Last Updated: January 25, 2002

Working With Medecins Sans Frontiers in Wau, Sudan

December 1, 2000

No doubt you're wondering what's happened to me in the last month and a bit of no contact... probably closer to 2 months by now, since it's going to take another 3 weeks to get this to. Sorry for the lack of communication, but it's a bit more difficult than I expected. Email is very intermittent and at the whim of whomever is there in Khartoum to send it on - and unfortunately we've only received it once in the last month, about 3 weeks ago. Sending out? Well, I'm hoping the long email I asked to be sent to Ron and then forwarded out by him made it. I sent it out on the 27th of November I think. Maybe it was the 29th?

Time passes here like water down the Fraser - continuously, without pause and without conscious notice. Maybe I should make that the Nile River - it's much closer! Days have been blending one into the next, but even though I'm glad when the day is over I'm still a bit shocked that I've done what seems to be so little in that space of time. Reality? I'm doing a hell of a lot, just a lot of running here and there and small interruptions all day that make it seem like I've achieved nothing of consequence by the end of the day. But adding together all the little pieces, I'm amazed at what has happened in my short 5 weeks here.

I'm not going to repeat the stuff I put in the email, so I'm hoping it got to you and that you have a bit of a frame of reference to go on. If not, pay attention as it's going to be a bit strange.

The Murahaleen, our small post-pubescent boys on ragged pony-back are still in town, toting their guns and generally being little violent shits. Last week though, a couple of them made the presumably fatal mistake of trying to steal cows from a neighborhood called Hai Police - Hai means subdivision or the like, and Police, well, figure it out. Anyhow they took some cows brandishing their guns and the military up there didn't like that much. The Murahaleen then make the mistake of shooting one of the police/army - I think this guy survived. You can guess what happened next - the military all grabbed their guns, shooting dead one of the robbers and wounding the other. Unfortunately for that one, he was not killed immediately but shot through the arm or was wounded and then his arm broken/cut off whatever (it wasn't all too clear and I didn't press the point). The crowd then carried him off to the army headquarters or somewhere, and the last thing I heard about it a couple days later was that he was "almost dead." It was a strange feeling I had then, a bit sad and a bit "serves you right" - this little terrorist bastard was being tortured and beaten to death by the military. I'm against violence in general, but at the same time he got back what he dished out to all those helpless men, women, and children he murdered, raped, and robbed over his short career. Right and wrong really becomes a difficult thing sometimes.

More info on the Murahaleen - they are not roaming around so much in town this week. I think the army and military (they're not the same, and I'm not even sure what that means) are clamping down and keeping them under a little tighter control. None the less, we've heard stories over the past 3 weeks of them following 27 people carrying goods and goats and cattle from Wau to their village. They slaughtered the whole group of them, men, children, women and took the goods. In another incident a group of Murahaleen shot and killed 3 women, two of them pregnant. Plus countless other incidents that I can't recall. So you can see where my moral dilemma comes from - they're violent despicable people, terrorist bandits with support and approval of the government who are only interested in money and killing for fun. But anyhow, they know enough to leave us Kawadgas (foreigners, or whites, I'm not sure on the exact translation) alone so far. And I think they've learned a lesson about the army too. There are estimates ranging from 150 to 500 Murahaleen in town - out of a total of about 2,700 who were accompanying the train down. Their numbers must be lower now though, as I've heard many reports of fighting in which there were "heavy losses" for both the Murahaleen and SPLA rebels. I would guess that I've heard of anywhere from 20 to 50 losses for the Murahaleen in the past month.

You probably heard about 2 weeks ago that there was intense fighting in a place called Kassala in north-eastern Sudan. It's a Government of Sudan (GoS) town near the Red Sea on the Ethiopian border, probably 2000 km from Wau. Apparently the NDA (a different rebel group allied with the SPLA) attacked Kassala while the army was busy celebrating a victory in another town close by. So the NDA popped in as a surprise, drove the GoS troops out, took a whole bunch of arms, then retreated back out of Kassala. Our MSF team in Kassala evacuated to Gadaref, but there was no danger to them and they returned a few days later. However, an American worker for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) was taken prisoner by the GoS forces and beaten up (despite all NGO workers in GoS territory being here with the approval of the GoS). This is due to the rather bad relations that the US and Sudan have - Sudan blames the US for preventing them from getting a seat on the UN Security Council (quite right there), and also still hasn't forgotten the unprovoked bombing of their pharmaceutical plant a few years ago. So this poor guy was dragged off by the GoS soldiers for basically being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was then subjected to a number of different tortures, both physical and psychological, ranging from physical beatings, to being locked in a room and having a child run in and drop a dud grenade, to having an unloaded gun put to his head and the trigger pulled. He very nearly was disappeared by the GoS military, in that he was being returned to Khartoum when the security men said that there was a change of plans and he would be returned the next morning. Not bloody likely as people have conveniently disappeared in the past. If it wasn't the quick action of the American embassy in Khartoum that guy would never have been heard from again. The IRC country manager is a full-blown idiot who hasn't a clue - his reaction was a Neville Chamberlain-style letter to the GoS saying that this was a bad incident, and thank you for your attention. If that was MSF I'd have quit that night. The American was quickly evacuated out of Sudan and all their American workers were brought back to Khartoum for a few days before being sent back to their field locations again. Again, a dangerously weak message to send to the GoS, and a gross lack of understanding of the security situation in Sudan. Any other NGO would have closed up shop totally in Sudan until the GoS did some formal apologies and prosecuted those responsible - not the IRC. They still have American citizens working here in Sudan, something that even those workers think is a bit nuts. Why they don't quit I don't know. But I don't think I'll ever work for the IRC.

Back to Kassala - it's back in GoS hands, and peaceful again.

Enough on that, and on to more international news, which you may or may not have heard about back home. The GoS has been maintaining their bombing campaign on the southern states here. I only know this by listening to the BBC Report on Africa on shortwave. They've been bombing daily for the past 2 weeks at least in the Equitorial state. The last major incident was when they bombed a market during the day, killing 40 or 90 (unclear on the exact count) and wounding many more. As well they've been shelling various areas near Wau - I can occasionally hear the artillery going off at night (there are two major army bases in Wau north and south of town) - but I don't know exactly where. Somewhere withing about 40 km would be my guess, as I think that's about the range of artillery in general. Some interesting news about the bombing: it's not done like the US or other powers do it. These bombs are home-made, from empty fuel drums that are then packed with scrap to create shrapnel, then filled with some sort of explosive or other. They're loaded into the back of an Antonov (a Russion Hercules-like cargo plane, dating back to WWII) and kicked out the back as they fly over the target. It's not exactly accurate or hi-tech, but highly effective as a terror mechanism. So this solves my question of how they can afford to buy and who's selling them bombs - they're cheap and local-made inventions.

So where does that leave us here in Wau? I'm not sure. It's pretty secure here in Wau, for the most part. There's at least several hundred if not thousands of military of many different forms here, with major bases both at the north and south ends of town. Apparently they have heavy artillery though I haven't seen them, and I've seen many heavy anti-aircraft/anti-vehicle machine guns scattered around the military posts. Why they have anti-aircraft guns is beyond me as the SPLA don't have aircraft, but I guess it's because they shoot bullets and can kill. Who cares if you shoot a person, car, or plane? The overall feeling is that it would be excessively difficult for the SPLA to attempt to take Wau, as it's so well dug-in and spread out. Casualties would be very high, and I doubt that all of Wau would be taken anyhow. But it's happened that Wau has been attacked in the past (the cause of the 1998 emergency) so never say never. Again, MSF and Kawadgas are regarded relatively highly here so I doubt that we'd be in danger directly from either the GoS or SPLA, just stray fire.

If you are trying to get information on what's happening here, the best place to check (that I know of) is the BBC. They have a programme called "Report on Africa" on shortwave M-Fr, and their website is also very good for international and African news. You can find it at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk

So what is it I do here? What do I spend my days and weeks doing, and why does it seem like there's not enough time in a day? Well, now that I've been here a month or so I can give you a better picture. I'm not dodging bullets or pulling people out of danger or anything like that. I'm more of a hands-on administrator than anything.

As the Expat (expatriate) Logistician, I'm the major-domo for the non-medical side of things, including some of the personnel and financial administration. To give you the big picture, here's what I do in a month:

• sign all purchase receipts and orders for approval of payment. As I haven't a clue what things should cost, can't read Arabic script (yet), and don't really know why we're buying stuff I get to ask lots of questions and then put in my comments that "it's too expensive" to see the people's reaction. It's an amazingly simple bluff that gets some interesting responses. More often than not the price gets reduced or people give very long explanations of why the price has gone up, and I didn't know that it was too high when we started!
• track and order fuel, soap, car parts, stationery, computer stuff, spare parts, repairs, food, medical supplies, hardware, housing materials, and so on. Basically everything in the project is here because I order it or maintain it.
• calculate and verify overtime sheets (argh! I'm going to off-load this one Real Soon!! Imagine 200+ hand-written overtime forms that aren't filled out particularly well, having to work out how many hours on Sundays, holidays, etc. by hand within 2 days of getting these things. Sheesh!)
• track and plan our vehicle movements - a nightmarish responsibility as everyone wants to go everywhere at the same time, plus for security we have to have a car with each expat. We have 3 cars and at present 3 expats. Soon we will have 2 cars and 4 expats, then 3 cars and 4 or 5 expats. And then guests who come for visits to assess or assist. Yah. I wish I could off-load this one but it's a bit too important security-wise and no one seems to care as much as I do.
• track and monitor all maintenance and repairs of the buildings, vehicles, and generators. Easier said than done as there aren't a lot of records right now...
• deal with the personnel issues for my side of things: the logistics team (storekeepers, local purchaser, drivers, head logistician, domestic supervisor), the drivers (now 4, plus an awol mechanic, and soon a new hire), the guards (both at home and office), domestic staff (cleaners and cooks), and radio-operator.
• deal with bank deposits (money requests to be filled by Khartoum), withdrawals, and petty cash, and oversee the bookkeeping (though Dorien, the Project Coordinator has been doing the accounting checks)
• mail and communications to and from Khartoum. This is by mail pouch sent with the Unicef or WFP (World Food Program) plane, or radio, or telephone.
• review the monthly stock positions for all drugs, fuels, and supplies, then write reports for Khartoum. This is a bit different from just tracking the stocks as it means comparing the expected counts vs. actual, and working with the storekeepers a lot to work out monthly consumption rates. This then gets plugged into the 3-month orders and so on. Again, the records are poor and not always where I can find them.

I've probably left out some things. My fun jobs are feeding the chickens and playing with the cat, and also tinkering with broken or malfunctioning equipment. I've fixed two printers, the radio, the radio battery charger, and a few other things which really are enjoyable as I can benefit directly from the results. I also seem to take great delight in grumbling about these bloody kerosene wick stoves that I used in Solomon Islands and Guyana, and have a love-hate relationship with. They're reliable, they're slow, they're finicky, and they're annoying as hell after a while. I got so fed up with them in Guyana that I bought my own pressure-stove when I went home, and I'm kind of thinking of doing the same thing here. We'll see how annoyed I get.

The past team(s) here were rather lax about certain things, partially due to lack of interest, lack of experience, conflicting personal relationships, and a good deal of severe team dysfunction. So many of the systems that should be in place to track and monitor stuff just aren't there, or have become poor excuses for tracking. I found this out last month when I tried to create month-end reports for our stocks of logistic, medical, and fuel supplies. I discovered that the information just isn't here, and finally gathered enough info about our fuel stocks and consumption to realize that we were within a week of being stock-out of all fuels! Much of the past month has been devoted to ferreting out the information and trying to figure out how to get the information that I need, then furiously writing orders to cover all these stocks.

A secondary thing that's happened due to the past teams is that there are personnel problems... people not doing their jobs properly, or people just refusing to do their jobs. All sorts of things, both on my side and the medical side. And that too has taken up a lot of time, trying to deal with some problem staff. I've had to fire one driver and very nearly sacked our Head Driver as well, for marking up a bill and pocketing the difference, but unfortunately I was out-smarted and I'm stuck with him. But at least they know I'm looking and it will be harder and harder to get away with these things now.

Again looking back it would seem that it's all work and problems, and that it really is a horrible place. Not so. The people here are great - open, friendly, (mostly) honest, and good to work with. You can leave things out in the open and not worry whether they'll be missing when you come back - you can even leave money out and it'll still be there days later. Not that i's a good thing to do, but it's nice compared to being in some countries (like in Central America) where you constantly have to lock things up or guard them. Petty theft is pretty much unheard of, but I still try not to leave things out to prevent the creation of thieves by tempting them. I really like it here, despite all the problems and security concerns. If it weren't for the Murahaleen and the war, it'd be a great place. Wau must have been a very beautiful and vibrant city before the war - after all, it's the capital of this province and has a fair amount of infrastruture. Even a now-defunct beer factory across the river.

Food here is good - some of the best tasting beef I've ever had, and goat as well. It's a bit tough (both meats) but the flavour is great, and it's all certified organically grown! Our cook is great, willing to cook things our way and listen to our requests, no matter how crazy. Our staples are rice, squash, beef, pasta, and whatever fresh veggies can be found such as tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, peppery lettuce, and spinach-like greens. Like Guyana, the local produce is highly seasonal and dependent upon excess being available to sell, and I suspect that things will get rather thin in the coming months. It's already much harder to find fresh veggies in the market than when I arrived 5 weeks ago. The nice thing is that we can get food sent from Khartoum on the planes that regularly come in - white potatoes, carrots, beets, cucumbers, etc.

Local bread is a flat elastic thing that looks like an extra-thick, extra large pancake - often filled with extra protein from weevils in the flour (they're crunchy). One of the crazier requests we made of our cook was to make these breads with baking powder instead of yeast (our project coordinator has a problem eating yeast), and to use corn flour mixed with the wheat flour - corn comes from the World Food Programme, and is traditionally used to create a porridge. Despite looking at me like I was a space alien, she's faithfully made these breads for us and they're quite good.

Available fruits are pawpaw, watermelon, mangos (coming into season!), guavas, a thing similar to a custard apple (cherimoya) called a Sudani apple, and bananas, but all are seasonal (except the pawpaws are always growing). Dried dates are great, if a bit gritty from being dried on the ground. Gahwa - coffee - is also available, and reasonable quality. My current favorite is gahwa habahaan, coffee brewed with dried ginger root. It's delicious! Shai, the local tea, and karkedeh, a tea made from a type of hibiscus flower are both good. Though it takes a bit of getting used to the amount of sugar they put in it - literally 1/3 of a glass of sugar, then tea poured over top and stirred to dissolve! You can ask for it with little or no sugar, but even then they often don't quite believe you and add sugar. And then they drink Tang (it's everywhere) they add more sugar to it as well.

It's Ramadan now. It started 2 days ago, and is the 28-day fasting cycle that the Muslims follow. They don't eat or drink from about 5:30 am until the sun sets at 7:00 pm, and they are also not allowed to swallow their saliva! I'm surprised people don't keel over during the day from the heat and dehydration. At night they have huge feasts and share with friends and family. It's a bit difficult for the Muslims here in Wau as there's a general curfew at night after 9 pm (for us foreigners it's 7 pm) - if you're out after that, you get shot by the military. Literally. One poor woman was taken by suspected SPLA members at gunpoint, forced to carry the things that were being stolen from her. They let her go once they got out of town, but it was after curfew. She was shot in the leg by the military as she tried to go back home, and the leg was amputated due to the wound. Some people just don't get any breaks.