Domesticity in Darfur

It's hard to believe it's already September. Time seems to fly. I've been planning this post since I visited Nyala from April 29 to May 5, 2008. Yet some how it's taken me four months to get around to writing it.

And things have changed during those four months. In fact, I feel funny writing this now that the United Nations has elevated the security phase for Darfur from phase III to phase IV and limited its programs in the region emergency operations, humanitarian relief, and other programs deemed necessary by the Secretary General. But the fact is, I had a very good time in Nyala. And I think it's worth sharing a different perspective on Darfur than that which most people who have never been there tend to think of. That way, maybe my friends and family won't worry so much about me.

My six days in the capital of South Darfur were among the most relaxing and intellectually stimulating of my year in Sudan. During that week, I enjoyed family-style lunches at the UNDP office, attended a number of dinner parties at guesthouses around Nyala, stayed up late discussing access to justice and the role of a development agency in a conflict zone under the rakuba (shown below), played the British version of Cranium and with the kitten who was staying at the guesthouse, and ate very, very well.

And when I say I ate well, I mean it. My first night in Nyala, I attended a good-bye party at the IOM office, where I partook in a feast of Indian food to the sounds of Amharic music. The next night, I joined my UNDP colleagues for dinner at an NGO guesthouse, where we fed on tacos and fajitas...in Sudan! And one night, we even had talapia imported from Lake Victoria, prepared in traditional Kenyan style, and mojitos. I don't even eat that well in Khartoum. I certainly didn't expect it in Darfur.

All things considered, I greatly preferred Nyala to Khartoum. Everyone I met was extremely friendly. No one yelled "khawaja" at me on the streets as they do in Khartoum. The weather was substantially cooler there than it was in Khartoum at that time of year. And I got to chill under the rakuba every night. How do you beat that?

So, naturally, I felt a little guilty as I left Nyala. Although I was there for work, for me it felt almost like a vacation from my real life. And yet tens of thousands are living in internally displaced persons camps around Nyala. These are people with real problems, who have suffered in ways that we in the west can hardly imagine. But as I've always said, I'm trying to avoid politics in this blog, and I did very well when I was in Eritrea. So, I will leave it at that.