What's It Like There?
Since I have been in Darfur many of my friends and family have asked me the question "What's it like there?" Let me just point out that there is a 30 second window for me to answer that question before most people completely lose interest. It isn't their fault for not being interested nor is it mine for being a poor informant but I think it is human nature. If you came from Vermont and we went to school together or met somehow in another place I might ask you that question. I DO care. I just cannot relate and anything that is distant from me such as Vermont is difficult for me to pay attention to for more than thirty seconds. So what is the Darfur Conflict like? Here is my thirty second explanation. It is not like the Rawanda Genocide. It is not like the chaos in Somalia. It is not like Iraq. It is a slow, painful and lengthy choking of the people in a particular region of a country that is nearly one third the size of the US. In Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, you could live relatively normal lives without ever knowing about or even experiencing the direct effects of the fighting here. Nyala, the main town in the Darfur region, is a large city with nearly 2 million people and here we have restaurants, grocery stores and even internet cafes. The suffering however, is not very far from the where I safely sleep at night. Just south of here about 80-100km there are rebel troops fighting for the land that the government is taking from them. Don't get me wrong, the rebels are not necessarily this great freedom fighting force opposing an opressive government. Amoungst all men of any tribe, tongue or nation there are rapists, murderers and thieves. After being here for nearly 5 months now I still cannot clearly understand the conflict but I know that daily people are dying from either direct fights between forces or from the economic and agricultural problems which are a result of the fighting. As one of my collegeues said "this generation is lost...but the next is coming along, trying to grow up and if we can save them then maybe later on in the future there will be a peaceful and prosperous place in what is now a warzone." If we can stop a man from passing his gun along with a his hatred to his son then maybe peace will come.
