Six Months in Sudan

by Dr. James Maskalyk

“And you heard nothing?”

  “No. What?”

  “I guess someone started shooting up the market, shot some police. Killed them. I can’t believe you don’t know. My whole staff is in our compound, waiting for word whether we should evacuate.”

  “Is it still happening?”

  Her phone rings. She answers and moves away.

  The market is a flashpoint. Its merchants are largely Misseriya traders, its denizens mostly Dinka. Surrounding it are the military compounds, and next to it, between them all, is MSF’s.

  I walk over to the Land Cruiser.

  “Anthony. Have you heard from compound 1?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Call them. See if you can get Marco.”

  He calls into the handset, “Alpha Bravo, Alpha Bravo for Mobile 2. Alpha Bravo, Alpha Bravo …”

  Marissa’s off the phone. I hurry over.

  “So, any news?”

  “Well, no one’s heard any more shooting.”

  “You guys going to evacuate?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “I’ve got to figure out if I should go back,” I say.

  If this is the start of something larger, I’m not sure they’ll let me through the checkstop. If the call is made to evacuate, they might just want me to get on the plane anyway. One more seat on the UN helicopter for someone else.

  But what if there are a bunch of wounded, and it’s just Mohamed and Angela? I want to be there. I’m going.

  I don’t want to be there at all.

  I walk back to the car. Anthony is on the radio, speaking in Arabic.

  “Marco? Can I talk to Marco?”

  He shakes his head. “Marco hospital.”

  “David?”

  He calls into the handset. I hear David’s voice, “Go ahead.”

  “David, it’s James. What is the situation? Over.”

  “Shooting in the market, several wounded, two dead.” He cannot elaborate on the radio. Our transmissions are public.

  “Any further casualties?”

  “Negative.”

  “David, do you need me to return?”

  “At this point, negative.”

  “Are you planning to evacuate?”

  “Negative.”

  “Can you talk to Angela and Mohamed in the hospital, to see if they need my help?”

  “Stand by.”

  Marissa is talking on the phone again. Still no sign of the plane. It is an hour or more past its scheduled arrival. The spaces between the clouds are thin. A few more fat drops.

  “James for David. James for David.”

  “David, go ahead.”

  “I spoke with Marco. He says the situation is stable. Do not return. Repeat. Do not return.”

  I am relieved, as much that the decision has been taken from my hands as with its result. Marco wants me to leave. He said so this morning, as he shook my hand.

  “Good copy. I’ll stand by in Agok. Over and out.”

  “James, we need to make two transfers for surgery and we need Mobile 2. Over.”

  “All right. Stand by.”

  I walk back to Marissa. She is sitting in the seat of her Land Cruiser, her phone on her lap.

  “Marissa, if the plane doesn’t show, do you think I could get a ride back with you?”

  She hesitates for a second. We are well known for keeping our distance from other organizations. We can’t speak to their motivations, nor their methods. Ours, from the training of our logisticians to the malnutrition guidelines, are developed from years of experience. We remain responsible to them, to our headquarters. By doing our own thing, we remain focused and flexible, rarely on unfamiliar ground. Our distance from the UN is even greater. They are not an NGO; they are the opposite, a GO. When we can get it, we need our space.

  “Sure. Why not.”

  Anthony has already started the truck. He is returning, no matter what. I take my pack from the back and slam it shut. With a wave, he bumps across the rutted runway and disappears.

  I have no Land Cruiser. No radio. No sat phone. No stethoscope.

  I’m free.

  (break)

  04/06: contrails.

  after six flights, i am on kenya’s coast. i feel like a poor traveler. after years of throwing my backpack on the top of local buses and bumping from country to country, i have forsaken discovery in favor of renewing pleasures that abyei does not afford. yesterday, immediately after my sleepless arrival, i ate fresh ocean fish in a sour coconut sauce, drank a glass of white wine, and fell asleep on a wide, white bed with a mound of pillows and an air conditioner whirring above me. 24 hours later, i have left my room only to swim.

  operation boredom: accomplished.

  it didn’t take very long. one day. in an attempt to liven things up, i have unsuccessfully tried to find trouble in paradise. there is no conflict, no disease, no problems to solve, no situations to talk yourself out of. i have looked for seediness, for shady characters, and found none. i have even begged the hotel staff to hunt me for sport but have been politely refused. i figure if i continue to insist, they will do it for pleasure.

  traveling is best done on the ground, bus to bus, and planned only when necessary. it allows for the greatest number of oblique entries.

  traveling is also best done on the ground because it avoids it in the air. flying is for the birds. for me, putting a hundred humans in a metal cylinder and propelling it into the atmosphere using combustion is not a miracle of modern aviation, it is stupid.

  my discomfort with lifting off the ground with a thousand kilograms of gasoline and navigating incredible distances at incredible speeds while avoiding incredible numbers of other missiles with similar trajectories does not improve with the number of times i fly. i fly all of the time. the only thing that has improved is how quickly i accept my inevitable end with every unanticipated click of the aircraft.

  (click)

  “well, i guess that’s it. i’ve led a good life. seen amazing, beautiful things. i knew it was just a matter of time. should have taken the bus.”

  the flights in northern sudan have done little to quell my belief that i am flying on borrowed time.

  the sky had shifted from blue to gray when the plane dropped from it. we would have a two-hour flight to kadugli, the nearest tarmac landing strip, where we would refuel. after boarding we climbed through the gathering wind, our tail waggling from side to side, and flew north. wind whistled through the door behind me. we ascended to several thousand feet, and as we reached the base of the clouds, we bumped against it. bump. bump. as we were being thrown up and down, one of the passengers turned to me and said, “i’m going to get some shut-eye,” and i was like, “what? in this tin coffin? fine. you sleep, i’ll use my mental energy to keep the plane aloft.” so we flew to kadugli, our heads brushing the clouds, one of us fast asleep, one of us fast awake. below us, the scorched earth raced by.

  after circling kadugli for what seemed like an inordinately long time (“is this normal? they would tell me if there was a problem. i’m sure they would”), we bumped shakily down. “crosswind,” the pilot explained as he opened our door. we stepped out onto the tarmac. “um …,” he said, “refueling takes about 15 minutes, but we’ve gotta watch that, see what it’s gonna do.” he pointed his thumb over his shoulder. lightning sparked in a black horizon. “which way is el obeid?” i asked. he gestured over his shoulder again.

  the tiny airport was full of un soldiers and staff waiting for a plane that, when it arrived, made our plane look like a toy. theirs was big and muscular. ours was made of balsa wood. i joined our pilot outside. we sat, smoking, as the wind gathered, and watched the storm. “what happens if we fly into that?” i asked, over the shh of blowing sand. the pilot made a breaking motion with his two hands.

  it came towards us, but never hit the airport. we could see it dash the hills only a kilometer away, feel the weight of it on our skin, but it never crossed the runway. after several minutes, the un plane lo
aded its passengers, and smoothly lifted off from the runway with a certainty that must have been contagious.

  “i think it is blowing itself out,” the pilot said. “let’s give it a shot.”

  a shot. perfect. a college try. and if it hasn’t blown itself out, we’ll just …

  shhhh …

  we lifted off in the wind. this time we were all bolt awake. we flew, certain, straight towards el obeid. the storm had shifted, but had not gone. as we rose past the hills, it stood in front of us, an angry purple bruise. mounds of clouds. flicker. flicker.

  a day or two before, i had sat in the compound and watched storm clouds roll in on top of each other. i imagined being up there, not in a plane, but just hanging in the mist, feeling the crackle of electricity, looking for sparks amidst the twisting gray fog. perhaps nature had interpreted it as a wish.

  instead of flying into its blackness, we circled back towards kadugli. i could see the jagged silhouette of the nuba mountains as we turned west, away from el obeid, away from the storm, and i wondered where i would sleep the night.

  we did not land. we flew past the airport with one eye on the storm, and started to circle its margins.

  we followed the sun, over the mountains, just outrunning the storm, moving west … west … north a bit … north … west … north … north … northeast … northeast … around it, into a bright blue pocket. we unclenched our hands from our armrests and smiled at one another.

  i wonder not why i feel this way about airplanes, only why everyone else doesn’t.

  it is raining now, and i’m inside. i guess i should find something to do. wait. is that the gardener peeking through a shrub? oh, there is the concierge, trying to sneak up the steps. it appears my entreaties have worked. it appears the game is on. finally.

  IT IS MY LAST DAY IN KENYA. I am sitting in the dying sunlight at an outdoor restaurant in the town nearest to where I am staying. Thus far, I have seen little of the country. I arrived sleepless in Nairobi, and flew eastward to the coast. At the airport, I waited for a shuttle that never came and, in the end, struck a bargain with a taxi driver to take me directly to my hotel.

  This is my first time outside of it. I have spent the last four days sleeping, turning up the air conditioning, and drinking white wine. My first day I walked along the beach as far as I could in each direction, and was turned back by late-morning rain. The ocean is murky and swollen, thick with seaweed. I am one of five guests in a hotel that holds four hundred. It is ideal.

  The events on the day of my departure are now clear, thanks to emails from Tim. A soldier, drunk already at that early hour of the morning, started firing randomly in the market. He was scheduled to go to court later that day and was determined to avoid it. People say he was mentally unwell. Probably schizophrenia.

  Two policemen were killed in the market, and another died en route to surgery. The soldier turned the gun on himself, but succeeded only in blowing off his jaw. Tim also reported that when the shooting happened, armed men, dressed like civilians but obviously trained, marched across the open fields in Abyei and assumed strategic positions in town.

  We evacuated the hospital again, because the soldiers stormed in with guns. This time, there was gunfire in the hospital.

  It was a good time for chaos. Geneva had finally sent someone from their office to assess Abyei. She had arrived the day before I left. She will be gone by the time I get back.

  For now I’m still here, in the last of the sun’s rays, sitting at a corner table, drinking a beer. Two tables over is a group of people my age half watching a football match on the screen above them. One of them just said something funny and the man closest to me laughed loudly and slapped the table so hard the glasses clattered.

  I haven’t had a conversation with anyone in days. The last time was in Khartoum, the night I arrived. I went out for dinner with the new logistics coordinator and his girlfriend. Slowly the Khartoum office is filling.

  A Land Cruiser pulls up with “Tour Company” written on the side, and a broad-shouldered blond man steps from behind the wheel, then hurries into a store.

  There is a whole world right here, people criss-crossing paths, having chance encounters. On the way to this restaurant, I stopped at a store and bought shaving cream like a regular person. I just paid for it, and walked out of the store.

  “Another beer please. Tusker.”

  How many weeks to home? Six. Maybe a bit less. Closer to five. When I get back to Abyei, Tim will be leaving. I will be the oldest one in the mission. I never thought it would come to pass. Makes sense, though. I feel oldest.

  I glance down the road. A group of children are walking towards me. There are five of them. One, two, three, four, five. I can see the expressions on their faces so clearly. Everything is clearer. I can do this. I can go back.

  My food is done. So is my beer. All that is left is this wooden cutting block, stained with grease. My friends at the table are moving on. I wonder what they are doing. I wonder if they are going dancing.

  I pay my bill and walk back along the road towards the bus station. Along the way I see men and women sitting together on plastic stools at other outside restaurants, talking and laughing. Set back from the road are poorly lit signs that promise discos. A gringo, a woman about fifty wearing a sarong and Tevas, passes me going the other way. I try to catch her eye and smile, but she doesn’t meet my gaze. It’s the opposite problem of Abyei. I’m invisible.

  A local bus drops me off at the dirt road that leads, after several kilometers, to my hotel. At the intersection, a man is washing his car. I ask if I can hire him to take me back.

  “Yes. Of course. It is not good to walk around here. Especially for you. Very dangerous.”

  I wait for him to finish washing his car, then climb in.

  10/06: space.

  i am back in khartoum. how? i just finished waiting for the plane in agok, then the storm, then the middle of the night flight, then kenya, then back, and it seems like a minute, and soon i will be back tucking the mosquito net under my flat foam mattress, handset crackling beside me. time. it can’t be trusted.

  i was thinking about my thoughts as i walked into the kitchen in abyei one time, about how many we have as we carry out the most straightforward tasks. pouring a glass of water, for instance. for an observer, it takes us ten seconds, but inside, it is an infinity. but of course it must be. our concept of the universe, its largeness, its distant stars and the black, cold vacuum between, our outer space, is exactly proportionate to the largeness of our inner one.

  i was glad to find some space. for the first time in months, my every thought was not of abyei. distance afforded me perspective. the difference between circling a storm and being at its center. i was able to glimpse a larger world.

  i am glad for whoever replaces me that he or she will have a clearer idea of what we are there to do, and how to accomplish it. they will better see the goals, and how to achieve them, just as i did because of the work of the person i followed. things have already been made noticeably better by the dozens of people piling effort on top of effort consistently on one side of the scale, tipping the balance of the project, and even abyei, towards an easier future.

  it is one of the ways that i make sense of the world, to believe that it hangs in a grand balance. but no matter the distance, no matter how much i travel, no matter how much i read, no matter how carefully i look, i cannot determine which way it tips. good, or bad. success, or failure. hope, or despair. i can’t say, and it doesn’t matter. all i can do is pile as many efforts as possible, no matter how small, on the side i want the most.

  while i was away, lying on my bed shivering, the air conditioner whirring above me, i read a book by ryszard kapuscinski, one of poland’s greatest writers and one of the world’s best african correspondents. in part of it, he describes arriving to a town in ethiopia that is suffering from a severe drought. people lie on the side of the road, their eyes half open, starving. with that simple sentence, he
picked me up and rushed me back to abyei. it was the half-open eyes of the starving. half open. half closed. mostly closed. closed.

  i sat there, holding the book, and realized that no matter how much i try, i will never go back to being the person i was before i left. i can try not to think about it most of the time, and most of the time, i will succeed. the memories will fade from video to short sepia snapshots, but from nowhere, a simple sentence will throw all the hardness forward and with it, that helpless, sleepless, lonely drowning ache.

  i will send word from abyei. i think the airstrip in agok is washed out, and i will have to be picked up in kadugli, a day away from abyei. i am looking forward to the drive, to the movement, to the space between.

  CHAPTER III

  “PLEASE THIS WAY,” Anthony says, and turns between two wooden stalls, stepping expertly on a flat plank placed across a long puddle.

  We are in the market of a mud town, halfway to Abyei. We left at dawn this morning in an MSF Land Cruiser sent to pick us up. All of our air movements now would require at least two days.

  “The owner is friend to me,” he explains.

  We have stopped for lunch. There are five of us in the truck. Anthony, myself, two nurses returning from R&R in Khartoum, and Helen, the Ethiopian cook from the Khartoum guest house. She has been sent, at our request, to improve the food. She has brought with her an array of spices, some butter, cheese, a few different types of pasta. She’s young, twenty-two or -three, diminutive. I don’t like her chances with Ruth.

  We pick our way through the market on planks of wood, right-angled like dominoes, mud to either side. We pass a butcher, a goat split in half on the wooden table in front of him. Flies cover the meat, and he swipes lazily at them with his newspaper, then goes back to reading it. It is raining lightly.