Friday, May 26, 2006
Ok I am here for other reasons than henna parties and weddings. So I would encourage you to check out the new slide show that SP has done on Darfur. It's on their main page at www.samaritanspurse.org. It will give you a better picture of the food distributions that we are doing here. I am proud to say that little SP (yes we are considered small in the NGO world here) is currently distributing food to 10% of the population that are on the food ration list. Enjoy!
Henna Anyone?
Wow do Sudanese women know how to party! One thing that has amazed me here is that even though 90% of a Sudanese women's body is covered, the other 10% is made to look beautiful. Also, if some of the hidden 90% of her body happens to shows it is painted, manicured and beautified to catch a man's eye. So last night I was able to join one of our staff and be involved in a henna party the night before her wedding. 
Basically all the women that are close to the bride or are in the wedding party come together to paint themselves with henna for the next day's event. I have never had henna before and where better to try but in Darfur. The bride made the comment that 'henna is life in Darfur, no henna, not really a woman'. This is a very important part of their culture here. The pictures are of myself and the bride, and the artist working on my arms.
Like any gathering of women there is food, drinks and lots of talking. They talk about very normal things. They like to know if I have children, a husband or a boyfriend. And each no is followed with a 'why not'? Then the drums start and the dancing and singing follow. Soon a large bus of women pull up to the house and pile out in a wave of dancing and singing. However, the bride is not to be seen until the wedding. So she remained hidden in the back room while the rest of the women join in the party. However, she was not going to miss out on all the fun. She climbed up on a bed to peek through a crack between the roof and the wall so she could see what was happening. Periodically some men would arrive and dance their way through the women and then join the rest of the men in a room on the side. What a party! But it doesn't stay in one place for long. They all pile back into the bus and hit the groom's home and start the party all over again. I'm excited to see what is going to happen at the wedding today.
Basically all the women that are close to the bride or are in the wedding party come together to paint themselves with henna for the next day's event. I have never had henna before and where better to try but in Darfur. The bride made the comment that 'henna is life in Darfur, no henna, not really a woman'. This is a very important part of their culture here. The pictures are of myself and the bride, and the artist working on my arms. 
Like any gathering of women there is food, drinks and lots of talking. They talk about very normal things. They like to know if I have children, a husband or a boyfriend. And each no is followed with a 'why not'? Then the drums start and the dancing and singing follow. Soon a large bus of women pull up to the house and pile out in a wave of dancing and singing. However, the bride is not to be seen until the wedding. So she remained hidden in the back room while the rest of the women join in the party. However, she was not going to miss out on all the fun. She climbed up on a bed to peek through a crack between the roof and the wall so she could see what was happening. Periodically some men would arrive and dance their way through the women and then join the rest of the men in a room on the side. What a party! But it doesn't stay in one place for long. They all pile back into the bus and hit the groom's home and start the party all over again. I'm excited to see what is going to happen at the wedding today.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Only One Week?!
I can't believe that I have only been in Nyala for one week tomorrow. It feels like I have been here for at least a month. That would mean that I have accomplished very little but I still feel like I have been here forever. I have only been in Sudan for 12 days! Mozambique feels like it was forever ago. I miss my friends there a whole lot. Thank goodness for cheap phone calls with Skype or I would be in big trouble.
Things are going well here. I'm still trying to get a handle on the programs and their budgets. That part has taken much longer than I had expected. I have a great assistant here that I would be lost without. His name is John. He is really smart and also a lot of fun. Often we get distracted and start talking about all aspects of life here in Sudan. I think we will become good friends over the next year.
Getting used to living with 7 new people is probably the biggest adjustment. I am very thankful that I have my own room to get away to. They all seem like great people but you have to have some boundries or you could end up bashing heads more than you mean to. Different people have different levels of cleanliness (and mine is one of the cleaner levels believe it or not), different preferances for pets (there are two dirty dogs that some of the team call pets), and different items of conversation that people enjoy (I won't even go into this). So your own room is a must in this environment.
I have entered NGO world. Every white land cruiser driving down the road is plastered with the various NGO logos. I have seen more white people in the last week than I would see in an average month in Mozambique. When you introduce yourself around town as you meet these other aid workers adding your NGO to the end of your name is a must. So I would say "Angie-SP" and they would respond "Jeff-ICRC" or "Sarah-MSF". The first time it happened to me I had to hold back the laughter. It's just such a different world here.
But all in all I think I am adjusting well. I'm slow at learing Arabic but the staff are patient with me and insist on teaching me a new word everday even though I forget it five minutes after they teach me. I love being here and still looking forward to this year and the adventures I know it will bring.
Things are going well here. I'm still trying to get a handle on the programs and their budgets. That part has taken much longer than I had expected. I have a great assistant here that I would be lost without. His name is John. He is really smart and also a lot of fun. Often we get distracted and start talking about all aspects of life here in Sudan. I think we will become good friends over the next year.
Getting used to living with 7 new people is probably the biggest adjustment. I am very thankful that I have my own room to get away to. They all seem like great people but you have to have some boundries or you could end up bashing heads more than you mean to. Different people have different levels of cleanliness (and mine is one of the cleaner levels believe it or not), different preferances for pets (there are two dirty dogs that some of the team call pets), and different items of conversation that people enjoy (I won't even go into this). So your own room is a must in this environment.
I have entered NGO world. Every white land cruiser driving down the road is plastered with the various NGO logos. I have seen more white people in the last week than I would see in an average month in Mozambique. When you introduce yourself around town as you meet these other aid workers adding your NGO to the end of your name is a must. So I would say "Angie-SP" and they would respond "Jeff-ICRC" or "Sarah-MSF". The first time it happened to me I had to hold back the laughter. It's just such a different world here.
But all in all I think I am adjusting well. I'm slow at learing Arabic but the staff are patient with me and insist on teaching me a new word everday even though I forget it five minutes after they teach me. I love being here and still looking forward to this year and the adventures I know it will bring.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Celebrations in Nyala
Day three in Darfur started off with a wedding celebration. Like most African cultures wedding ceremonies are a series of celebrations. Today I was able to take part in a ‘breakfast’ to celebrate the upcoming wedding of two of our staff members. The funniest part is that both of them are out in the field doing food distributions but that doesn’t stop the rest of their family and friends from celebrating. So we arrived and I experienced the first bit of culture shock of living in a muslim culture. I started to follow the guys that were with us to greet the men that were standing around and I was quickly stopped and told that I must walk around a different way and enter the women’s area. Oops! My world of men and women being treated relatively the same are over.
So we had to walk all the way around a sheltered area where the men sat on mats eating and talking and entered the area where the women and children sat. But even there we didn’t fit and we were escorted into a little hut where we sat and waited for people to come in and greet us there. Shortly after we arrived a large platter of bread and other dishes were brought for us to eat. So we removed our shoes, sat on mats and dug into the food using only our right hand. It’s quite an art to tear off a piece of bread and use it to scoop up the various sauces and only using one hand to accomplish the task. But we seemed to be able to make a significant dent in the pile of food.
After the trays were ushered away and hands were washed the little hut slowly filled with women some carrying traditional drums. The drumming started and our role was to clap along. The women all joined in singing and some danced. The bride’s mother joined us with a bottle of perfume and sprayed it throughout the hut. I guess this is supposed to make us all happy. She danced around waving a colorful cloth singing and spraying perfume. I could have sat there all day listening to them sing but I could have done without the cheep perfume.
All I could think about as I sat on this rickety bed in the middle of a small mud hut amongst beautiful Sudanese women singing and dancing was how God has blessed me. Just to be able to sit and celebrate with women who are in the center of a war zone and have experienced pain that I can not even comprehend is something I never want to take for granted. Last night I joined a security meeting that the UN holds twice a week for NGO’s and I heard about the movement of the rebel groups, which villages had been attacked and which roads are not safe to travel on and yet the next morning I am celebrating a marriage. Life continues here even with the horrors that surround them. God’s grace is real.
So we had to walk all the way around a sheltered area where the men sat on mats eating and talking and entered the area where the women and children sat. But even there we didn’t fit and we were escorted into a little hut where we sat and waited for people to come in and greet us there. Shortly after we arrived a large platter of bread and other dishes were brought for us to eat. So we removed our shoes, sat on mats and dug into the food using only our right hand. It’s quite an art to tear off a piece of bread and use it to scoop up the various sauces and only using one hand to accomplish the task. But we seemed to be able to make a significant dent in the pile of food.
After the trays were ushered away and hands were washed the little hut slowly filled with women some carrying traditional drums. The drumming started and our role was to clap along. The women all joined in singing and some danced. The bride’s mother joined us with a bottle of perfume and sprayed it throughout the hut. I guess this is supposed to make us all happy. She danced around waving a colorful cloth singing and spraying perfume. I could have sat there all day listening to them sing but I could have done without the cheep perfume.
All I could think about as I sat on this rickety bed in the middle of a small mud hut amongst beautiful Sudanese women singing and dancing was how God has blessed me. Just to be able to sit and celebrate with women who are in the center of a war zone and have experienced pain that I can not even comprehend is something I never want to take for granted. Last night I joined a security meeting that the UN holds twice a week for NGO’s and I heard about the movement of the rebel groups, which villages had been attacked and which roads are not safe to travel on and yet the next morning I am celebrating a marriage. Life continues here even with the horrors that surround them. God’s grace is real.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Dust Anyone?
So I’m sitting here in the Khartoum team house watching a little ‘Friends’ on TV and it starts to get dark outside a little too early. So we take a look out the window and watch my very first sand storm roll in. It’s rather interesting. Everything turned orange and the houses a couple doors down disappeared. It’s still happening right now but the orange turns lighter and darker as the wind picks up. This is just one of the few firsts that I have experienced in less than a week in Sudan.
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So I’m sitting here in the Khartoum team house watching a little ‘Friends’ on TV and it starts to get dark outside a little too early. So we take a look out the window and watch my very first sand storm roll in. It’s rather interesting. Everything turned orange and the houses a couple doors down disappeared. It’s still happening right now but the orange turns lighter and darker as the wind picks up. This is just one of the few firsts that I have experienced in less than a week in Sudan.
Tomorrow morning I am flying again but this time just a two hour flight to Nyala (a town in Darfur) where I will be living for the next year. I have spent the last couple of days doing actually very little. Most say that I should enjoy it while I can but really it’s driving me nuts. I would rather be busy working but I’m sure my time will come. I have been doing some training but not as much as I expected to be doing. But it has given me a chance to join the country director in visiting some projects that we are assisting in. It was a good chance to see a bit of Khartoum and hear some stories from Sudanese people about what has been happening in their lives.
One of the greatest firsts for me was being able to cross over the Nile. Khartoum is built on the area around where the White Nile and the Blue Nile come together to become The Nile. It struck me as to how blessed I am to see this. However, I crossed the Nile the modern way by driving over a big bridge not the romantic way of rowing across it in a rickety wooden boat. But I take what I can get.
So tomorrow my life changes once more as I head into Darfur. I think I’m excited now. It’s been a process of sadness to leave Mozambique, nervousness in entering the great unknown and now excitement to see what this adventure holds for me. I know that there is a lot of work ahead of me. Finances have been a tense point for our staff in Durfur for many reasons so I am kind of getting sent into the lion’s den. But the good thing is that I don’t think I can make things worse. Things can only get better.
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So I’m sitting here in the Khartoum team house watching a little ‘Friends’ on TV and it starts to get dark outside a little too early. So we take a look out the window and watch my very first sand storm roll in. It’s rather interesting. Everything turned orange and the houses a couple doors down disappeared. It’s still happening right now but the orange turns lighter and darker as the wind picks up. This is just one of the few firsts that I have experienced in less than a week in Sudan.
Tomorrow morning I am flying again but this time just a two hour flight to Nyala (a town in Darfur) where I will be living for the next year. I have spent the last couple of days doing actually very little. Most say that I should enjoy it while I can but really it’s driving me nuts. I would rather be busy working but I’m sure my time will come. I have been doing some training but not as much as I expected to be doing. But it has given me a chance to join the country director in visiting some projects that we are assisting in. It was a good chance to see a bit of Khartoum and hear some stories from Sudanese people about what has been happening in their lives.
One of the greatest firsts for me was being able to cross over the Nile. Khartoum is built on the area around where the White Nile and the Blue Nile come together to become The Nile. It struck me as to how blessed I am to see this. However, I crossed the Nile the modern way by driving over a big bridge not the romantic way of rowing across it in a rickety wooden boat. But I take what I can get.
So tomorrow my life changes once more as I head into Darfur. I think I’m excited now. It’s been a process of sadness to leave Mozambique, nervousness in entering the great unknown and now excitement to see what this adventure holds for me. I know that there is a lot of work ahead of me. Finances have been a tense point for our staff in Durfur for many reasons so I am kind of getting sent into the lion’s den. But the good thing is that I don’t think I can make things worse. Things can only get better.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Safe and Sound
Well I have made it to Sudan. The flights went well other than the extra luggage costs (they were only going to allow me 20kgs!) and I arrived with people waiting to pick me up. So all went well. I met this great lady from Germany that has been working in Darfur since December as a doctor for MSF. So it was great to talk to her about her perceptions and how she has dealt with everything. It was a great blessing to have talked to her and I felt a little bit more prepared and excited by the time I got off the plane.
I got to meet a lot of the team on the first night. They all left the next morning for Nyala but at least I got to spend a couple of hours with them. They all seem very nice and I'm looking forward to getting to know them more. Here Friday's and Saturday's are the weekends so I arrived with two days off ahead of me. Not a bad way to start off. I haven't had much of a chance to see Khartoum but it looks like a modern city. The roads are nice and the buildings have this middle eastern touch to them. Very different from Mozambique.
Africa amazes me how diverse it can be but at the same time very similar. As I went from east to west last month it was strange to get off the plane in Liberia and it felt like I did a lot of flying but ended up in the same place. There are so many things that are the same between the two countries. Yet I got off the plane in Khartoum and there was no doubt that I have entered a different world. It's hard to find similarities between Mozambique and Sudan. Many people reffer to Africa like one big country. Yet each country has it's own 'flavor' and I'm excited to discover Sudan's.
It looks like I will have a couple more days in Khartoum before I head off to Nyala. So I will enjoy the luxuries like restraunts and air conditioning while I have them
I got to meet a lot of the team on the first night. They all left the next morning for Nyala but at least I got to spend a couple of hours with them. They all seem very nice and I'm looking forward to getting to know them more. Here Friday's and Saturday's are the weekends so I arrived with two days off ahead of me. Not a bad way to start off. I haven't had much of a chance to see Khartoum but it looks like a modern city. The roads are nice and the buildings have this middle eastern touch to them. Very different from Mozambique.
Africa amazes me how diverse it can be but at the same time very similar. As I went from east to west last month it was strange to get off the plane in Liberia and it felt like I did a lot of flying but ended up in the same place. There are so many things that are the same between the two countries. Yet I got off the plane in Khartoum and there was no doubt that I have entered a different world. It's hard to find similarities between Mozambique and Sudan. Many people reffer to Africa like one big country. Yet each country has it's own 'flavor' and I'm excited to discover Sudan's.
It looks like I will have a couple more days in Khartoum before I head off to Nyala. So I will enjoy the luxuries like restraunts and air conditioning while I have them
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