Chasing Chaos: My Decade In and Out of Humanitarian Aid (19 page)

Agencies that wanted to erect permanent structures in camps had to get permission from the government. Since the displaced communities were only supposed to be there temporarily, neither the agencies nor the government wanted to create the impression that IDPs could—or would—stay indefinitely. But a balance had to be struck, as temporary facilities were often unable to withstand strong winds and heavy rains. Restoring them constantly cost time and money, and oftentimes they went unrepaired. We all knew that the IDPs would be here a long time, so Lila had gotten permission
to build a semipermanent structure on the agreement that the host community would get to use it when the camp’s current occupants returned to their homes, if they returned to their homes. Years later, a friend would give me this advice: if you’re planning camps in a place like Darfur, “plan the camps as though they’ll be there forever.”

The guesthouse Lila and I shared was small and bare; it would be just the two of us living here. Everything was made of the same rust-colored cement: the floors, the walls, even the inside of the bathrooms. Like most of the compound interiors I saw in Darfur, it seemed hastily put together—the walls were lumpy, the floors were slanted, and the entrances to rooms looked accidental, as if someone had run out of cement and simply wandered away, leaving a few vaguely rectangular holes behind. Lila and I shared a bathroom and a modest screened-in living area that had two wooden couches covered by faded yellow foam cushions. Our kitchen was in a separate hut.

That first night, I walked around the compound aimlessly, still overwhelmed by the news from Mark. I pulled out the
Camp Management Toolkit
, its weight on my lap like a phone book. I started flipping through it, but became overwhelmed and decided to unpack instead. I carried my bag to my room, and had to heave my shoulder against the door to open it. No one had been in there in a while. The air was stale and smelled like my grandmother’s attic. Light poured in through the one
window, illuminating a trickle of dust. A patchwork of colorful prayer mats was spread over the floor. The bed looked like a bottom bunk without a top. Metal poles stuck up around the frame, over which someone had draped a mosquito net, now covered in dust.

As I was surveying my new home, my phone beeped. It was a text message from the hot Australian: “Hey, you want to get dinner tonight?”

The night before felt like a lifetime ago. How I wished I were back there now, or with Carla, a friend to talk to. “Would love to but already in Fasher,” I texted back.

“
” he wrote.

It was so nice to hear from someone even remotely familiar that I ignored his lame emoticon. I could already tell it would be harder to make friends here. The agency I worked for now was not only more prestigious than the one in Zalingei, but also much larger. The operation felt so big that it would take a while before I knew everyone.

Still holding my phone, I pushed the bed net aside and sat on the foam mattress. It sagged under my weight. I felt like I had just been dropped off on my first day of college. I wanted to go back to high school where the halls and teachers were familiar and welcoming, where the expectations were not as great—where I was neither alone, nor terrified of failing.

The next morning a lanky man was waiting for me at the office gate. “Jessica!” he called, bounding over to me. “I’m Ishaq!” he said, proudly. I couldn’t tell how old Ishaq was, but I guessed early forties. “Yesterday when you arrived I was busy at the Ministry. Mark told me you were here.” He held a large blue notebook to his chest. “Welcome to El Fasher. How are you settling in?”

“Oh, it’s OK!” I said.

“Not too hot in this Darfur heat?” he asked. “No, no. It’s fine.”

I was lying. El Fasher was hotter than Zalingei, even hotter than Khartoum. I was already a sweaty, wrinkled mess, whereas Ishaq was dressed immaculately in a collared polyester shirt and bell-bottom pants perfectly altered to fit his tall, slim frame. It turned out, no one could figure out where he got these clothes, what inspired his decidedly unique fashion sense, or who his tailor was.

I followed him inside the compound and he led me to our office. It looked like all the others and held a small metal desk, two plastic chairs and two windows on opposite walls for ventilation. I put my bag down. “So you’ve been to Al Salam already, yes?”

“Yes, I went to the registration yesterday.”

“Good, good,” Ishaq nodded. “I’ve been working on getting that set up. Yesterday we had a slight problem with the Ministry, but it seems to be OK now.” He nodded again, as if reassuring himself that things would work out. The Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC) was a government agency, and it wielded
strict authority over all our actions. Before aid agencies could do anything in the camps—erect a tent for a meeting space or provide hygiene training—the project had to be approved by the Sudanese government. Which was perfectly reasonable—this was their country after all; we were their guests, working with the Sudanese population. They had every right to be involved in and informed of the work we were doing there. But introducing them into the process slowed everything down—they took their time green-lighting plans, usually because their own bureaucracy was so inefficient that whatever petition needed to be approved—be it a request to lead a seminar on sanitary practices, or install a dozen latrines—had to pass through many hands before it reached the official authorized to endorse it. Some aid workers were also suspicious of HAC’s motives—they were indeed an office of the government, the same government that was killing and driving these people off their land in the first place.

THERE WAS NO TIME TO
worry about whether or not I was qualified to do this job. With my
Camp Management Toolkit
under my arm and Ishaq by my side, I jumped in. The first thing we had to do in Al Salam was set up a committee that would represent the twenty-four thousand residents of the camp, and which would be the group I would meet with regularly. The
Camp Management Toolkit
advised setting up fair elections, but I was already coming to realize that
the manual’s rules didn’t always account for reality. The
omdas
and sheikhs were the ones who presented themselves for the jobs, which made sense: these were the traditional leaders of the community, they had always spoken on its behalf.

At my first meeting with the committee, Ishaq introduced me. The men nodded respectfully as I started speaking to them in English. Ishaq translated.

“My name is Jessica,” I said. “I’m from the US, and I’m here to work with you in the camp.” The whole thing felt ridiculous. Some of these men were old enough to be my father. I wondered what they thought of me, a naive twenty-seven-year-old American girl, clutching her camp management toolkit like a life vest. How strange it must have been for these men, after all they had been through and all they were still grappling with, to have me there to discuss and negotiate their living conditions. Over time, though, I realized that my naïveté and humility actually worked to my advantage. I listened to the men on the committee and constantly asked for their input. They desperately wanted to participate in the decisions that were affecting the lives of their community members and families. Being there every day, listening to their concerns, and relaying those concerns back to other aid workers was the best way I could do my job.

The committee assumed considerable responsibility for day-to-day camp management and would eventually come to help distribute food, report on any Janjaweed activity spotted in the camp, and assist in
the planning of NGO activities like where new water points would be constructed, or what other NFIs were needed. In the coming months, I would rely on these men for everything, but I knew they didn’t represent everyone in the camp—such as the women and the youth. I set up separate smaller committees with representatives from these groups as well.

THE FIRST THING THE CAMP
committee requested were name badges, to distinguish themselves as leaders of the community and to show the aid agencies working in the camp that they also had a say in its administration. The issue of the name badges was very important to them; they asked me about it each time we met. I told them we could make name cards back at the office, but they insisted on real badges, with a photo and a stamp. Nothing in Sudan felt legitimate unless it had an official seal: when you bought a soda, the shopkeeper wrote up your purchase on a small piece of paper, which he carefully blotted with a red rubber stamp.

I was sure that El Fasher wouldn’t have a photo lab, but Ishaq knew of one downtown. It looked like one of those low-budget Glamour Shots portrait studios you’d find at a mall. There was nobody inside except the shopkeeper. I asked him when I could bring twenty-seven people in to have their photos taken. Anytime was fine, the excited shopkeeper said, as long as there was power in town.

We only had two vehicles to move everyone, but before I could even explain that we’d have to make a few trips, the Land Cruisers were filled: some people sat on the floor, others on laps; a few men stood and held onto the back of the vehicle. This was certainly against agency regulations, but I wasn’t going to make a fuss. I felt as if I were chaperoning a class field trip—I had only worked with these men inside the camp so it was fun to see them out and about in town.

Sometimes I’d found the photos of other African residents deceiving; even the silliest of people came out looking stoic and serious. I realized that the images we saw didn’t always look like life—they didn’t capture the character of the person they depicted, or the true spirit of the place he or she came from. Out in the field, you saw children playing, doing backflips, running around wildly—and then as soon as you whipped out your camera, they froze like deer. Their bodies became stiff, their faces drawn, their eyes wide, focused and solemn. Nobody had ever taught them how to project an image of themselves, or told them to say “Cheese!” and smile for the camera.

When we arrived at the studio, the committee members waited in line to get their passport-sized photos taken. Whenever someone’s turn came, he would stand in front of the light blue background, look intently at the camera until it flashed, and then melt into giggles. After each of them had gone through, they wanted one last photo of all of us together. I was working on a very tight budget, and we had already maxed it out. I told them so.

“They want to pay for it themselves,” Ishaq told me.

“Oh, that’s ridiculous. They’re not paying for it.” I couldn’t imagine why they would want to spend whatever little money they had on a photo. But they insisted.

The leader of the group, Ahmed, waved me over. “Come, come!” he said. I had never heard him speak in English before. “Jessica, come!” The photographer organized us in front of the safari backdrop, as though we were in a large wedding party. I knelt down with some of the shorter men, smiled, and waited for the click.

Days in Darfur usually went by too quickly for me to feel I’d accomplished anything. I was essentially a messenger between the people in the camp and the aid community. With various agencies running three clinics, five schools, biweekly food and non-food distributions, hundreds of latrines and water pumps, someone had to be the go-between, and that person was me.