Day 13 - 1/22/08

This is day 2 in El Fasher. I left Khartoum yesterday at the ass crack of dawn (quite literally) because dispatch said I needed to be at the airport at 6am. Naturally I was 5 min late for my 5:30 pickup but no one bothered to call me. They just took off. There was a brief moment of uncertainty before Ayman (Egyptian military liaison for civilian affairs… I think) hooked me up with a ride. He asked why I was going so early and called his boy at the airport to make sure I got on and then we went to pray together. We took off to pick up Maj. Magdi who was staying with him and Talaat at their apt in Ktm. He cooked breakfast for everyone and really it was a great morning.

At the airport we check in and when I went out for a smoke, a protection officer named Marlise notice the “Mawrter” shirt I was wearing. Turns out she graduated from there in the early 90s. She was pretty cool. Not the most attractive person in the world but definitely chill. I shared my last few smokes with her before we finally boarded.

When I got to Fasher (ELF – as they call the airport) they took us to Compound A where I met Abdulaziz Abdulaziz – human rights team leader for the place. Nice guy, western educated, knows a lot of the figures in the human rights world and many of those I worked with. Unfortunately he was busy so I only really got to talk to him later that eve when Geetha and Sanait took me home for some spicy penne dinner. At Compound A I also met Abigail, the new reporting officer for ELF after El Geneina personnel were relocated due to the fighting. She’s a short, cynical, British atheist – hilarious and cool. Gave some of the inside scoop on dynamics as well as logistics. A sort of informal “induction” if you will. We got along swimmingly.

I cooked dinner for Geetha, Abby, and Sanait tonight – a sort of improv stir fry. Mind you, to do so, I had to go to the market. The market in ELF is exactly what you’d imagine in a really old medieval rural desert setting. It was an expansive square full of vegetable vendors, kids, old men and women pitching their wares and stalls, mostly made of wood and straw. It was rustic to say the least. The biggest surprise was to find a total of about 5 types of vegetables in the entire market. I think this is the first bit of culture shock I had in a while. I’d been expecting a pretty desolate war-torn place but to think how little these people have really took me aback. Little kids were trying to sell me plastic bags. I felt bad telling them off but the sad truth is I’m not saving these people, nor is the UN here to do so really. I hope this UNAMID protection mandate actually helps. Hearing Abby talk about taking off with other UN peeps in a chopper with a thousand villagers looking on, knowing that they would be attacked in a few minutes by Janjaweed was pretty jarring.

So tomorrow off to Nyala to meet Innocent – my team leader there. I’m pretty excited since I get the feeling, from what everyone has said, that it’s pretty close to civilization compared to ELF. There are restaurants and accommodations and such. The car jackings seem to be a pretty big problem, especially on the Chadian border. I was talking with Ma`ruf (our driver here) about a number of car jackings he’d been involved with, the worst of which is when guys with grenades, automatic weapons, and a flame thrower (!!!) attacked but let them go later. Today, friends of the human rights crew got jacked in Geneina. Thankfully everyone got through it ok. They ran from the armed men who fired at them but got away. They came over the sand dune only to see another UN car full of DSS (Dept. of Safety and Security) guys. They warned them but the car went ahead anyway. They got jacked too. Earlier 2 WFP food trucks got jacked. Fucking hell of a day. This place is pretty fucked up but I just got here… I’m sure there will be more to tell.