Six Months in Sudan

by Dr. James Maskalyk

  I had a new roommate, a Darfurian driver waiting to return to the field. We chatted on occasion, and smoked together. I asked him once to join me for dinner, but he declined. The per diem we were given was too small for the Turkish restaurant I liked, and it was the only place I knew. I left him watching one of the dozens of Arabic channels on the television, and when I returned, he was in bed.

  On my last night, I packed my final list of things. My pack already weighed 20 kilograms, but I could pare it down no further. I was reminded of when I traveled to Cambodia, my backpack full of unlabeled white pills and a letter I wrote for myself giving me permission to “import” them in my pocket. When I confessed my nervousness to the physician who was helping me plan, he shrugged and said, “Just try to look important.”

  In Khartoum’s domestic airport, I received my printed paper ticket, and my backpack was weighed, then hauled off behind the desk. My driver queued behind me, pretending to be a passenger, holding my carry-on full of books. I grabbed my bag from him, clapped him on the shoulder, and walked through the empty security gate to the departure lounge.

  I sat on one of its hard plastic chairs and waited for the flight to be called. I would be taken from Khartoum to El Obeid, from there to Abyei. I was told that the last person who had waited for her flight hadn’t understood the Arabic announcement and missed it. She had to be driven the distance by car. It took three days. I strained to hear the flight numbers.

  The call came. I queued up with six other passengers. Our tickets were checked, and we were led out onto the hot tarmac, between UN planes, to a small aircraft with WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME written in UN blue on the side. Much of the NGO work in Sudan, however little we liked to admit it, was entirely dependent on the United Nations.

  The WFP plane was small, enough room for twelve passengers. We boarded it and climbed into separate rows. No one spoke. The South African pilot turned around in the small cabin, a few feet ahead, and greeted us. He described our route and apologized in advance for the bumps. It was the hot desert air, he explained, a reliable pleasure of being in Sudan.

  Flying was not my thing. In Cambodia, I was sitting with a friend in a small restaurant when the upright barrel of the AK-47 of a customer next to us slid along the edge of his table and landed with a thwack at our feet. Its owner smiled sheepishly at us and picked it up. In Malawi, I shivered with a fever in the back of a truck on its way to the nearest hospital. Still, when I questioned my choice of career, it was never because of the guns or the diseases that might find my living body as good as the one behind me. It was because the job put me on plane after goddamn plane, multiplying the statistical chance that an engine would fail and I would fall out of the sky, a fool who ignored the equation.

  The plane stuttered to a start, and after a quick run, we were in the air. As we climbed, the plane’s tail wagged back and forth. I looked at the other passengers. They seemed unconcerned. I buckled my seat belt, whatever good it would do when we smashed into the sand at three hundred miles an hour and caught fire.

  We banked over Khartoum. For the first time, I saw the Niles. One of them, the White, pours out of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, its water swimming with cichlid fish and Nile perch. It passes through Uganda, then over Sudan’s border until, a thousand feet below, it meets with the Blue carrying water from the cool highlands of Ethiopia. United they stretch from Khartoum across the desert and empty into the Mediterranean Sea.

  Around us, the sky was cloudless. The shadow of our small plane followed us on the ground. As we moved higher, it grew smaller, and finally disappeared.

  We were soon far from the city. Over the flat, dry landscape below, camel paths crossed one another, their trajectories slightly different. Towns organized in right angles, like a hedge maze, appeared on the sand. Slowly, the settlements became smaller, rounder, until they were only lone huts circled with a large fence. Soon even these were gone. No paths, and no people. The earth was a huge red circle rimmed with blue.

  The rest of the passengers were asleep, save me and the woman behind. I turned and squeezed my face between my seat and the rattling hull. I could see her bright print dress. She leaned forward and smiled.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “To which part of Sudan are you going? Kadugli? Abyei?”

  “Oh, I’m going to Abyei. You?”

  “Same. MSF. I’m the new doctor. James is my name. What about you?”

  “Nyala. I’m working with a Sudanese NGO. I’m only going to Abyei for a few days.”

  “What for?”

  “I am meeting with local groups, you know, community leaders and such, to talk about public ownership of resources.”

  “Like what? Oil?”

  She laughed. “No. No one in the community will ever own those ones. Though they should. I’ll talk with them about water, for instance, or electricity. Public goods, public ownership. In the case of Abyei, it’s a bit premature. But you can’t really have the dialogue too early. Only too late. How long are you going for?”

  “Six months. Well, I guess closer to five from today’s date. Is it nice, Abyei?” I asked.

  “Well. I don’t know. Nice enough. Where are you from?”

  “Canada.”

  “Oh! I was born in Khartoum but I lived in Saskatchewan for many years. My daughter was born there. We live in Khartoum now. I liked Canada very much.”

  “I grew up in Alberta. We were neighbors.”

  “Is this your first time in Sudan?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think so far?”

  “Well … it’s kinda early to say.”

  “Well, James, I always tell people, you will either love it or hate it. Me, I love it. My life in Canada was very nice, peaceful. But there is something about Sudan. It becomes a part of you.”

  “I hope it does. I like hearing that.”

  “It’s not an easy place to love. It’s complicated. I guess everywhere is, but maybe this place more than others. Most people here are good. Too many of us suffer, though. Too many resources in the hands of too few.”

  “It’s a common story.”

  “Yes. Too common. But here … Well, you’ll see. People are so poor. Many can’t read. The government is something that happened to them, not because of them.”

  The plane made a slow descent towards El Obeid and landed. The other male passenger got off, black attaché case under his arm. Nyala and I continued to talk about our different countries on the tarmac. We were exchanging places. This time, I was the immigrant. We took to the sky again, five of us now, and over the drone of the propellers, she talked about her home.

  She explained that most people in Sudan weren’t rebels, or military. Many were nomads. For centuries, people walked for hundreds of kilometers, some farther; some would walk all the way from Eritrea through Chad, or the Central African Republic. They knew the land only to use it for their cattle, to pass over it.

  That life was dying throughout Sudan. There was no room for it any more. Too many farms, too many borders to cross, all these new invisible lines. Tensions grew high between them and the landowners, and soon between one another.

  Then the war came. People were told that the last of their land was at stake, their livelihood, that their ancient enemies were at their doorstep ready to take it away; if they didn’t strike first, they would lose. They were given weapons, and they struck. With the odds so heavily in their favor, they razed.

  People fled, and now no one marched to the capital demanding electricity, or oil, or hospitals. They were too busy trying to find their brother, or their child. More guns poured into Sudan, and with them more fighting. Banditry took the place of trade, militia groups the place of schools.

  And the people were left eating dust. Not even the land is theirs any more. After twenty years, one was left with places like Abyei.

  “In the end, that’s what we’ve lost—our way of life. Our memory of
it, and of our home, is all we have. No matter how long we are away, we feel we must come back to it.”

  “Is that why you’re on the plane to Abyei?” I asked.

  She smiled. “It’s because in my heart, I am a nomad.”

  She turned towards the window. We were both tired from yelling over the wind. The plane buzzed on. Below, ghostly green trees waited by the banks of dry riverbeds for a gush of water still months away. On the sand, a few patches of scrub. The horizon was flat and unending.

  I was glad to be quiet. Everything was heavy. Every instance, every encounter, every conversation. Each moment assumed an exact weight. I put my head against the window. It rattled. I took it away. My understanding of the world had gone up by an exponent.

  All of the passengers had fallen asleep except me. The pilots were silent, not even talking to each other. I wondered how many times they had done this run, how many good intentions they had ferried across the sand compared to how few they had brought back.

  The plane starts to descend. It bumps against hotter layers of dry air, shakes and clatters. I glance at the women. They’re cool with it.

  I place my face against the crack of my seat.

  “This must be it.”

  “You’re probably right,” Nyala says.

  We are now only a hundred meters from the ground. I can see, through the bare trees, the grass roof of an occasional hut. As we drop lower, a goat runs on one of a hundred paths, its owner chasing behind.

  In an instant Abyei flies into sight. In the middle of a dry patch of earth, a colony of huts and people and movement and then, gone. We are buzzing again over the thin forest.

  “I think we missed the landing strip,” a passenger shouts.

  “I think they were checking for goats,” I answer.

  We loop around, turning neatly on our side (and, in my opinion, nearly completely over). The plane rights and, with aplomb, lowers onto a cracked, rumbling strip of land.

  We stop in a cloud of dust. It swirls around us, then disappears on the wind. To our side, underneath a large leafless tree, sit three Land Cruisers. Their drivers wave to the plane. Smiling, the other passengers wave back.

  “Welcome to Abyei,” the pilot announces in a South African drawl as he opens the door. “The weather on the ground is hot and dusty and forecast is … what was the forecast again, Mike? Right. Hotter with more dust. We hope you enjoy your stay. Oh, and for the record, you’re both wrong. We were looking for donkeys.”

  Our bags are unloaded on the ground. I grab my backpack and walk towards the tree. It offers little shade.

  Fuck, it’s hot.

  I can’t see an MSF vehicle. They must have been able to see the plane. I put my backpack on the ground and sit on it. The villagers who have come to watch us land are now straggling back home. I fumble for my camera.

  Click.

  Two of the Land Cruisers pull away. Nyala sits in the passenger seat of the third. She leans out the window.

  “I can give you a ride, if you want,” she says.

  “I don’t know where I’m going,” I answer.

  She laughs. “Abyei’s not that big.”

  There is no sign of another car.

  “All right. MSF compound. Thank you.” I throw my bags through the rear door.

  We bump across the landing strip and enter Abyei. There appears to be one red dirt road. After a few hundred meters on it, we stop. On a grass fence is a red and white door, and in the middle of it, a small MSF sticker.

  “Here you are,” Nyala says. “Welcome home.”

  “Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “No problem, James. I’ll be seeing you.”

  I take my bags, and her Land Cruiser drives off. I knock on the gate. It creaks open. A tall, thin Sudanese man steps out to greet me. He’s holding a radio.

  “I’m James. The new doctor.”

  “Welcome, welcome.” He gestures me in, closes the door, then turns and sits down on a wooden chair, perched in the shade of a grass awning.

  I walk past him. To my left and right are two huts with grass roofs. I can see no one in either of them. I continue on. The ground is dust. I pass a large white canvas tent full of tires. Beyond it is a square brick building, and inside, an African woman is making food. I wave. She waves back, turns towards her pot, stirs it.

  In the middle of the compound, flanked on all sides by half a dozen huts, is a tin-roofed house with no walls, a gazebo. Chairs are scattered around on its floor and a makeshift couch sits at one end.

  I walk to it, to get out of the sun. I take my bag from my back and throw it on the floor. It lands in a puff of dust. I look around.

  Where is everyone?

  Bang.

  CHAPTER I

  (Blink.)

  What?

  (Blink.)

  knockknockknockknock.

  “Yes …”

  “James? Sorry to wake you. There’s been an accident. We need you at the hospital. James?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  Whatthefuck.

  I open my eyes. Mosquito net. Grass roof. Right. Abyei. Made it.

  I lift off the corner of the mosquito net and a fine cloud of dust descends. I swing my feet to the cement floor and stand up. My back is wet. My mouth tastes like ashes. I’m dizzy, just for a second. Then, a headache. I sit back down, lean my head on my hand.

  What happened last night? Oh yeah. Party. Someone was going away. Or a birthday. I can’t remember. Nyala was there. Who else. Some of the team. Tim. Smoked a hundred cigarettes. And then what. Sick. Diarrhea. I lay by the latrine until dawn. What time is it now? Ten. Whoa. Ugh.

  Hospital. Right. Accident. Cotton. My head’s cotton.

  I look around the hut. Tim, my Swiss tukulmate, is gone. I reach underneath the bed for my stethoscope, searching. There it is. I stand, take the MSF shirt dangling from a rope strung between sticks in the grass roof, look around for my shoes, then slide into them.

  I open the low door, bend underneath its frame, and clip my head on the beam of the awning.

  “Motherfuck.”

  I rub my head. Paola, the Italian nurse, is standing right outside.

  “Sorry, James, but we need you at the hospital. Car accident. Sandrine is already there. So’s Bev. I think there’s quite a crowd,” she says.

  “Okay. No sweat. I gotta get some water.”

  “They need you right now.”

  “I’ll drink it on the way.”

  Paola leads. She and I met two days ago, on my arrival. Young, cute. Boyfriend. I walk into the small brick kitchen and grab a plastic Coke bottle filled with warm water, then jog into step behind her.

  Glug-glug.

  I am having a tough time drinking water and keeping up. I’m spilling some of it on my shirt. We walk out of our gate, turn right, then right again at the tire half buried in the red dirt.

  Okay, this is our compound to the right, behind the grass wall. Glug. Compound, compound, compound. On the left, another grass wall, huts behind it. Sixty paces and the grass walls end on both sides. To the right, a football field-sized flood plain, and at each side, football goals. Empty. Too hot.

  Coming up on my left is a military compound surrounded by barbed wire. Which faction? Government, I think. SAF. Bev told me on my second day. Yesterday. Wow. Seems longer. Difficult to keep it all straight.

  We sat for an hour in a hot hut. As the rest of the team talked in the gazebo, we hunched over maps as I recorded a list of names and acronyms. She told me who I should watch out for, who was best to avoid, and ended with, “Just leave it to me.” That sounded fine. When the time came for Sandrine, the departing doctor, to show me the patients she was leaving me, Bev suggested that my time would be better spent going on an early-evening tour of Abyei. We bumped across un-tracked ground, past half-built huts until we had done one large circle. It took about fifteen minutes. I was to meet with Jean, the logistician, to get a technical and communications briefing. When I poked
my head into the logistics tukul, he was deep in conversation with one of the mechanics, both their hands black with grease. “Tomorrow?” he said. “Or the next day? Oh, one thing. Handset. We use channel 5. Don’t be without one.” I took it from him and put it in my tukul.

  Shit. It’s under my bed.

  Paola and I pass the military compound. Inside, some soldiers are washing their camouflage uniforms. A goat has climbed to the top of a mound of rubble, and another circles him, waiting for his turn to be king. In the corner of the compound, facing the juncture of the road I’m on and the approach to the hospital, sits a howitzer. I duck underneath its barrel, which appears to be aimed towards the great nothingness that surrounds Abyei, and turn left onto the hospital’s driveway.

  In it sit three cars. One of them, a white Land Cruiser, is ours. The other two are military green. A crowd is gathered at the small entrance.

  Paola pushes past and I follow. Inside the hospital, people are milling, pushing, yelling, straining to see what they can of the action. A little girl sits on the ground between angles of legs, crying.

  I don’t know the hospital yet. It seems huge. I don’t know where I am supposed to be. There’s Bev. Her eyes are wide, her thin frame tight with stress. She is hurrying towards me.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “Bloody rollover. Military truck ran into a car, then turned on its side. Six soldiers in the back. They’re mostly just banged up, but one of ’em’s got a big gash on his arm. Sandrine is in the tent with a civilian who got run over. I’m crowd control.” She turns away.

  I edge through a group of women, babies on their hips, and walk towards the tent. On my way, I glance into the tiny emergency room. It is filled with soldiers.

  In the tent, a man is lying on a cholera bed, grimacing. Sandrine is bent over him, listening to his lungs.

  “What’s up?”

  “Oh, James. Sorry to get you, but there’s just too many people. Mohamed is in the emergency room with one of the others, and this guy, I don’t know. I think he got run over. I started an IV and I’m giving him a bolus. Pressure’s okay.”