or maybe I’m just better at choosing to interact with people who are less perturbed by them. This transition: here-there-back-again is almost as big and as difficult a part of the experience as just being here is.
It was a good trip and a hard one to come back to work from. I was so engrossed in being away that my return was poorly planned. I didn't download any tv series or movies and I forgot to buy dried fruit. I simply didn’t have the energy to do it. I think that means I’m getting tired. I also found out on return that my boss wouldn’t approve the trip for me to go and pick up our new cars from Nairobi. Arse. It’s going to be a boring and fructose-less two months.
The first few weeks were rough. I wasn’t on my game and the challenges kept on coming. I was making progress, but without my rhythm I was missing opportunities, wasting time, not thinking things through, and not rising to events as fast as I should. This is a dangerous position to be in. As with my feelings of complacency before, I know this is when stupid things start happening. But rather than slapping myself into shape, I tended to cower and just hope that nothing bad happened.
Progress was most evident in the new offices and new staff that were up and running across all five of my states of operation. Real work was being done, and communities that otherwise would have been missed were receiving messages of the importance and how to register to vote. On top of the usual challenges of a huge area, poor roads, poor communications and near total illiteracy rates, we also had to contend with the fact that the electoral commission still had yet to release (or decide) exactly when, where or how people were to register. My staff has grown to 66 and I’m working through about $200k a month.
One of my staff, Yeni is working alone in Western Bahr-el Ghazal - a hotly political and under-populated state, and in whose capital, Wau, I have my new office. I’ve been unable to find a manager for that position for murky reasons, my first two choices dropping out so Yeni has been doing a reasonable job working alone. If I were on form I’d have gone with Yeni when he arrived to personally make all the necessary introductions and probably would have been back to visit to make sure his progress was ok. I’d made initial introductions to the authorities in August, but the rest I left if for him to do while I got back to dealing with the 90+ messages a day that were arriving in my inbox, the visiting finance director and minor drama in 4 other states, including lost equipment, a motorbike accident, dissenting key members of staff and a missing $5000. Everything seemed to be happening in a fairly regular order but with alternating events at the opposite ends of the country. I simply needed to be in 2 places at once and realized that I really need a deputy.
I got to Wau to check the progress of my new office opening to find it in good nick, thanks to Acuil’s efforts. It was the sight of this place that motivated me to opt to stay longer than my initial 3-month contract. I could see myself being comfortable here – a spacious, real office, a real house, running water, a kitchen. It was fully functional by the time I arrived and I indulged in a monthly internet subscription that was fast enough to allow video and audio streaming = live radio (cost = $1000 per month). On my first night there I cooked my own dinner while listening to radio 4. I could have been in Chalk Farm. The only things missing were the orange juice, the hommous and the broccoli.
I’d caught up with Yeni to find his progress mediocre. I dispatched him to a far corner of the state to ensure we made at least some impact in each county and decided myself to go and progress things in the closer places where he’d made somewhat of a start. Over two days I moved around tasking community volunteer groups with public events. I congratulated myself for finally getting off my arse and doing something useful.
The spell was abruptly broken as I returned to Wau on the second afternoon – a Sunday. As I got back into network coverage my phone began ringing almost incessantly but the caller could not get more than a few words out before the line cut. I got back to an empty compound. The manager of a nearby NGO compound came up moments after I arrived with the news that our people had been arrested – Acuil included.
I was called to the house of chief of police where the group of very simple community volunteers and my very savvy compound manager, Acuil were sitting in the courtyard. “Your people have been arrested making an illegal registration in the community.” I spent the next three days running between the offices of national security, the police, the public prosecutor’s office and the office of the complainant – the State Electoral Committee: the body we are meant to be here assisting.
A sour and petty Chairman was upset that we had not come to his office to make a personal introduction before starting our work in the state. Despite having authorization (and the all important stamped and signed letter) from the national committee in Juba (and his bosses), he felt – somewhat rightly - that we should have presented ourselves first. I accepted this and apologized for our oversight. This I understood. But what the bastard wouldn’t do was retract his complaint – uncaring to the fact that 11 people were sitting in a jail that smelled like a toilet.
The group was moved from the national security offices, who said they had no case, to the CID cells – they smelled even worse and actually doubled as a toilet. They also, I later found out, had no charge, but since they were holding them anyway started looking for one. They were having trouble so started questioning me and my organization. “You are Arab and a spy from the North or from Israel!” It was a rare moment of irony in a few days where I felt powerless, vulnerable, and afraid of being at the whim of illiterate idiots. They basically said they wouldn’t release them – making excuses about needing a letter from national security (who had already called to clear them) and the need for a written redaction of the complaint form the electoral committee (who were sulking).
One of my staff from a neighboring state cam to assist – an ex-politician with clout and the ability to speak for hours about somewhat related, but not directly relevant topics to the matter at hand. THIS is the support I needed. What we westerners interpret as directness and clarity here is perceived as insolence and impatience. He handled the situation very well. I also realized that they all knew each other from years ago and from serving in the militias. I wasn’t sure if the need for explanation and the running around was only for my benefit.
At the end of the third day there was still no formal charge. At that point a calm and reasonable public prosecutor revealed that there was also personal complaint from one of the police officers, but that just seemed to be an ex-comrade taking advantage of the opportunity to express and old grudge against Acuil. Whilst leafing through his copy of the Sudan Penal Code, the prosecutor said that he couldn’t find any charge that either complaint could be turned into so said we could take everyone home…”but you might have to bring them back tomorrow.” We found somewhere for the group to stay the night and dropped off lots of soap and bottles of Dettol.
I now much better understand why people here care more about status and favor than doing an assigned job well or to completion.
The next day I was driving off to another site in the bush and realized both how lucky I am to have come out of that experience safely for myself and my team, and how lucky I am to be having these experiences. Although stressful and worrying, I’m now suddenly energized, committed and determined. This might just partly be because I can now see how much it matters and how hot a subject what we’re involved in is. I can see what we need to do to make sure that this doesn’t happen again and have put these things in place. I feel similarly about many things – including clearing the blocked fuel line on the way back from said bush. At the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, I think I’m doing something that few people could pull off and I’m doing it moderately well. This is worth working for, even if it does taste like diesel. Maybe I am confidently forging my own life, after all.
I need to remember that. The new office with its 24 hour power, fast 24 hour internet and facilities for cooking and washing up makes a big difference, too. I’ll be on the road a lot for the rest of the time I’m here, but coming back to that will make the experience more pleasant. I can again listen to and disdain the pop culture fluff as it plays in the background on internet radio, and feel connected to the world in the way that the BBC worldservice just can’t do for me.
I’ve stopped looking for jobs as it feels like I’m getting nowhere. Nothing I see advertised in the UK excites me and I’m getting no love from the applications I‘m sending to other international roles. My polite reminders that I’m still here for the leads I had don’t seem to be maturing and we’re heading into slow season for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This means I’ll be here till at least until March. If I’m staying till then, I may as well stay for the elections in April. It would be a shame to miss them after all this. That means staying until May 2010…a lot longer than my initial 6 month plan, and again longer than my planned 3 month return stint. 2 years is reasonable though. I’d have no problems making a clean break then, regardless of what’s going on here, or what there is to go to. Maybe my stashed savings should stay stashed for that unknown.
I’m in London for Christmas break: 23rd to 5th, with maybe a little trip to Europe somewhere in the middle. I’ll try and manage this transition better than the last.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Friday, November 6, 2009
Second Chances
The welcome back was incredible. I’ve never felt so appreciated. It was amazing how quickly I felt unimportant in London. I thoroughly enjoyed that month and a half off and highly recommend it to anyone working. The break was so good because I was clear of my previous obligation and certain of the next that was coming. I landed on my feet, but not in the position I’d expected. The job in Afghanistan didn’t come through – so much for certainty. After 8 weeks and 3 interviews they decided that they couldn’t hire non-Americans. I think it was for the better as it seemed to be a little on the fly: definitely not the ideal situation when in a war zone. I found this out only a day after turning down CHF’s offer of return so Sudan for slightly more money. Arse.
I called CHF back (NB: I did not grovel) and said that I would be available to help get the new project started and could come back short-term (if they were lucky). An HR bod called me back after a day or two to offer me $300 a day as a consultant for a 3 month contract. I figured it would take her a day or two to realize how much money that was and to call me back. They did so with a new offer - revised downward, but still favourable. In the absence of better offers, I accepted a start date of the following week.
That was a good week. I would look up at flights crossing London thinking that I would soon be joining them to jet off and do something useful. I love having a sense of purpose and quickly forgot the frustrations of working in Sudan for my organization -- besides, it would only be short term. While the break was good I quickly missed feeling important, wanted, valued and unique. I quickly got tired of London life. Conversation is complaint, people incessantly whinge and only talk to share their “nightmares” from the previous day: no hot water, having to wait all evening for the internet repair guy to come…
So back to Sudan for 12 weeks. Too much luggage again. It was a little surreal coming back and the first fortnight felt much like a dream. I was confident I could run this project in my sleep having written the proposal and worked in the same place and capacity for the last year. It’s not complex, and although getting through the very long to do list would require a frenetic pace, at least the tasks were clear.
The frustrations started before arrival. It was unclear whether or not I was booked on the flight until 10pm the night before to fly at 10am the next morning. They hadn’t arranged a visa, a hotel or transport in Nairobi. These frustrations I can manage, though, as long as I expect them and their approximate proportion.
I slipped into the routine of work relatively quickly, allowing myself a week of adjustment. The greatest effort was learning to care again: that unpaid tax, the yet to do final report.... I bounced between thoughts of how happy I was to be back and how thankful I was that I would only have to put up with these frustrations for 12 weeks. I predicted that this was actually going to be a little mechanical… someone had warned me that nothing’s quite as good the second time around.
6 weeks later Isaac Bol died. At that point I just didn’t have the emotional resources to mount a response. I didn’t act soon enough by sending him in a car to take him to the hospital. For that I felt extreme guilt. So much had not happened that was supposed to while I was gone and in the absence of leadership petty fighting a bickering had broken out in the team. It had taken me this long to wrest back control on the project and make any kind of dent in the new project I was supposed to be implementing. I uncovered incidents of fraud, theft and outright incompetence that had led to the loss of a lot of money, and the potential for a lot more.
Security outside the compound seemed to be falling to shit. 140 were killed in a single week in Jonglei. What was disturbing was that this wasn’t for the usual purpose of cattle or child raiding, it was just internecine violence. The attackers had very new Kalashnikovs. I was stuck in Juba for a week as the town underwent surprise disarmament. 2 MPs were caught fleeing the city with cars full of anti-aircraft guns.
There’s a common practice of referring to the boss as ‘father’. Any head is generally seen as the provider, benefactor and caregiver. And while this position is served, serviced and respected, it is also the point of call for assistance in times of need. Although I love all the attention and respect I’ve earned by my large and growing team, the fairly constant stream of visitors to announce births, marriages, sicknesses, emergencies, needs, requests for loans on top of the day job can get a bit overwhelming.
I got back to Rumbek after 3 weeks on the road. That week, one staff was stung by a scorpion, another ambushed and lost one of our motorbikes, and Bol fell seriously ill. I was the port of call for all cases. The local government hospital is appalling – I learnt this on having to retrieve Makuac the previous year from an appendix surgery from which he went septic twice. The nearest reasonable care is in Mapurtit, 2.5 hours away by car. At 4pm, it was too late to send a car. I didn’t want to have the driver out that late and he’d racked up much too much overtime. In an off-handed manner I told them to wait until the morning and if Bol was still unwell, to go to the hospital then.
Did I kill a man just because I wanted to avoid having to shell out 5 hours of overtime pay? By the time they reached the hospital he was in worse shape. They radioed 2 days later to tell us he died – acute cerebral malaria and syphilis.
I think there was nothing more I could have reasonably done – I tell myself. No matter what I do, it’s never enough. This place will consume me if I let it. While waiting too long to send a car to save him was an error, I did well to send one immediately to retrieve the body. This, I later found out, allowed him to be buried at home and for his family and to hold a service for him. I attended the funeral that weekend that lasted a 11 hours and I was a star guest. His widow, family and pastor made constant references to my presence as further evidence of my respectfulness, generosity and uprightness… all the while me thinking that actually, I contributed to his death. I took and made best use of my second chance without knowing it. Sadly there wasn’t a second chance for Bol.
They slaughtered a cow on his grave. It was a colourful day: fluorescent red blood, spilling on the ochre red soil and the feet of the liquorice-black pastor with the bright purple shirt next to the pale white guy who was trying not to look awkward. I wanted a photo.
Ramadan came and went. This time was easier than last year. No real illness, but I lost 8kgs. I looked forward to my leave in 2 weeks.
I called CHF back (NB: I did not grovel) and said that I would be available to help get the new project started and could come back short-term (if they were lucky). An HR bod called me back after a day or two to offer me $300 a day as a consultant for a 3 month contract. I figured it would take her a day or two to realize how much money that was and to call me back. They did so with a new offer - revised downward, but still favourable. In the absence of better offers, I accepted a start date of the following week.
That was a good week. I would look up at flights crossing London thinking that I would soon be joining them to jet off and do something useful. I love having a sense of purpose and quickly forgot the frustrations of working in Sudan for my organization -- besides, it would only be short term. While the break was good I quickly missed feeling important, wanted, valued and unique. I quickly got tired of London life. Conversation is complaint, people incessantly whinge and only talk to share their “nightmares” from the previous day: no hot water, having to wait all evening for the internet repair guy to come…
So back to Sudan for 12 weeks. Too much luggage again. It was a little surreal coming back and the first fortnight felt much like a dream. I was confident I could run this project in my sleep having written the proposal and worked in the same place and capacity for the last year. It’s not complex, and although getting through the very long to do list would require a frenetic pace, at least the tasks were clear.
The frustrations started before arrival. It was unclear whether or not I was booked on the flight until 10pm the night before to fly at 10am the next morning. They hadn’t arranged a visa, a hotel or transport in Nairobi. These frustrations I can manage, though, as long as I expect them and their approximate proportion.
I slipped into the routine of work relatively quickly, allowing myself a week of adjustment. The greatest effort was learning to care again: that unpaid tax, the yet to do final report.... I bounced between thoughts of how happy I was to be back and how thankful I was that I would only have to put up with these frustrations for 12 weeks. I predicted that this was actually going to be a little mechanical… someone had warned me that nothing’s quite as good the second time around.
6 weeks later Isaac Bol died. At that point I just didn’t have the emotional resources to mount a response. I didn’t act soon enough by sending him in a car to take him to the hospital. For that I felt extreme guilt. So much had not happened that was supposed to while I was gone and in the absence of leadership petty fighting a bickering had broken out in the team. It had taken me this long to wrest back control on the project and make any kind of dent in the new project I was supposed to be implementing. I uncovered incidents of fraud, theft and outright incompetence that had led to the loss of a lot of money, and the potential for a lot more.
Security outside the compound seemed to be falling to shit. 140 were killed in a single week in Jonglei. What was disturbing was that this wasn’t for the usual purpose of cattle or child raiding, it was just internecine violence. The attackers had very new Kalashnikovs. I was stuck in Juba for a week as the town underwent surprise disarmament. 2 MPs were caught fleeing the city with cars full of anti-aircraft guns.
There’s a common practice of referring to the boss as ‘father’. Any head is generally seen as the provider, benefactor and caregiver. And while this position is served, serviced and respected, it is also the point of call for assistance in times of need. Although I love all the attention and respect I’ve earned by my large and growing team, the fairly constant stream of visitors to announce births, marriages, sicknesses, emergencies, needs, requests for loans on top of the day job can get a bit overwhelming.
I got back to Rumbek after 3 weeks on the road. That week, one staff was stung by a scorpion, another ambushed and lost one of our motorbikes, and Bol fell seriously ill. I was the port of call for all cases. The local government hospital is appalling – I learnt this on having to retrieve Makuac the previous year from an appendix surgery from which he went septic twice. The nearest reasonable care is in Mapurtit, 2.5 hours away by car. At 4pm, it was too late to send a car. I didn’t want to have the driver out that late and he’d racked up much too much overtime. In an off-handed manner I told them to wait until the morning and if Bol was still unwell, to go to the hospital then.
Did I kill a man just because I wanted to avoid having to shell out 5 hours of overtime pay? By the time they reached the hospital he was in worse shape. They radioed 2 days later to tell us he died – acute cerebral malaria and syphilis.
I think there was nothing more I could have reasonably done – I tell myself. No matter what I do, it’s never enough. This place will consume me if I let it. While waiting too long to send a car to save him was an error, I did well to send one immediately to retrieve the body. This, I later found out, allowed him to be buried at home and for his family and to hold a service for him. I attended the funeral that weekend that lasted a 11 hours and I was a star guest. His widow, family and pastor made constant references to my presence as further evidence of my respectfulness, generosity and uprightness… all the while me thinking that actually, I contributed to his death. I took and made best use of my second chance without knowing it. Sadly there wasn’t a second chance for Bol.
They slaughtered a cow on his grave. It was a colourful day: fluorescent red blood, spilling on the ochre red soil and the feet of the liquorice-black pastor with the bright purple shirt next to the pale white guy who was trying not to look awkward. I wanted a photo.
Ramadan came and went. This time was easier than last year. No real illness, but I lost 8kgs. I looked forward to my leave in 2 weeks.
Friday, July 10, 2009
A modest escape
Zacharia threw his pen down on the desk in anger and grabbed his head in despair. Mr. Bol, the old watchman, placed his hands on his hips and slowly shook his head “no, no, no. Not good.” Keat sent me an email, expressing that he’d put his plans to go to university that year on hold in order to keep working for me, and that I should therefore reconsider. In an extremely inexpressive culture, I found these responses to the news of my departure very touching.
“While we appreciate your desire to save CHF costs, that is not the primary motivating factor for what we do. We must all, first and foremost, adhere to staff policy.”
“Dear M, Thank you for the notice of separation letter and in accordance with staff policy I’d like to start preparing for my flight back to the UK. I have 9.5 annual leave days and 4.5 sick leave day remaining. My last day to work was therefore yesterday. Would you like to start making the travel arrangements or should I?”
I’m in London for a few weeks to see what’s next. I’ll reflect on the last year, so while I’m no longer in Sudan (mooting the title for this blog), I might make one more entry. That makes it very much like the whole experience: ups & downs, goods & bads, semi-conclusive, somewhat interesting, and very self-indulgent.
Thanks for coming.
xx
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Bad Karma Season
After 5 weeks it was as bad as I’d expected, but not in the way I expected. The rains came early and then stopped meaning that I was only up to my ankles in mud, rather than my elbows. I was still up to my eyes in sodding mosquito nets, though.
My trepidation over coming back was lost in routines and daily processes. It was an all out sprint up to that point and I’d not given myself a single day off in that time. I was very weary. The team was getting sick and were bickering. I’d been bitten my more insects than I can count and the variety of bites ranged from small ones that itch, to huge ones that blister to ones on my arse that felt like golf balls, were incredibly painful, oozed pus and seemed to be growing.
Distribution is always hard, but I really wasn’t enjoying this. On top of the logistical challenges (5 of the 40-ft containers were dropped In the wrong place and were held hostage by the local authorities) the hostility from communities was still very much present. The local hires were even worse and expected payment for merely showing up, let alone for making any effort. There were no requests, only demands. They whinged. They made bad decisions and then came expecting me to pick up the tab. They had no concept of an inappropriate demand. “You have to come back and transport me," he was one of 60 people working. They did things inconsistently: sometimes signing the white cover sheet, sometimes the blue carbon-copy sheet, sometimes every sheet. There was a pathologic laziness, I think attributed to the complete lack of belief of contribution to a common cause. If I had their government I might feel the same. My attitude took a turn for the worse: I was filled with thoughts of “fuck off then, keep your malaria and your country will still be shithole in 10 years time.”
One instance I’m particularly proud of: a hired truck got stuck on a pathetically easy road and was holding up an entire county’s distribution. We arrived to find the driver casually digging one wheel out, the mate doing a very half-arsed job with some sticks (he was still drunk from the night before) and the site managers we’d hired travelling with the nets to their distribution sites just sitting under a nearby tree. I got to digging, but after an hour there was no progress. We were going nowhere, the sun was blistering and we were all in fear of the rains in a place where one good downpour could completely strand you – no going forward, no backward. We were faced with the options of keeping to dig, offloading the 7 tons of cargo to try to move the truck, or abandoning it. I asked our driver to back our vehicle up to see if we could try and pull him out (a long shot, I’ll admit), and he lazily reclined with the others saying “the truck won’t move”. I flipped. “FINE, don’t fucking move and be like every other bloody African sitting on your arse doing nothing waiting for anther white man to come and solve your problems for you.”
He moved the car quickly -- he was still in the dog house for getting stuck on a similarly stupid road only the week before and doing significant damage to the car. The truck actually didn’t move, but it was worth the try. Another driver and one of the guys went back later to help dig it out and it got moving. I had to load the landcruisers 4 times from the truck to drop nets off. By the time it got moving it only had half of its load remaining. What a frickin waste of money. I shouldn’t have trusted the truck owner, I shouldn’t have trusted the driver.
I know my anger puts me in the wrong, but what bothers me is that I need to continually question everyone’s judgement. My driver got his car stuck the previous week by flooring it when he was sinking in mud. He only dug himself deeper. He then shifted in 4L, revved the engine again to about 5k and spun the wheels up to about 40kph. The stress on the engine was too much – the fan clutch broke, cracked the seal on the water pump, and the fan came off and punctured the radiator. We stood helplessly and watched litres of coolant spilling out and mixing with the mud. The fan had been missing a blade for weeks, apparently, but he didn’t feel that was a significant issue. I should have stopped him, I should have questioned him, I should have checked the engine before we got moving. I should have done a lot of things. It resulted in a $1000 repair for which I had to walk back to the nearest village 15km away. We found a car and some guys to tow us out, pulled the car back to Bunagok, took out the radiator and car-hopped back to Rumbek 4 hours away. We returned with parts and a mechanic . 4 days lost, but at least now I know how to replace a water pump and timing belts. I think I don't shout at people enough - this was just a result of his carelessness and laziness.
My days on work were spent out in the communities organizing the distributions. Altogether it was a slight boiler-room effect, hence my hostility. My off days I came back to Rumbek. The compound was an oasis of calm friendly faces compared to the hostility of the communities. I’d come back feeling raw having been bombarded from every direction – even from my employer. The respect and friendliness of my staff was a welcome confirmation that I was doing at least something right. Their loyalty was expressed a number of ways, but I was most touched by their dedication to the work. Is it because I just posted job ads for the new project?
Thankfully it only took me about a day out of the boiler room to gain a healthier perspective, but those couple of weeks were just bad karma season. I got back to the compound to find 2 compound staff in jail (jealous boyfriend is a SPLA commander) and another grieving the death of her brother in recent tribal violence. The driver that got us stuck had fallen ill in the field so I had been doing all the driving for about 5 days. When we returned he needed to go in for surgery for piles, but this meant I had to take him to the Comboni mission in Mapourdit for surgery, two hours away. The local government hospital nearly killed another of my employees last year. Whilst Samuel was recovering from his surgery two hours away, his 9 month-old son died. We had an enquiry to the compound– for condolences for him? No, to inform us that he knocked a girl up last time he was in Wau and the family is demanding marriage (would be number 3). I drove out to bring him back to Rumbek and he was racked with grief over his son. 13 died in fighting around Rumbek that week and another 10 or so the week after. Many more were injured...So much for my “off days”. I think the world would remain out of order until the rains properly came. I held a staff meeting with the guys the following Monday and bribed them to keep working with a cash bonus – I called it an education allowance. Thankfully, the project remained on track and way under-budget – mostly due to hard bargaining on truck rentals to move the nets around the state.
I took my 30th birthday as an excuse to take the first weekend I’d had in 6 weeks. Aside from the morning trip out to bring Samuel back (which did actually give me the opportunity to test drive Monica - our newly returned landcruiser), I just chilled and looked vacation destinations and other jobs. I know that I’m not going to be able to affect the rain or the tribal fighting, but a change in attitude would probably help a bit. A week on a beach and shiny new job (or at least hope of each) would help a lot more.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Shedding Skin
An alternate perspective on the last couple of weeks:
I left for my leave just as dry season came to an end. The first rain in 5 months came as a surprise one afternoon and quickly reminded me why those first few months were so challenging. Even after a brief shower the dust turns back to mud almost instantly - like it’s only been pretending to be anything other than mud for the last 5 months.
It’s quite an assault on the skin. My palms seem to be peeling, but that might be a result of some skin infection. There’s also a slight rash on my arms that I hope, along with the sloughing skin on my hands, will come off with a good scrubbing and regular showering in clean water over the break. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt here it’s that these things, like the grime on my computer or my persistent, low-level diarrhoea, are only temporary.
The exit from Sudan was welcome. It’d been 13 weeks since my last trip out. I found the huge indecision about the project and potential for a future lack of money actually quite stressful, despite my thinking that everything was ok. On reflection I probably wasn't sleeping very well and the diarrhea had actually been a little worse than low-level. Each time my funder changed their minds about something (which was very frequent) we’d have to re-submit our proposal. I practically wrote 4 in the last 3 months. It was like working for Bridget Jones. A 2-month gap in funding was becoming imminent.
I managed to work out and sign an agreement with another organization to take on some work in the gap. PSI has given us half a million to distribute mosquito nets (making the title of this blog invalid). But we know the area and how to do distribution, so I was hoping it will be kinda easy... but the mud seems to be reproducing, we’re supposed to hit every household in the state and it’s a shocking number of nets: 560,000. As I was lounging on my break one day, after being force-fed by my grandmother I got a call: “we’re delivering the 12 40-ft containers to you tomorrow. Where do you want them?”
Oh crap, this is going to be hard.
On the flight back to London and again on the flight to Amman I found a new American comedy series: a little cheesy, but very funny. In Samantha Who, an amnesiac explores her old life, finding a lot of resentment and discovers to her shock how much of a bitch she used to be. Her mission becomes tying to convince everyone that she’s now a different person.
I’m finding a few parallels. I’d not seen and barely spoken to a Michael in Birmingham since my visit last July following a fall out. Rob seemed generally unwilling to lift a finger for me when I asked him to bring something back with him from the US. Dapo inferred that he’d only have 30 minutes free in two weeks to meet. Tola was happy to meet, but only at certain day, time and a place and told me honestly that she didn’t expect the meeting to happen.
Maybe it’s just city life, time is short and I’m filled will a little too much self importance, but while I don’t expect everyone to free their whole weeks for me, I’d like to think these friends would want to meet me in this limited opportunity. I genuinely sensed that I was being treated with caution, though. I asked Rob to suggest why this was the case.
“You’re a bit needy.”
?!
Tola: “Insensitive.”
Olu: “You can be a dickhead.”
Dapo: wouldn’t return my calls.
So this is a negative highlight of some much larger and actually positive interactions, but I have to heed the criticism. I’m not taking any as gospel (especially given that the last three come from Nigerians, one of whom is a woman), but taking some time away and returning to still find the people I used to see regularly has been very revealing.
In thinking about my past interactions with these different friends in different places I’m reminded of a lot of things. I don’t think was consistently the only wrongdoer, but I wholeheartedly participated in the interaction. My time away has given me both the objectivity and the confidence to be honest about what I did. I subscribed to the games of city life and considered most interaction a competition. I was very competitive. I sought reason to disdain others. I lived a very narrow life of work, gym, cycling and a few not so healthy social interactions. I gave very few people the time or the attention they deserved. I took advantage of their generosity, and was distracted by shallower but prettier individuals. I would routinely put my own needs above others or only gave on my own terms.
Again, a worst-case appraisal, but as the evidence mounted I felt much like the amnesiac in discovering how much of a bitch I, too, used to be.
But I’m not the only one. Everyone in London seems to be doing it to each other. You can see it in the interactions on the street and the phone conversations you overhear. This is how we treat each other there. Had my friends not subscribed and regularly done the same, even to me, they probably would have told me to piss off at the first and friendship wouldn’t have developed.
Far from a mea culpa, hanging out and seeing these friends again was a lot of fun. It was good to catch up on their job changes, new houses, responses to the economic crises and their weight loss/gain. I’ve said this before, but my fears about being away and missing life are unwarranted. Contact is diminished whilst I’m away, partly because communications channels are unreliable, but mostly because everyone now seems to have an iphone and corresponds with at most 2 lines of text. But life is still there: the shops and restaurants and streets remain. So do friends, I guess – at least the ones good enough to forgive my faults, hear an apology and recognize the changes for the better my time away is yielding in me. I feel like I’ve shed some skin…and my palms still are.
On the whole I had a wonderful time in Birmingham, London and with family in Amman. As friend Olu said – “it only took about a year and a half to clear the air”.
So I’m better off from being out here. This is the point at which I want to pause things, though. I’m at a turning point, I think, in which I could return to life in London quite easily. A year away wouldn’t look so anomalous on CV if I were applying for work. More importantly, though I’d like to be able to put into effect what I’ve learned about myself and be a new and better (though much less fit) person with the people who care about and matter to me.
Reading past entries, though, I can see I’ve said this before.
But jobs seem to be drying up, even in the public sector. Some of these friends will be out of work in 2 months. I’m not sure hoe long I could remain invested in a desk-job in London again, especially in a Local Authority. That would be the easiest route of return. I still don’t know what I want to do in life. My indecision is illustrated by the jobs I’ve applied to recently in: Makasar, Indonesia; Hilla, Iraq, Niarobi, Kenya & Barnet Council, London. There’s a lot I dislike about the aid industry and it’s very easy to spot those who have been in it for too long. I don’t want to be part of the crowd.
Like anything, if I want it to happen I can make it so. Nairobi seems like an exciting and realistic opportunity that would bring me back a little bit towards civilization. I need to start looking at London jobs too. I’m sure there’s something out there that would entertain me.
Again, I’m caught between the personal reasons to come back and the professional reasons to stay. Coming back here form some satisfyingly personal interactions with family and friends makes the prospect of staying very hard. Despite the fact that I stocked up with over 50kgs of tea, honey, dried fruit, toothpaste, facewash, books, music and porn, the next few moths of distribution are not going to be easy. I hope that my mesoderm toughens up fast.Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Complacency
I had 2 phones stolen the other week and with them all of my work contacts. I was in Juba at the mosque at the time. I’m surprisingly unfazed by this. I’ve been here almost a year…in fact I’ve never had a phone stolen, so I reckon I’m due. I left them in the glove compartment of a locked car as I went into Jumah prayers. When I came back the car was still locked but the phones were gone. I guess if I’m stupid enough to be separated form my phones and the thieves are industrious/socially responsible enough to get into a locked car and lock it again on the way out, it’s fair.
I left my sunglasses on the counter of Nairobi duty free.
I have worms again – second time in 3 months.
I’m getting complacent. After almost a year I’ve grown comfortable and accustomed to a lot of things. I no longer crave fruits and vegetables like I used to and barley notice that a week or two will pass without my having seen either. I never use sunscreen and I stopped taking malaria prophylaxis. I carry my passport, wallet, cash, laptop and identity documents all in the same backpack.
Getting comfortable definitely has its advantages. I’m no longer panicked by the day’s events and I’m having trouble remembering a day that involved even a moderate level of stress. Getting to this point hasn’t been easy and has involved a lot of work. I’ve trained my staff as best I could to carry out the program so it’s no longer a one-man show. We now function very effectively as a team and the objective feedback of some visitors in the past weeks has confirmed this.
But comfortable and complacent are not far apart, and as the intestinal parasites and lost goods show, there is a cost. I’m thankful that it’s a manageable condition and a replaceable item. If it were my computer or passport lost I’d probably have cried.
Am I getting so careless that it’s just a matter of time before I allow something much worse to happen? I keep coming back to this – try to think of it as a recurrent theme rather than an incessant whinge - but is it time to come home?
If on the whole I’m about as happy as I am in London, it’s better to come back, no? At least there I can eat normally, exercise enough and not worry about intestinal parasites.
I resolved to take a cerebral sabbatical and just go on leave. I booked an ambitious trip: Nairobi for 2 days of meetings, London for a day, Birmingham for 2, in London for 4 days, Amman for a week via Dubai, back to London for the weekend, then to Nairobi for 2 more days and then back to Sudan.
The trip started well. Productive meetings with my boss’, boss’ boss and on the night I left a playful and very smiley little man at the airport suggested that I could get something for a small fee. I bribed him $200 and got a first class upgrade. He even followed me on board to ensure I got the seat I wanted. Does that mean I overpaid him? I tend to question self-indulgence (save for in my writing), but had no qualms reclining and drifting off in my rearward-facing sleeper seat as Africa and its parasites fell away into a beautifully moonlit night.
Hounslow 6am. Cold, drizzle, gray: THAT’S why I left.
Within a few hours I met my mother and brother from FL who booked a trip to coincide with mine. Sweet, huh? Well, not really: my brother broke his cheek bone in a Muai Thai fight and decided to indulge in a little medical tourism: whilst the UK is not renowned for facial corrective surgery, it is for free healthcare to its residents (taken liberally in my brother’s instance). I’m sure I factored into their decision to come and in the end it was my fault for not spending enough time together.
I don’t think I watched any news of read a newspaper whilst away. I think I was anxious about being back and rushed around in a slight panic trying to buy everything I could think of and ensuring that I spent as little time alone as possible. I got a new phone within hours of arriving.
Seeing family in Amman was good. I think it is a blessing, but absolutely no one has changed. My cousins are a bit taller and aunts a little fatter. My grandmother is still going strong. My aunts, uncles and cousins were all interested in my life in Southern Sudan, but on the whole seemed more concerned with my brother’s boxing injury than with the fact that I live in a war zone. No, I’m not jealous.
My cousin, Kholoud, won the Dead Sea marathon. I didn’t even know she ran. Apparently, she doesn’t. She planned on running the 10k, but her sister entered her online in the full marathon. She showed up and was given a blue marathon number but was told that it was too late the change. She just went to the 10k start and thought nothing of it.
She took her time to finish – a comic 2h 46m. After finishing she strolled back to the organizers tents to see what the commotion was about. She was quickly swept up in a small crowd of photographers and officials screaming, “you’ve won!”
The winner of the marathon distance had overcome the oppressive heat and pressure of the Dead Sea basin to compete the 26 miles in 2h 51m. Kholoud soon realized what had happened, and tried to correct it. Her sister could hear her shouting over the noise from the winner’s tent, “but I’m not blue!”
It really wasn’t long at all before her father had started calling his friends to express his pride in his daughter. By then there was no going back. When she told me the story she was trying to contact the actual winner to apologize and was considering whether to not accept the winning $1500 or donate it to a charity.
I remembered that I don’t like Arabs. My family is lovely but not immune form the very unpleasant characteristics of Arab culture hat seem to prevail more and more as Jordan’s wealth grows. Arrogant, condescending, snobbish, judgemental, living in perpetual fear of being judged. I see every quality I don’t like about myself magnified 10 fold in a nation. I also see the qualities of my father. There is one particular characteristic that I don’t share though, neither did he, and that is the almost unfailing ability of most Arab men (normally the slightly wealthy) to identify the underdog in a situation and make him/her feel even worse. As long as I stayed inside I was fine – and this was much to my grandmother’s approval. She fed me at least 5,000 calories a day.
I was a little anxious about the trip as I really wasn’t supposed to be taking the additional time off work. On the way there in Dubai at around 6:00am I was spotted in the departure lounge by the Country Director of the organization that’s giving my team a good chunk of cash to distribute mosquito nets for the next couple of months. Marcie, who manages a good few dozens of millions of dollars of funding in Sudan, spotted me whilst I was picking my nose I think: It was 6am and I live in Africa so have no qualms doing such things in public.
“Aren’t you supposed to be distributing my mosquito nets?”
I said I’d get right on it after a little break with the family. She was going to a 4-day long conference that was going to trap her in a very plush hotel, but all week. I insisted that she join me the following Thursday to get out and see a bit more of the town. My family arranged a big dinner for that, my last night, so I just invited her – aware that the results could either be very positive or absolutely disastrous. The personal/professional barrier had already been crossed at the nose-pick, I think.
Aunts’ verdict at the end of the night was: well dressed, very professional, but too old for me. My uncle and cousin suggested that she should make a plan for her life to progress from her administrative role. She took that mis-assumption well, but I fear the wedding’s a non-starter. I think she had fun.
After dinner we went to a bar/café downtown that has a reputation for a very liberal crowd. Amman has become absolutely beautiful, and the social scene is thriving. I was so happy to bump into a friend who I’d met in Amman a few years ago and not seen since – but disappointed when the rules of Amman social interaction seemed to come back into force. He spent more time looking over my shoulder to see who was noticing us talking together. This is a common element of public social interaction – the thoughts go “who’ s looking, is it ok for me to be seen talking to this person, what will people say..?” One of the last times we met was at this café some years ago. We left and 5 minutes later he got a text message form an unknown number saying “what, you’re too good to hang out with Arabs now?” and I got one from an unknown number saying “who was that with you, is he single?”
I’ll go back many times to see my family, I think, but my desire to try to live there is gone. I’ve now seen much nicer places.
I think I’m getting old: the overnight airport stops take time to recover from. Arrived in Dubai at 9pm (via business class, but without having to bribe anyone), left for London at 3am steerage, arrived Gatwick 6:30am, cold, grey, drizzle…ok, I get the hint. The weekend was fun, but too short. I picked up a cold. I left on Monday at 10:20am…you got it: cold, grey, drizzle. It was a helpful shove to get on my way.
I left my sunglasses on the counter of Nairobi duty free.
I have worms again – second time in 3 months.
I’m getting complacent. After almost a year I’ve grown comfortable and accustomed to a lot of things. I no longer crave fruits and vegetables like I used to and barley notice that a week or two will pass without my having seen either. I never use sunscreen and I stopped taking malaria prophylaxis. I carry my passport, wallet, cash, laptop and identity documents all in the same backpack.
Getting comfortable definitely has its advantages. I’m no longer panicked by the day’s events and I’m having trouble remembering a day that involved even a moderate level of stress. Getting to this point hasn’t been easy and has involved a lot of work. I’ve trained my staff as best I could to carry out the program so it’s no longer a one-man show. We now function very effectively as a team and the objective feedback of some visitors in the past weeks has confirmed this.
But comfortable and complacent are not far apart, and as the intestinal parasites and lost goods show, there is a cost. I’m thankful that it’s a manageable condition and a replaceable item. If it were my computer or passport lost I’d probably have cried.
Am I getting so careless that it’s just a matter of time before I allow something much worse to happen? I keep coming back to this – try to think of it as a recurrent theme rather than an incessant whinge - but is it time to come home?
If on the whole I’m about as happy as I am in London, it’s better to come back, no? At least there I can eat normally, exercise enough and not worry about intestinal parasites.
I resolved to take a cerebral sabbatical and just go on leave. I booked an ambitious trip: Nairobi for 2 days of meetings, London for a day, Birmingham for 2, in London for 4 days, Amman for a week via Dubai, back to London for the weekend, then to Nairobi for 2 more days and then back to Sudan.
The trip started well. Productive meetings with my boss’, boss’ boss and on the night I left a playful and very smiley little man at the airport suggested that I could get something for a small fee. I bribed him $200 and got a first class upgrade. He even followed me on board to ensure I got the seat I wanted. Does that mean I overpaid him? I tend to question self-indulgence (save for in my writing), but had no qualms reclining and drifting off in my rearward-facing sleeper seat as Africa and its parasites fell away into a beautifully moonlit night.
Hounslow 6am. Cold, drizzle, gray: THAT’S why I left.
Within a few hours I met my mother and brother from FL who booked a trip to coincide with mine. Sweet, huh? Well, not really: my brother broke his cheek bone in a Muai Thai fight and decided to indulge in a little medical tourism: whilst the UK is not renowned for facial corrective surgery, it is for free healthcare to its residents (taken liberally in my brother’s instance). I’m sure I factored into their decision to come and in the end it was my fault for not spending enough time together.
I don’t think I watched any news of read a newspaper whilst away. I think I was anxious about being back and rushed around in a slight panic trying to buy everything I could think of and ensuring that I spent as little time alone as possible. I got a new phone within hours of arriving.
Seeing family in Amman was good. I think it is a blessing, but absolutely no one has changed. My cousins are a bit taller and aunts a little fatter. My grandmother is still going strong. My aunts, uncles and cousins were all interested in my life in Southern Sudan, but on the whole seemed more concerned with my brother’s boxing injury than with the fact that I live in a war zone. No, I’m not jealous.
My cousin, Kholoud, won the Dead Sea marathon. I didn’t even know she ran. Apparently, she doesn’t. She planned on running the 10k, but her sister entered her online in the full marathon. She showed up and was given a blue marathon number but was told that it was too late the change. She just went to the 10k start and thought nothing of it.
She took her time to finish – a comic 2h 46m. After finishing she strolled back to the organizers tents to see what the commotion was about. She was quickly swept up in a small crowd of photographers and officials screaming, “you’ve won!”
The winner of the marathon distance had overcome the oppressive heat and pressure of the Dead Sea basin to compete the 26 miles in 2h 51m. Kholoud soon realized what had happened, and tried to correct it. Her sister could hear her shouting over the noise from the winner’s tent, “but I’m not blue!”
It really wasn’t long at all before her father had started calling his friends to express his pride in his daughter. By then there was no going back. When she told me the story she was trying to contact the actual winner to apologize and was considering whether to not accept the winning $1500 or donate it to a charity.
I remembered that I don’t like Arabs. My family is lovely but not immune form the very unpleasant characteristics of Arab culture hat seem to prevail more and more as Jordan’s wealth grows. Arrogant, condescending, snobbish, judgemental, living in perpetual fear of being judged. I see every quality I don’t like about myself magnified 10 fold in a nation. I also see the qualities of my father. There is one particular characteristic that I don’t share though, neither did he, and that is the almost unfailing ability of most Arab men (normally the slightly wealthy) to identify the underdog in a situation and make him/her feel even worse. As long as I stayed inside I was fine – and this was much to my grandmother’s approval. She fed me at least 5,000 calories a day.
I was a little anxious about the trip as I really wasn’t supposed to be taking the additional time off work. On the way there in Dubai at around 6:00am I was spotted in the departure lounge by the Country Director of the organization that’s giving my team a good chunk of cash to distribute mosquito nets for the next couple of months. Marcie, who manages a good few dozens of millions of dollars of funding in Sudan, spotted me whilst I was picking my nose I think: It was 6am and I live in Africa so have no qualms doing such things in public.
“Aren’t you supposed to be distributing my mosquito nets?”
I said I’d get right on it after a little break with the family. She was going to a 4-day long conference that was going to trap her in a very plush hotel, but all week. I insisted that she join me the following Thursday to get out and see a bit more of the town. My family arranged a big dinner for that, my last night, so I just invited her – aware that the results could either be very positive or absolutely disastrous. The personal/professional barrier had already been crossed at the nose-pick, I think.
Aunts’ verdict at the end of the night was: well dressed, very professional, but too old for me. My uncle and cousin suggested that she should make a plan for her life to progress from her administrative role. She took that mis-assumption well, but I fear the wedding’s a non-starter. I think she had fun.
After dinner we went to a bar/café downtown that has a reputation for a very liberal crowd. Amman has become absolutely beautiful, and the social scene is thriving. I was so happy to bump into a friend who I’d met in Amman a few years ago and not seen since – but disappointed when the rules of Amman social interaction seemed to come back into force. He spent more time looking over my shoulder to see who was noticing us talking together. This is a common element of public social interaction – the thoughts go “who’ s looking, is it ok for me to be seen talking to this person, what will people say..?” One of the last times we met was at this café some years ago. We left and 5 minutes later he got a text message form an unknown number saying “what, you’re too good to hang out with Arabs now?” and I got one from an unknown number saying “who was that with you, is he single?”
I’ll go back many times to see my family, I think, but my desire to try to live there is gone. I’ve now seen much nicer places.
I think I’m getting old: the overnight airport stops take time to recover from. Arrived in Dubai at 9pm (via business class, but without having to bribe anyone), left for London at 3am steerage, arrived Gatwick 6:30am, cold, grey, drizzle…ok, I get the hint. The weekend was fun, but too short. I picked up a cold. I left on Monday at 10:20am…you got it: cold, grey, drizzle. It was a helpful shove to get on my way.
Monday, February 2, 2009
reality check
I’ve still got blood on my shorts and shirt. It’s not mine. It’s dried now, looking a little less shocking. Talk about gaining perspective…
We came across a car wreckage on the side of the road about 20km from Aweil in Northern Bahr el Ghazal. The 5 or 6 passers by and 2 police officers that had gathered around had dragged the passengers into the shade of the shrubs alongside the wreckage and the road, and strewn up cloth to shade them from the sun. No one had done anything else for them and the crash had happened an hour and a half before. The first passenger had some bad scrapes, especially on his head, but the bleeding was subsiding. The second was in a similar situation but also with a broken upper arm. They were brothers.
The third was lying on his back struggling for air – it sounded like he had fluid in his chest. The first thing I noticed was his eyes: half open, vacant, cloudy. His left eye had a minute mound of orange dirt piled over the pupil. His right pupil had no shape. His arms held tightly to his chest. It was over 35 degrees and he was shivering. He was vacant but whimpered in pain when I tried to examine him. His pulse was strong and fast. His head was misshapen and spongy to the touch. What could I do for him?
The fourth was lying on his side in a semi-foetal position. He had an open fracture of his lower leg with a good portion of the bone protruding and was spilling bright red into a small growing pool at his feet. Small globules of fat reflected the sun’s light. It covered my hands as I tried to bandage him with a rag someone fetched for me. He couldn’t move for the pain in his hip, but he could talk. His jaw looked broken and the skin had been shaved off his hand.
The fifth, the driver, was completely unscathed.
20 or 30 km to Aweil. A dirt and bumpy road. Two would be ok but had sufficient reason to complain about pain. The guy with the leg breaks I was worried for because the bleeding wasn’t stopping. I expected the guy with the head injury to die at any moment. I dithered, remembering that one of the most damaging things you can do for a person is move them…. but reasoned that that’s when you have alternatives of ambulances and paramedics. Here they would definitely die. Picking them up, moving them to my truck, piling them in, bumping them over 20 or so Km would do some damage, but we should reach the hospital fairly soon… I hope. A local guy’s impression of near or far is completely relative.
We waved down 2 other cars and put three passengers amongst them, laying the guy with the broken legs on the floor of a minibus. I put the guy with the head injury in the back of my car on the floor. The driver, a now-terrified looking Darfuri, held his head. The police officers looked on.
10 minutes into the journey he was foaming at the mouth. We were killing him but there was nothing we could do. I couldn’t put him into another position, hold his head back, or do anything that would help. We kept driving. When I looked back the police officer had covered his face with the sheet we’d carried him into the car on. It’s a cold equation of life, I suppose. A head injury like this will kill you and no matter the intention, strength, clarity or desire of those nearby, there is nothing they can do for you. I cried.
Our small convoy pulled up at the police station and the driver was plucked out. We continued to the hospital and after a 5 minute verbal battle with an administrator, found out where we should take them. All were still alive, even the guy with the head injury! Revival or presumptuous declaration of death? I had little time to reason as my hands were full and bloodied by the guy with the leg injuries I was carrying. Me moved into a dark room with 2 shuttered windows lit by a single incandescent bulb. The last patient’s blood was still on the metal exam table, his blood-stained dressings 1/3 on the table, 1/3 on the floor and 1/3 in the open, plastic waste paper basket. Had I really done these guys a favour by brining them here? The single medical assistant present looked terrified and to the yelps of the patient, moved his leg around which bent in inhuman ways.
The bones grated. The blood stank. A number of spectators piled into the room. Amongst those who came in was a mild mannered, handsome, well-dressed northern doctor who shouted only at the medical assistant. He was very interested in my involvement with his patient and offered to let me reset the bones. Civility returned to situation, they found the patient some morphine and I accepted the offer. He was stitched, bandaged and plastered quite quickly and quite professionally, but I still I thanked God it wasn’t me.
I found the guy with the head injury next door with a small group and a small American doctor attending to him. His heartbeat was still strong and fast, but they were breathing for him. They said he had no chance. They were about to stop ventilation when I left.
Whilst the lack of emotion certainly helped in getting them patched and to the hospital, it also meant that I felt such little compassion as almost not to stop for them. I struck the right balance by accident this time. I hope I have the sense, and the heart, to consciously do it again if ever I have to. I hope that’s not anytime soon though.
We came across a car wreckage on the side of the road about 20km from Aweil in Northern Bahr el Ghazal. The 5 or 6 passers by and 2 police officers that had gathered around had dragged the passengers into the shade of the shrubs alongside the wreckage and the road, and strewn up cloth to shade them from the sun. No one had done anything else for them and the crash had happened an hour and a half before. The first passenger had some bad scrapes, especially on his head, but the bleeding was subsiding. The second was in a similar situation but also with a broken upper arm. They were brothers.
The third was lying on his back struggling for air – it sounded like he had fluid in his chest. The first thing I noticed was his eyes: half open, vacant, cloudy. His left eye had a minute mound of orange dirt piled over the pupil. His right pupil had no shape. His arms held tightly to his chest. It was over 35 degrees and he was shivering. He was vacant but whimpered in pain when I tried to examine him. His pulse was strong and fast. His head was misshapen and spongy to the touch. What could I do for him?
The fourth was lying on his side in a semi-foetal position. He had an open fracture of his lower leg with a good portion of the bone protruding and was spilling bright red into a small growing pool at his feet. Small globules of fat reflected the sun’s light. It covered my hands as I tried to bandage him with a rag someone fetched for me. He couldn’t move for the pain in his hip, but he could talk. His jaw looked broken and the skin had been shaved off his hand.
The fifth, the driver, was completely unscathed.
20 or 30 km to Aweil. A dirt and bumpy road. Two would be ok but had sufficient reason to complain about pain. The guy with the leg breaks I was worried for because the bleeding wasn’t stopping. I expected the guy with the head injury to die at any moment. I dithered, remembering that one of the most damaging things you can do for a person is move them…. but reasoned that that’s when you have alternatives of ambulances and paramedics. Here they would definitely die. Picking them up, moving them to my truck, piling them in, bumping them over 20 or so Km would do some damage, but we should reach the hospital fairly soon… I hope. A local guy’s impression of near or far is completely relative.
We waved down 2 other cars and put three passengers amongst them, laying the guy with the broken legs on the floor of a minibus. I put the guy with the head injury in the back of my car on the floor. The driver, a now-terrified looking Darfuri, held his head. The police officers looked on.
10 minutes into the journey he was foaming at the mouth. We were killing him but there was nothing we could do. I couldn’t put him into another position, hold his head back, or do anything that would help. We kept driving. When I looked back the police officer had covered his face with the sheet we’d carried him into the car on. It’s a cold equation of life, I suppose. A head injury like this will kill you and no matter the intention, strength, clarity or desire of those nearby, there is nothing they can do for you. I cried.
Our small convoy pulled up at the police station and the driver was plucked out. We continued to the hospital and after a 5 minute verbal battle with an administrator, found out where we should take them. All were still alive, even the guy with the head injury! Revival or presumptuous declaration of death? I had little time to reason as my hands were full and bloodied by the guy with the leg injuries I was carrying. Me moved into a dark room with 2 shuttered windows lit by a single incandescent bulb. The last patient’s blood was still on the metal exam table, his blood-stained dressings 1/3 on the table, 1/3 on the floor and 1/3 in the open, plastic waste paper basket. Had I really done these guys a favour by brining them here? The single medical assistant present looked terrified and to the yelps of the patient, moved his leg around which bent in inhuman ways.
The bones grated. The blood stank. A number of spectators piled into the room. Amongst those who came in was a mild mannered, handsome, well-dressed northern doctor who shouted only at the medical assistant. He was very interested in my involvement with his patient and offered to let me reset the bones. Civility returned to situation, they found the patient some morphine and I accepted the offer. He was stitched, bandaged and plastered quite quickly and quite professionally, but I still I thanked God it wasn’t me.
I found the guy with the head injury next door with a small group and a small American doctor attending to him. His heartbeat was still strong and fast, but they were breathing for him. They said he had no chance. They were about to stop ventilation when I left.
Whilst the lack of emotion certainly helped in getting them patched and to the hospital, it also meant that I felt such little compassion as almost not to stop for them. I struck the right balance by accident this time. I hope I have the sense, and the heart, to consciously do it again if ever I have to. I hope that’s not anytime soon though.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Surfacing – closer to life
I’m not down with this. I come up for air only every two months allowing myself to be the person I think I am, rather than the person I need to be. It’s starting to hurt.
I fell in love in Cape Town and not with the city. This might not be entirely on this individual’s merits, though: it might just be because it was the first even semi-intimate human contact I’d had in months.
I have a bad habit from my upbringing: I have a poorly defined sense of what’s good for me. I take notions transiently from whoever’s in reach. This one was very different from any others I’d met; an artist: expressive and emotive, although quite self-absorbed. Beyond that (which I think is a result of the career) I found a lot of substance to a weak physical presence. I was indirectly and unintentionally led into feeling the moment. I followed willingly.
I’ve not done this for a long time. I’ve come to pride myself on my ability to detach emotion from the situation. Here it’s absolute necessity not only to stay happy, but to function. The fact is that I’m lonely – professionally and socially isolated. Why feel? What good will it do? More significantly, being here is an exasperation of what I’ve felt for a long time: I feel very much alone and have done so in most places I’ve lived.
One part of me alienates the other. Muslim friends and family wouldn’t accept a significant part of my life. Many struggle with the fact that I’m a practising Muslim and lead a very separate life from my family – or worse, they pity it. Muslims I know like me are very few and given their minority in a minority status, when we get down the person we just don’t get along. If you don’t drink, smoke or do any drugs, you tend not to fit in at parties. In most social gatherings people are demonstrably uncomfortable if you’re not drinking. If you don’t have an expensive enough bike you’ll be shunned when trying to join a cycling club. If someone is attracted to you and you can’t reciprocate, interaction is very awkward. If you don’t like football you won’t have anything to talk to other guys about. If you don’t watch TV you’ll have nothing to talk to colleagues about.
The biggest contributor to my alienation, though, has always been my disdain. I’ve considered interactions or friendships completely unsustainable if there’s something not right. I passed judgement based on someone’s single fault – whatever it may be and often far less serious than one of many of mine. I passed judgement on countries on an uninformed, assumed impression. Money mattered too much.
I learned to occupy a lonely space when a teenager. I was 15, foreign, thin, awkward and trying to find some way to express the misery and regret that was almost consuming me – it was largely teenage angst, but there was bit more to it. I expressed myself then mostly by listening to music. It hurt, but not as much as hearing that my father would refuse to speak to me a few years later. My father’s disowning me was the most painful thing that I experienced. It was 8 years ago, now. I survived by not feeling the pain.
So I progressed in life: clear, specific, reasoned, objective. Here I am.
I was unarmed to interact with someone so emotive in Cape Town. Maybe it was the nerves involved in sitting opposite someone I think I liked, but nothing I thought of could be called deep. I felt bland, plain, shallow, boring, clinical, cynical, petty, sullen, stunted, combative, sterile, dispassionate and monotone. I felt genuine envy for someone with such a strong integration into a culture, a belonging to something, and being amongst a community of friends.
We left things ambiguously – or rather dispassionately. Why get caught up if we’re in different countries? If not being together is the answer, what does it matter what we’re feeling, if we have any questions or with any of the other bullshit in-between?
Actually, it matters because stunting it hurt. It matters because here what do I have? Am I growing more literate, more informed, am I meeting new people ? To a degree, but I can’t grow in the ways I want and I’m certainly not integrating. I can fool myself into thinking I belong to something by sitting in a mosque, but in reality I can’t make an effort at friendships. I can’t make an effort with this one. Life is on hold again.
I’ve forgotten how unhappy I was 10 months ago in London. 10 months ago I’d forgotten how miserable I was when in the bush. I need to write things down more – hence this slightly more personal (and perhaps whingy) entry.
Life here is easier in many ways, or rather, I exonerate myself more easily from the blame of feeling lonely, detached or alienated. That is a significant relief. But an easier and more sustainable solution might have been to just get over it and continue living a real life in London.
I want to get closer to living and move back to London. This time I’ll unpack some boxes rather than keeping them ready to move again. I might hang some things on my wall. I’ll make myself a facebook profile. I’d like to buy a house and a car. Maybe they’ll even grant me a credit card…
Ah, who am I kidding? I’d get bored after a few months. I still have the attention span of a gnat and back in London I’d have a lot less to bitch, moan and write about. Actually I’m blessed for having a stable job and good income, insulated from the global economic meltdown, and to have good enough health to be left with a decision of where to go and what to do. That’s something to be happy for.
Ok, back to work. Dive, dive, dive…
I fell in love in Cape Town and not with the city. This might not be entirely on this individual’s merits, though: it might just be because it was the first even semi-intimate human contact I’d had in months.
I have a bad habit from my upbringing: I have a poorly defined sense of what’s good for me. I take notions transiently from whoever’s in reach. This one was very different from any others I’d met; an artist: expressive and emotive, although quite self-absorbed. Beyond that (which I think is a result of the career) I found a lot of substance to a weak physical presence. I was indirectly and unintentionally led into feeling the moment. I followed willingly.
I’ve not done this for a long time. I’ve come to pride myself on my ability to detach emotion from the situation. Here it’s absolute necessity not only to stay happy, but to function. The fact is that I’m lonely – professionally and socially isolated. Why feel? What good will it do? More significantly, being here is an exasperation of what I’ve felt for a long time: I feel very much alone and have done so in most places I’ve lived.
One part of me alienates the other. Muslim friends and family wouldn’t accept a significant part of my life. Many struggle with the fact that I’m a practising Muslim and lead a very separate life from my family – or worse, they pity it. Muslims I know like me are very few and given their minority in a minority status, when we get down the person we just don’t get along. If you don’t drink, smoke or do any drugs, you tend not to fit in at parties. In most social gatherings people are demonstrably uncomfortable if you’re not drinking. If you don’t have an expensive enough bike you’ll be shunned when trying to join a cycling club. If someone is attracted to you and you can’t reciprocate, interaction is very awkward. If you don’t like football you won’t have anything to talk to other guys about. If you don’t watch TV you’ll have nothing to talk to colleagues about.
The biggest contributor to my alienation, though, has always been my disdain. I’ve considered interactions or friendships completely unsustainable if there’s something not right. I passed judgement based on someone’s single fault – whatever it may be and often far less serious than one of many of mine. I passed judgement on countries on an uninformed, assumed impression. Money mattered too much.
I learned to occupy a lonely space when a teenager. I was 15, foreign, thin, awkward and trying to find some way to express the misery and regret that was almost consuming me – it was largely teenage angst, but there was bit more to it. I expressed myself then mostly by listening to music. It hurt, but not as much as hearing that my father would refuse to speak to me a few years later. My father’s disowning me was the most painful thing that I experienced. It was 8 years ago, now. I survived by not feeling the pain.
So I progressed in life: clear, specific, reasoned, objective. Here I am.
I was unarmed to interact with someone so emotive in Cape Town. Maybe it was the nerves involved in sitting opposite someone I think I liked, but nothing I thought of could be called deep. I felt bland, plain, shallow, boring, clinical, cynical, petty, sullen, stunted, combative, sterile, dispassionate and monotone. I felt genuine envy for someone with such a strong integration into a culture, a belonging to something, and being amongst a community of friends.
We left things ambiguously – or rather dispassionately. Why get caught up if we’re in different countries? If not being together is the answer, what does it matter what we’re feeling, if we have any questions or with any of the other bullshit in-between?
Actually, it matters because stunting it hurt. It matters because here what do I have? Am I growing more literate, more informed, am I meeting new people ? To a degree, but I can’t grow in the ways I want and I’m certainly not integrating. I can fool myself into thinking I belong to something by sitting in a mosque, but in reality I can’t make an effort at friendships. I can’t make an effort with this one. Life is on hold again.
I’ve forgotten how unhappy I was 10 months ago in London. 10 months ago I’d forgotten how miserable I was when in the bush. I need to write things down more – hence this slightly more personal (and perhaps whingy) entry.
Life here is easier in many ways, or rather, I exonerate myself more easily from the blame of feeling lonely, detached or alienated. That is a significant relief. But an easier and more sustainable solution might have been to just get over it and continue living a real life in London.
I want to get closer to living and move back to London. This time I’ll unpack some boxes rather than keeping them ready to move again. I might hang some things on my wall. I’ll make myself a facebook profile. I’d like to buy a house and a car. Maybe they’ll even grant me a credit card…
Ah, who am I kidding? I’d get bored after a few months. I still have the attention span of a gnat and back in London I’d have a lot less to bitch, moan and write about. Actually I’m blessed for having a stable job and good income, insulated from the global economic meltdown, and to have good enough health to be left with a decision of where to go and what to do. That’s something to be happy for.
Ok, back to work. Dive, dive, dive…
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Finally pubished
Ok, not really - it's just a blurb that I wrote (and they edited poorly) on our website.
http://www.chfinternational.org/node/32849
http://www.chfinternational.org/node/32849
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