Finally Home

I have finally arrived in Darfur. It really feels like I have come. It's a very strange and comforting feeling - especially because this home feeling only comes in a crazy place like Darfur. Here is something that I wrote along the way - more out of frustration than anything.

"I used to love airplanes and airports but the more I fly the more I dread the trips. Hauling luggage, standing in lines and the hours you spend waiting really takes it's toll. The flights to Khartoum were not so bad this time around. I even got upgraded to business class from Frankfurt to Khartoum. I had to get the guy next to me to show me how to work the seats because I'm used to the one button to recline the seat not the 8 buttons that do all fancy things with the seats in business class. But the flight from Khartoum to Nyala is a whole different story. I was told to be at the airport at 4am for my flight. This was not a big deal since I am up at 2 or 3 in the morning anyway due to jet lag. So I get to the airport and it is raining which menas that instead of waiting outside the building until I can check in we all cram into this waiting areas a nd hope that you can hear when you are allowed to go through the first security check and onto the check-in counter. Finally after 1 1/2 hours I heard something about Nova which is the airline that I am flying on. So I grab my computer, my shoulder bag, my guitar, my huge suitcase ad my smaller suitcase and push my way through the crowd. Sometimes the airport staff take pity on the Kawadja (foreign) women and assist them through the mobs. So one guy grabs my small suitcase and tells me to follow him. So with my two bags, guitar and remaining large suitcase I try to push my way through. For those of you enjoying the Calgary Stampede thing of the throngs of people you have to get through then add on more luggage you can handle and try to make it through. It's not an easy task. So I make it to the x-ray machine and some more nice guys throw my stuff on the belt and I rush around the other side to catch it all before it gets thrown onto the huge pile of bags on the other side. I collect all my things and try to fight my way to the check in counter which always seems to be ther farthest one away.

It doesn't rain very often in Khartoum so the roofs are very rairly sealed which means that there is water dripping from the foor collecting in puddles everywhere on the floor. In most modern buildings in Sudan the floors are tiled with nice smooth marble or something similar which makes them very easy to clean. But it also makes them very slippery when there are puddles of water everywhere. So people are slipping and sliding as they they try to fight the crowds and step over boxes, bags and suitcases trying to get from point A to B. I finally pay the airport tax and get into the mob that is my check in counter. There are no lines or ques here in Sudan. It is every man for themselves and who ever ca get their ticket to the check-in guy first is next in line. So I leave my big bags in a puddle behind me and do the push and shove to get my ticket up front. Finally one guy takes pity on the only Kawadja woman in the midst of all the pushy Sudanese men and puts my ticket in the front of the line. So I thanks him then push my way out of the outstretched arms holding tickets to gather my luggage and lift it over the rest of the luggage waiting to be checked in and on to the scale. Finally I am rid of all that stuff for another couple of hours. One new thing at the airport sice the last time I had been through is that they changed the location of the hand luggage screening and routine pat down that is awlays a pleasure to go through. But someone wasn't thinking becuase the line to go through this security check snakes it's way through the same space where the big pile of luggage is from the initial security screening as well as the mobs that are trying to check in. So a little more pushing, shoving and bumping and I'm through. 2 hours and twenty minutes later I am finaly sitting in the waiting area watching, waiting and again hoping that I can hear when my flight is called. Oh Sudan, oh how I have missed you."

Well I made it all the way through to Nyala with all my luggage and a little bit of my sanity left. It is so sweet to be home. I really have missed this place. It has felt like I have come home. Back to my room and my wonderful bed on the floor. I always sleep so well here so it's good to be sleeping well again. Even though it has only been two months and things in Sudan are slow to change, at the same time so much has changed. There are new international and national staff that I'm getting to know, my little puppy grew into a dog while I was gone, and many of my friends that were here before have all moved on. But some things like insecurity have not changed. We had another vehicle stolen yesterday in the field but they got it stuck in the mud so they covered it with mud and abandoned it. So we did get it back which is very good and a little humorous. When you steal something make sure you have the ability to get it out of the area. It was found only 5 mins from where they stole it.

So there are still a lot of challenges ahead of me and trying to move from finances to education is one of them. But I welcome it all becuase without challenges in life we would never grow and it would just be plain borring