Perspective

We left Kenya after three days in the game park, 300 herds of elephant, 1500 wildebeast, a family of lion, 2 cheatahs and a couple of giraffe's later. Steph and I had ages in the airport, and we both wandered for 6 hours feeling thankful that Nairobi at least has corridors and corridors of duty free shops, unlike Bamako and Conakry which only have seating on the tarmac and a bar that is occasionally open. We spent the time shopping and shopping and shopping.

We arrived in London very early in the morning, neither of us having any sense of where we were supposed to go. We got our bags and stood around kind of staring at the walls as if they would give us some magical idea of how to get from Heathrow to the dorms in central London. We did manage to figure it out, and were thrilled to arrive at the dorm to find showers and laundry machines and some of our friends.

Steph and I developed a remarkable friendship in Kenya, wading through the emotions, the challenges, the life that we were leading in tandem. When we went over together I was not sure what would happen--I knew we would end the summer loving or hating each other, and I was fairly certain I knew which side of the line I would fall on, but you can never be sure. There was a mutual appreciation for the good in people. Those things that you notice about someone that immediately bond you to them. We dealt with the passing scene before us with a mix of sadness, hope, frustration, but always laughter. Laughter was the savior. It might sound odd, being able to laugh, heartily and often, but we did. And we laughed at each other, and supported each other. And that's the only good way to move through this life is with someone there to remind you that it's too much to get bogged down in your own helplessness--sometimes the only thing you can do is your best and never lose sight of that ability to just laugh till it hurts. I pride myself in being able to speak "Stephanie" and decipher her stories as she doubles over in hysterics unable to make any sort of sensical statements--I might add it to the list of languages I speak, in fact as it was one of the more difficult skills to acquire. One thing I will never regret in my life are the people who I have been lucky enough to acquire as friends along the road. Steph is a lifer. It's something I like about her.

London was a hard adjustment. There was no time to process, we started class, had tea, spoke of international law in the abstract after having lived in the result of lawlessness and international abadonment of a people. Everything came back to Somalia. Ah, the cherished UN--what an organization--where there is no enforcement. I frustrated my professor with my emails and emails and emails, I still do, but after seeing something go so completely wrong, how can you not question, not be skeptical? There is never anything that happens without consequence, and sometimes the consequences are easier to overlook, particularly when they are sitting in the desert far from anything else other than the border of the lawless state they ran from. The consequences are far less severe when there is no oil, no resources at stake, as if people are not the most precious resource of all. These organizations are developed to protect individuals, and they have, and they do, but they protect the individuals who are lucky enough to have allies sitting in one of the five permanent places on the Security Council or those who have something other than just their citizens to bring to the table.

We had dinner with a lovely guy who lives in the same flat as Chanda and Steph and he was asking about how we felt about the UNHCR and UN as organizations. Steph deferred to me and I went on the usual diatribe about how disfcunctional they are, how disillusioned everyone is, and bitter, and nothing works. And it hit me--I was telling about this disillusionment as if I was detached from those people. But I'm not. THAT was disillusioning.

Perspective. How easy to lose and difficult to gain. But it's important to have and I am trying my hardest to hold on to it because once you slip down that slope your ability to initiate, develop, imagine and believe in improvement is gone. I talked to my dad on my birthday, the day I interviewed the family trying to protect their sister from being burned to death. I was sad and frustrated and needed the perspective that only my father can give. He is even and balanced, his passion is channeled differently from my fist pumping indignation that can overwhelm and stifle productivity. He listened to the recount and the horror in my voice. And this is what he said (more or less...): Then find something better. Fix it. Find a solution. That is your job. And you know what? You may never be able to fix it, but you should not stop trying.

That, that will remain my charge. That will bring me perspective. That will keep me questioning.

Last Days of Kenya....Part I

It was a strange goodbye. Things are always a little strange in Dadaab, but this was one that felt not quite complete, or settled. Knowing that there is still so much that needs to be done, knowing that the tip of the iceberg has barely been scratched. We had a party. There is always a party. While it is sometimes unclear whether the people who UNHCR employs know how to do their jobs, it is always clear that they know how to throw down for people who are coming or going. We roasted meat, there was a happy hour sponsored by someone where all the drinks were free. It was interesting looking around at these people one more time and knowing that regardless of who comes or goes, the refugees remain.

We left Wednesday afternoon and boarded the UN plane to Nairobi. This time there was no discussion about how many kilos we all weighed and how much luggage we had. We just got on sitting on the dusty airstrip in the middle of nowhere and prayed that a dust storm would not kick up and prevent us from lift off. The plane is a small one, you feel every bump. It’s disconcerting, particularly when you look at one of the tires and it appears somewhat flat, but there is one way out of Dadaab, and that’s by plane. Hail Mary, here we go.

Flying to Nairobi you can see Mt. Kilimanjaro to the left and Mt. Kenya to the right. The clouds hang low so that it about all you can see, but taking off from Dadaab before hitting the clouds we watched the red earth disappear and the finality of it all struck.

Where have I been the last 5 weeks? I have been recording my thoughts in this blog, sharing them with whoever comes across it or is pointed toward it, but my story of this experience is completely cursory to what actually happens every day. The people who work here, including myself, have become witnesses to the lives of these forgotten people. We have sat and recorded a small history of individuals—some of whom were instrumental in the terror that occurred and have ended up here after the tides turned on them, some of them pure victims targeted just because they were found tending their cattle out in the bush. Many of them children, this being their only history, nothing before the life of a refugee.

Steph calls this the cosmic jackpot. How do we all end up where we are? With one roll of the dice these refugees could be any of us, our sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles, our families. But they’re not and you wonder how and why we have all landed in these places. I can’t dwell on it for too long, because it makes me uneasy, seemingly no explanation in a world where everything today can be googled and explained. Ironically enough I write this on my laptop sitting in the Amboseli National Park at the Ol Tukai lodge an hour before my massage and two hours after our second safari ended. Outside the window is a field where the herds of elephant wander 20 feet from our room. Life is tough. But here we are.

Steph and I did not know what to do with these three spare days we had between leaving Dadaab on the last flight of the week and taking off to London on Saturday night. We scrambled, got a hold of a travel agent and planned this safari. It ended up being cheaper than hanging out in Nairobi for 3 nights with our UN discounts and stellar travel agent, and we’re in Kenya, in limbo between the intensity of the internship and the stress of 6 credits started and finished in one month. Thus far, the trip has exceeded all expectations.

We left Nairobi yesterday morning and were picked up by Jamal, a remarkably jovial Kenyan who was going to be our guide for the three days. We were the only two who were heading out so the mini bus was all ours. It takes about 4.5 hours to get to Ambeseli from Nairobi, the first hour spent actually getting out of the city itself. Once you’re out of the city the landscape is much like that of any place I imagine in rural Africa—lots of herders (all Masai in this part of the world), few towns. The towns that do exist spring up and along the road are clusters of little shops constructed from corrugated tin and painted fully advertising Coca-cola and café. Just as suddenly as they begin, they end, and the expanse of bush continues on.

I had consumed too much coffee (our first non-instant coffee in 5 weeks, how should I be expected to control myself??!!) before leaving Nairobi and, of course, had to stop about 1.5 hours into the trip, a solid 90 minutes before our first scheduled stop. Jamal was hesitant. The first time I asked as we approached a town he said “Oh don’t you worry, we have a scheduled stop in Nakuma, it’s coming soon.” As we got into town I saw a sign that said Nakuma, 93k. That, in my bladder’s world, is not soon. About 20k later we got to another small town, this time I insisted we stop. Again, Jamal was quite hesitant, telling me it would be better to stop in the bush since there were no toilets here suitable for whities like us. “No, no” I said, “I can handle it, seriously.” Again, Jamal continued to insist that we wait for the good toilets in Nakuma. Steph could see I was desperate, the town was about to be a distant vision. “Really Jamal, I have used pit latrines before. In fact, for 2 whole years!!!” He continued to say that these would be dirtier than I was used to. I looked at Steph, Steph looked at Jamal. “Jamal, she was a Peace Corps Volunteer, she can handle it, REALLY”. Ah Steph, always the voice of reason. Finally, we pulled over. After paying the ladies who owned this latrine about 4 dollars to use it (and no, it was certainly not clean) we continued.

We got to Nakuma, which is the boarder of Tanzania, also the turn off for the road that takes all eager tourists to Ambeseli. We had to stop for gas. I think it was a ploy by Jamal to see how well Steph and I could handle ourselves inundated by the Masai women selling things at engorged prices. We did well for about the first 7 minutes, until I dared Steph to open the window and buy something. I didn’t think she would take the bait. I clearly don’t know her well enough. She spotted some green bracelets she liked, and decided to take a stab at it. Wrong answer. Opening the window just a crack she started talking to the lady selling them and bargaining with her. Apparently the Masai women have a 6th sense, because when you think there are only about 5 vendors in your vicinity, the moment you start to bargain for a good, 35 more suddenly appear. And they are all selling the same thing. And they all look exactly the same because they are wearing so much jewelry. It was a nightmare. Women reaching in, throwing things at us. Steph trying to keep control of the situation (she had lost it about 5 minutes before) and me, sitting there, watching this unfold, and deciding that I too liked one of the bracelets and that it would be a good time to go in for the kill. We’re morons. Jamal saw the entire thing and I am sure wondered if we had made up the fact that we had both lived in West Africa for extended periods of time. Without offering any help, just laughing, we drove off.

After you turn onto the road to the park it is all dirt—no pavement. It takes about 53k to actually get to the park gates, and about 20k from the gates we started seeing the animals. Giraffe grazing in the trees were the first animals we spotted and we were too shy to point them out to Jamal, thus missing any opportunity for photos and awe. When we got to the park gates Steph and I both wondered if these UNHCR Id’s we were given would truly be the magic ticket into the park at the resident rate of 1000 Kenyan shillings per day (about 13 dollars) rather than the 40 USD entrance fee for nonresidents (we are, in fact, nonresidents—the UN is the only organization that the park accepts as staff being residents of Kenya—even the international staff). Seeing that we had only been in the country for 5 weeks the chances were slim. But Jamal just grabbed our Ids and told us to wait in the car. Low and behold—it worked. It was an auspicious beginning—being able to save 60 dollars that neither Steph or I had.

Driving into the park was out first dose of reality that on these safaris, it is true, you have to work to not see an animals. First it was Wildebeasts and antelope, then the zebras started appearing. I love the zebras—their markings are amazing—so perfect and symmetrical—it’s like you’re looking at a creature that is not completely real, until you see a herd of 50 of them grazing placidly and realize that these are as common as deer in the US.

We were about 100 meters to the entrance to the compound where all of the lodges sit and to our right was a family of elephants—3 grown females and a baby. They were ambling along, not concerned with our vehicle directly in their path. They had to cross the road to get to the water, and we sat and waited. Elephants do not move quickly, but waiting to see 4 elephants cross 2 feet (maybe!) in front of the car you’re sitting in, close enough that you could touch them, was well worth it. Every wrinkle, their enormous feet—it was, at the risk of sounding trite, really cool.

If only we had known before we arrived how common elephants were. Steph and I decided to pay 60 dollars more than the quoted price to upgrade to a nicer lodge with a swimming pool for Steph. When we arrived we were not disappointed, and I was surprised at how nice it was. They have two sets of cabins—the elephant view cabins and the Kilimanjaro view cabins (not too shabby…). We were placed in the elephant view cabins, both of us thinking it was a fancy name that would make everything seem even more authentic. As we walked to the room, down a series of paths, past the monkeys that were chilling on the doorsteps, we realized that these were, in fact, elephant view rooms. The field that the room overlooks is a gathering place for HERDS and herds of elephants. There were a few hanging out when we arrived, and later in the day we arrived back home to find literally about 100 elephants grazing and standing, all right by the fence, not minding the rows of cabins just across the fence from them.

This was our first taste of why these safaris are so impressive and popular. More to come in the next and last post—now that I am in London with high speed internet I am also going to try and post some pics. Stay tuned…

Endings

It's hard to pinpoint the feelings that I have about this experience now that is quickly coming to an end.

I have appreciated being a student of what humanitarian aid really is troughout the past 6 weeks. I came thinking that I knew, basing my experience on the 2 years I spent in Mali. Working here has opened my eyes and forced me to recognize why there are organizations such as UNHCR and CARE and why the work they do is so important.

Being a part of resettlement has been remarkably evocative emotionally. There is an immediacy to the work that is being done with resettlement and there is a return that is far faster than in most departments or organizations dealing with aid work. That said, I still don't know how I feel about resettlement in the larger scheme of these people's lives. There are times I think that removing people from all that they know, people who lack any education and cannot fathom what an airplane let alone a sky scraper or indoor plumbing looks like is not the most beneficial to either the population being resettled or the population absorbing the refugees.

But then I see many of the heartbreaking cases that I have been witness to the past 6 weeks and wonder how we can leave people in a place like this until there is peace in Somalia (this is where everyone who knows anything about the current state of Somalia laughs really hard for a really long time....). There is no perfect solution. There are durable solutions, and there are interim solutions, but none are perfect, and none replace what these people have lost or never been party to in their lives.

I interviewed a man this morning who has been a refugee since 1974. 32 years of fleeing one war zone only to land in the next. He left Ethiopia for Somalia, Somalia to Kenya. Now, he has been waiting here since 1991 for the next place to flee. He had no real problems in the camp, but I recommended promotion of his case anyway simply because there comes a point where, from a human rights perspective, his life is no longer humane.

This afternoon I interviewed a family--a truly lovely family--who had come here with their children, again in 1991. Their son is deaf. Not fully deaf, but partially. I asked how we became deaf and almost lost any semblance of professional poise I had when they declared "Oh, when he was 6, he stuck date pits in his ears to see what would happen". The father, who spoke perfect English and had worked for the Somali government from 1969-1990 declared it very matter of factly and it took all the self restrain I had to not lean in and say "well, I bet you don't let him eat too many dates anymore, do you?". At the end of the interview the father presented me with all of his documents showing his high level of acheivement in typing--both short and long hand. My translator looked at him and said "Why do you not look for a job here, you are over qualified" to which he responded "I am an old man, and my head is no longer clear--I cannot type that fast anymore. I just want something better for my family".

And that's the essence of it, isn't it? All of these people just looking for something better, searching for a way out. At the end of the interview with this family, the last interview of my stint here, the mother and wife who spoke NO English said to me "Thank you for being such a good mother to us--a mother of resettlement, trying to help all of us, working for us." That statement broke my heart knowing how little I can do, how little, in the scheme of this problem, I have done.

But that is why I will keep coming back to this as the place where my heart lies. There is such honesty and truth in suffering, and the only way to respond is likewise. I cannot imagine a life that is void of this feeling--trying to find a way to better the lives of people who cannot do it on their own. In the end, there is no us and them. There is just us.

Kevin told me when I returned from the field and turned in all my cases that Stephanie and I had screened, to date, about 600 people each. For a remarkably short term internship that came together on a string and was a complete fluke, I don't think I could ask for much more than that. Kevin asked if I had maxed out my credit card paying for the plane ticket over here--frankly, it was the best spent money I can imagine and would do it again in an instant. It's worth any amount of money to feel alive, sometimes raw, often angry, but always passionate.

Ray of Light

Sometimes it's good to be angry.

I was upset on Wednesday, as my last post stated. I did not understand why if we are here as a protection agency there are so many people who are not being protected. I went made the case, plead the reasoning, and tried to illustrate to people who had not been sitting in that room why this mattered so much. I talked to Kevin, and I talked to the head of the Protection department. This morning Kevin came out to the camps with a team of people to conduct a much longer, far more extensive and in depth interview with this family. I sat and waited and knew I was either going to come out of this having a made a solid case for granting this case emergency status, or I would walk away looking like a total jack ass.

The hard thing about these cases is that it's rare when you have a family who tells the WHOLE truth. On a good day, you get families who are telling most of the truth, with facts changed and scenes deleted. They are looking for the magic bullet that will move them on to the next stages of resettlement. Often times the misinformation revolves around the father of a child who has suddenly divorced the woman who has the baby and has "disappeared" with no one in the family knowing anything about his whereabouts. Later we'll find out that this conveniently absent person is actually still in the camp and sees his exwife and baby on a regular basis, and we cannot separate them for custody reasons. Often times there will be the extraneous people attached--no one is really sure where they came from, but a tenuous relation is created and they get to come to the land of milk and honey as well. Later we'll find out that that tenuous relation was actually trafficked, with the family who claimed them being paid a gross amount of money to include them on the card.

Needless to say, this morning I was nervous. I was nervous because in the cursory interviews that we do in the first stage are the basic information gathering interviews that allow the team to assess quickly who fits the criteria and who does not. If the family fits the criteria the more indepth interviews are persued many times uncovering what I have mentioned above, thereby making them inelligible for resettlement. I was PRAYING that this would not be a case like this. Please...no skeletons in the closet.

I finshed my cases this morning and watched the door of the room where the family was being interviewd. They had been in there for 3.5 hours. I kept thinking that it had to be a good sign since if something glaring came up they would not waste their time or the family's time. You never want to feel like you're wasting anyone's time. I was particularly concerned because I was so upset on Wednesday. Had I been snowed?

No concrete answers came from the interview today, the only decision being that the family was to come back on Monday, but it appeared to be a credible and necessary case to promote on an emergency basis.

Deep sigh of relief. Maybe something great will happen, maybe she will be removed. Maybe, just maybe, being passionate about something, someONE is worth the emotional outcry every now and then.

I consider this a small victory that occurred this week. It's far from over, and the road that this is going to take will be bumpy for sure. But I am content knowing that there is a chance and a possibility for something better for this child, where she might not be tortured, and she can get the medical treatment she needs. And where her sisters and mother can breathe a little easier knowing that the struggle might be aliviated even in the slightest. I am excited for the possibility.

Searching for the Light

There is a saying "It is always darkest before the dawn".

Whoever wrote that must be talking about a place that is far from here. I have come to the realization that there is very little light here, and there seems to be an over abundance of darkness.

The past week seemed to bring a little light. Last Wednesday we had the launch of the Nike ball in Dagahalley where we all played soccer and volleyball against the local teams--it was so much fun and refreshing to remove ourselves from the role that we normally possess. The kids loved it and there was an enormous turnout from the community.

But today. Today. Humanity is dark. I have said it before and it is a realization that is sad, and true, and real. I listen to these stories day after day after day about kids beating other kids, about the protection problems that stem directly from the peers in the neighborhood. Imagine walking down the street and seeing a deaf boy being stoned by a group of 20 other kids. Imagine the adults standing there complacently, never defending, believing that the deaf ones deserve it. Or a child who is mentally disabled being tied up for 3 years continuously, her family cleaning off the feces and urine from her body instead of letting her free. And this is normal, this is what they believe is right. Standing over this child who has gashes and scars on her legs from the three year family imprisonment reciting the Koran, because that's what they think is going to cure her. I sit listening to them tell this story, normal as can be, thinking in between questions YOU PEOPLE SHOULD BE IN JAIL.

But today took the cake. I don't know why it keeps blind siding me. I guess if it did anything other than that I should worry. There was a child, 12, who looked like she had had a lobotomy. Had a hard time walking on her own and would constantly fall asleep with buckets of drool coming from her mouth. And there were her mother and sisters. Three women, all grown, who were helpless in the fight for their child, their sister.

She is the first case of what I would classify as torture that I have seen here. Repeatedly pushed into fires, burns all over her body, by other children. She has scars, and fresh wounds, places on her legs where other children held her down and placed a burning log on her leg. It was sick, and sad. The sisters are helpless, the mother has no idea what to do. There is no male in the family who is grown, it is three women who are residing on their own, trying to save this child. The sisters can't defend her, not in this society. If they do, they will be beaten as well. No one is the champion, there are no angels here.

I came back to the office and sat with my boss and pleaded for a fast track, to get her out of here before someone kills her. They treat her like children in the US treat ants with magnifiying glasses--see what happens when they set it on fire. There are so many people in the US who will prostrate themselves on the ground in front of the headquarters of Gillette and fight for the rights of animals, no animal testing, save the god damned rabbits. What about these people? Who is doing the same? Us? Barely. Resources are pathetic, cases are backed up, people slip through the cracks. How, in American society, have animals stepped slowing in front of the human strife throughout the world? Is that an overstatement?

It probably is. But it's my birthday, and I am pissed, and someone needs to be incensed.

This is experience has been essential for me. It has taught me that not everything is like peace corps, where comminities love you, can't wait to make soap, think handwashing is the best idea ever, and basically exude joy. Here, you see the other side. It's reality, which makes me sad, but it's an important reality for people to see. That things are hard. And not hard like "I don't have enough loan money to go to Cancuun this winter" but hard like "I am 24, watched both my parents be murdered, and I have been taking care of my 6 brothers and sisters since 1992".

I sat with a girl in this very situation yesterday. And you know what I thought as the dust storm raged (RAGED) outside, I thought "I wonder what you would be like in America. Where you would be." maybe it's hokey. Again, I don't really care. It's what goes through your mind when you see people whose luck fell on this side of the line.

But in the world of these posts, what's new?

Yeah....not much.

Just Do It

This post might be one of the most important that I write. It is once again a plea for participation from people in the US and all over the world, to put their hands in and help make a difference for the children who are living and growing up in these refugee camps.

Today is World Refugee Day. It's a chance for the global population to recognize that ever present problem that exists in the world, and to bring the refugee population to the forefront of people's minds. The United States, when it comes to refugee resettlement and acceptance, is one of the most generous in the world, if not THE most generous. Each year the US accepts up to 70,000 refugees from around the globe who qualify for resettlement, a large number of people from the three camps here in Dadaab as well as Kakuma, the other camp in Kenya. They have set up programs for the refugees in the US. Programs that are not perfect, but that begin weaving the social fabric that the refugees will slowly incorporate into as the integrate into the US. The US has taken populations of refugees who have been literally REFUSED by every other absorbing country becuase other countries have decided that certain populations would just be too hard to integrate, or because they have their own prejudices and fears.

There have been few times in the recent months that I feel I could really feel good about the US, where I am from, and where I will continue to call home. This is one of those times.

Tomorrow, there is a new campaign being lauched called ninemillion.org. There are nine million refugee children (CHILDREN!!!!) in the world, many of whom have grown up in these camps and have known nothing different. In collaboration with Nike, Right to Play, and Microsoft, among others, UNHCR is launching a campaign that brings sports and education into the lives of these children. It is an attempt to introduce games and laughter into places that have known much more heartache and fear, in an attempt the give these kids a chance to see that there is more to life than the fighting they have fled from.

Nike has been one of the most vocal sponsors of this, with their belief that not only does sports give kids an outlet, it increases self image and inner strength, something that is often lacking. They are introducing the Nike ball, a special football (ahem, Soccer, I mean) that is made from much more durable material than regular footballs and that can withstand rougher terrain than the well manicured feilds that we are all used to. They are donating 40,000 of these balls to refugees all over the world, as well as volley ball uniforms for girls who are growing up in strict muslim societies that will give the girls coverage that is also duable, breathable, and athletic.

Some of you might laugh, and scoff at this idea that Nike, one of those companies that has been in the news before for their manufacturing issues could be at the helm of something like this. Scoff as you like, but know that this is going to improve, brighten, change the lives of as many children as people are willing to support.

There is not enough recognition of the refugee problem throughout the world. It is too easy to watch from the glow of the television and silently think how lucky we all are. But maybe it's time to spread that luck around to some people who are just as human, just as deserving, and just as necessary to the preservation of a people's history as every one of us.

Check out www.ninemillion.org and see what you think. This is all for the kids. For education. For hope. Just do it.

The Event of the Summer

I know, most people reading this are thinking that the event of the summer must be my upcoming birthday celebration, but alas, it is not.

It was the baby camel roast we had this weekend here in Dadaab!

I never would have imagined that camel meat would be so tasty until this weekend when it was prepared for us in about 16 different ways. We had yet another classic UNHCR party where something was roasted, people were toasted, and the music was still going with people dancing at 4:00 in the morning.

It was an event that I think everyone needed. There has been a lot of stress here lately, and it has been palpable. A lot of it has to do with the flare up in Somalia, and the general population of staff bracing themselves for the possibility of a huge migration of people over the border to add to the already backlogged case load. So this event was welcome.

We started the evening at Kevin's home chewing Khat, also known as Mirah. If you google Khat you will find much information of the illegality of it in the US and the problem that recently resettled Somali refugees have had with arrests for possessing it, not knowing that it is illegal in the US. Ironically, it is classified (as of 2003) as a schedule 1 narcotic, in the same class as heroine and cocaine, but I speak from expereince that it is really no more than a weed that is relaxing encourages good conversation and a pleasant attitude on life....

It's an interesting tradition in Somalia. Most of the people who chew it are men, but you will find women who chew as well. It's largely social, and men will sit for hours at night chewing and talking. For new comers to Khat it is usual to chew it with gum and sipping soda since the taste is bitter, but once you've chewed for about an hour I find it's better to abandon the gum since it's too much work for the jaw.

Basically, it looks like a soft twig and you eat the leaves off of it that are small adn still soft first, moving onto the skin of the stem. It takes a long time to chew, and the effects are quite mild. After chewing for about an hour you feel a little mellow and just chill in general. It was the perfect way to pass the late afternoon on a saturday, chatting with Kevin and Steph, as well as one of the men who works for IOM and some of the Kenyan Somali staff.

We moved onto the camel roast/party afterwards, where we had fried camel, stewed camel, and camel kabobs. It was suprisingly tasty and quite a nice change from the goat that is normally the protein of choice. I did feel a pang of guilt while I was munching on it, seeing that we had taken the camel (which we did NOT name) for a walk the evening before. It's hard to bond with a camel though, so my pangs of guilt quickly dissipated.

Tomorrow is World Refugee Day. I have to do profiling interviews in the morning so I will miss the celebrations and speeches, but there are some great things happening this week through the sponsorship of Nike and Microsoft that I will tell more about once the release has occurred. It will be interesting to see how the day unfolds tomorrow--but I think it's good that there is a worldwide recognition of the problem that exists in force throughout the world.

Logic Games

So. Tell my why you left Somalia.

That is how we begin the hardest part of the interviews. Asking people to recount the horrible tales of what brought that to Kenya, what pushed them over the edge and made them decide that they simply could not take it anymore. I always brace myself for this part of the interview. You never know what is going to come next.

It's easy here to feel like a wall has been erected around your feelings and emotions as you listen to similar stories of the hardships people are facing in the camp. I find myself mechanically writing things down, not allowing myself to think about what is actually being said.

And then BAM. The story suddenly changes.

Suddenly you are sitting, leaning in closely in an act of comfort and familiarity, listening to a woman tell her story of watching her parents die and her sisters being raped. Watching this woman who is the caretaker of her family, guardian of her siblings, struggle to hold her composure, to speak about an event in her life that is better left in the cobwebs of one's memories. Listening as the translator relays the words, feeling myself slowly start to slide from my comfortable and well removed perch as simply "the interviewer".

The were all attacked, and the only sister who refused, forcibly refused, had her leg smashed by the weight of one of the men repeatedly jumping on it as a result of her refusal. There is nothing that prepares you to sit next to a complete stranger and listen to the most intimate and horrific details of the darkest part of her life recounted. And to feel the need to lean in and rest your hand on her shoulder to try and effect some sort of human contact, as if doing so would suddenly make the prying questions, pleads for as much details as possible, seem all the more humane.

It was the first time during an interview that I almost had to excuse myself to gain composure and collect my emotions before they flooded down the front of my face.

Everyone here believes in something, most of them believe in Allah. I wonder where their faith comes from in the face of all that they have endured. I wonder, often, how we can argue that a just God exists, standing at the mouth of one of these camps. I wonder why there is a population that has been so forsaken listening to some of these stories. I feel a mixture of awe and disdain for the devout in Dadaab--awe because it is so sustaining, disdain because it's hard to not feel that it is such a farce.

I talked to Jay about all of this first, as I do about everything that I experience here. I need a fresh view, a view that is a little removed, in order for me to gain any sort of perspective on it. I talked to him about the three sisters, and he commented about how we need to be grateful for growing up how we all did. But it made me wonder--why is rape worse here? I mean, really, it happens every day in the US--brutal and angry, just as it does in Somalia and in the bush outside Dadaab. What is the difference HERE? I don't know if there is an answer to that question or really any of the questions that roll around in my head every day--but it is something that has made me question--is it worse here? Or is it a way of life? what kind of people are we if we conceed to that? Is it worse here because you cannot pick up the phone and call 911 comforted deep inside knowing that there is a system of response and care set up.

The emotional stories are not all bad, of course. There are some that fill my heart with such hope that I feel like I am going to overflow. It's interesting to feel what it is, exactly, that is allowing emotions to be triggered, how we are able to walk through most days fairly anesthisized to the entire operation until you least expect your feelings to sneak up and force you to catch your breath before moving on to the next question.

The husband was blind and walked with a stick. Theirs was a solid nuclear family--no extraneous people, no one hanging on with that look of desperation of being left behind. They shuffled in--3 young boys, a mother and their blind head of household. Normal. Routine. Let's begin.

And then it was like this surge of peace filled the room--a feeling that is not common here. Most of the time the air is palpable with frustration, desperation, deceit. But not this time. The man was most definitely blind, but he spoke more softly without the air of defensiveness that you feel in a lot of the interviews. We went through the first few housekeeping questions, and then we got ot the part where we talk about any problems the family might be having. Typical responses in this section of the interview are things such as: We hate sorghum (valid); We don't have enough food (valid); Um, we're refugees and have no economic stability, any way to become economically stable, and have been living here for 15 years (again. valid).

But those are the responses that don't tell us anything. Unfortunately, we know that the above mentioned are issues, and we know that there is no perfect solution. But we want to know about other problems that might be specific to the family. Instead of ranting and raving, the man I was interviewing smiled and said that he knows of all the problems that people have in the camp, and they too have problems, but he is overwhelmed with gratitude for the fact that there are even organization like UNHCR who are here trying to help. Huh. had not heard that one before.

We talked about his blindness. Something to note is the way people with disabilities are treated here in general. They are depsised. Seriously. People beat them up, throw rocks at them, abuse them mentally, target their entire families. It's sad. And it's sick, and it makes you wonder if there is any humanity here or if it was sucked up in the soil with the rain after the rains ended here. A lot of times if one member of the family has a disability everyone has problems--and you see kids who are caring for a family member and in school who have no friends a lots of battle wounds in the form of scars and marks.

This family had all the same problems. Their kids don't have friends, they are made fun of, beat up. They, with their mother, have had to take on too much resposibility caring for their dad and making sure that he is getting around ok. When I asked them how they react when kids are mean to them, what they do, the father paused and said this:

My kids have been taught to turn around and walk away. Fighting gets us no where, and it ends up complicating things in the end. We are not taught, in the Koran, to fight. I want my kids to be able to find peace even here. I feel badly for them, my heart aches, because I cannot defend them and protect them because of my bliondness. But believe me, they are good kids and they know that it is not worth fighting. I think Allah and pray to him every day that they are safe and they are ok, because I know that I am not able to be there to protect them. But Allah is good and he will hear us.

For the second time this week, I almost had to excuse myself to leave and collect myself.

I think we try to keep ourselves from feeling too much--it's too hard and there are too many stories that eek into your head that will keep you wrapped up wrestling with them for days. But we're all human, we're all the same, we're all struggling for the same basic things in life. I would be scared and sad if I felt nothing, if the stories did not stick with me, if I could walk away and at the end of the day not think about the people I saw or the things that I heard. And we are teetering, trying to find that find balance, not wanting to cross the line on either side.

We are lucky. Every one of us. We are lucky that we are not living in these camps. That we are not struggling for every single thing we have. Different problems, and different issues. Absolutely. That's true anywhere you go with any population. But I think what is more important that the recognition of good luck that we have all been blessed with are the common ties that connect everyone as a species. We cannot be devoid of emotion in this job because at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, when you let yourself visualize what these people are saying and what has happened to them, when you allow yourself to step for a nanosecond into their shoes, the emotions are released. When I start to think of my family and neighbors, the people I know and love, in the same situations I am hearing over and over, you finally feel the gravity of the words that are being relayed.

These are the experiences in my life that matter, this is why I keep coming back to places like this. The world that slips and spins out of control in our own sphere is suddenly cut down to its true size, stripped of extraneous bullshit. Every thing is distilled into what truly matters, and that brings me some sort of peace, I think. And I don't think I can pick a one word description of what matters, I think that's impossible. Compassion? Maybe. It's hard to walk away from, that is certainly the truth.

Purgatory....

What do you think of when you think of a refugee camp? I wonder about that when I look at the blocks that make up all of the different camps we are working in. We were talking about this today--if people's perceptions in the States are more or less what actually exists in the camps. It's hard to remember what I pictured before I came here since it is now second nature to see it everyday, but I imagine most people picture the shanty towns in South Africa--lots of open sewage, perpetually raining.

The refugee camps are remarkably similar to small villages in Mali. The seem small only becuase they are dramatically spread out, with a few blocks of houses making up one "village". They consist of mud or straw houses, large concessions where the entire family lives, cooking huts. I suppose after 15 years you would only hope for some much, but it is surprising to see. This is not to say or imply that the way of life is one that is eviable or acceptable more than it is any place else. There are schools and it is a common sight to see the kids walking to and from school in their colored uniforms (In Dagahalley, where we were today, the color of the fabric for the uniforms is PINK--the men have pink pants and the women wear fabulously bright pink burquas). hospitals have been set up as have restaurants and markets. The only thing missing is the industry.

The recent fighting in Somalia, in Mogadishu, has sent a huge influx of people coming over the border. In the mornings we see the large crowds waiting to be registered, having just arrived, mostly on foot, from the border towns. There is nothing that is more jarring than seeing a refugee who has recently arrived. Worn, ragged, starving. People who have fled overland from Mogadishu through the bush to get here in 10 days or less. Women carring babies on their backs, and everything they could gather in their sacks. And the numbers continue to grow.

I have come to realize that there is nothing glamorous about the work that is done here. I used to think, as do a lot of people I know, that the UNHCR carries with it a reputation of the zenith of humanitarian work. If you have made it here, gotten hired, found a place, you are truly doing the work of the world, the kind that really matters. And the work people do IS important. But it's gritty, and it's thankless, and it's emotionally rough. I remember reading Black hawk Down in my Genocide class in college. We spoke more about the 18 or 19 American soldiers who were killed than we did about the actual civil war that had broken out almost 2 years before the Americans became caught in the Aideed debacle. It is different, though, reading about it on the internet and seeing the faces of the victims who flee from the violence. You feel connected, and you feel helpless, and you realize that something that is only 80k away from you is really a world away.

I sometimes wonder, as the refugees tell their stories, what it was realyl like. You listen intently to every story and realize how similar they. The questions that lead the stories are the same: beginning with finding out which clan the refugee comes from, is it Hawiye or is it Darod? and who attacked you adn how? In Somalia the Darod and Hawiye targeted each other for the most part, but not entirely. But you talk to these people and interview them, and realize that no matter how much detail they go into, there is no conceivable way that you can channel their experience, their pain, their fright, into your own consciousness. But it sticks. For a long time it sticks.

I have become quiet and introspective here. Lots of time spent thinking and processing, and questioning. What do you do wiht 130,000 people? What is the solution? Is there a solution? Do we pray to whatever being we believe in and hope that the central government is reinstated and the warlords and factions and clan fights are contained? But HOW? how is that conceivablely possible when there is nothing that anyone outside of Somalia deems redeemable from the country? We don't want the refugees, but we don't want to touch the problem. Have we created a kind of refugee puragtory as a result? Where do we go from here.

It's been a week since we arrived in Dadaab and things are still stop and go as far as work is concerned. The past two days have been consumed with a remarkably ineffective teambuilding workshop, where I think there was more animosity and frustration displayed, and the one thing that the staff was united in was their team disdain for the facilitators (and the disdain was rightly felt, I might add). It was a little frustrating for the four of us because we have been here such a short time and would have liked to have been doing more work and less bickering. I have been able to do a lot of reading on the differnet Somali clans and ethnic groups which has been fascinating, and admittedly important for the work we are doing.

I have begun to feel and see the rampant frustration that exists among feild employees in the UNHCR. I think we all hear about the horrific beuraucratic nightmare that the larger organization is, plagued with budget cuts and setbacks in the past 24 months or so, but it is not until you are actually working with the organization that you feel it yourself.

Duty stations like Dadaab have high price tags to get employees up here. UNHCR employes quite a few United Nations Volunteers (UNV) who they pay a small stipend to (about 2k a month, untaxed) as well as their international staff who make a remarkably large sum of money. I am not going to argue that people should not be paid well who work for this organization, particularly the people who are working in the extreme hardship areas like Dadaab, but it makes me wonder if the organization really is using their resources in the most effective way possible. I think one of the most frustrating things about it all is knowing that with a simple restructuring wihtin the UN and a reallcoation of resources, the results would be direct and great on the people who are needing the services the most. I often wonder if the sheer number of refugees that exist in the world is such a daunting number that a sense of complacency has crept in and contaminated the agency very quietly.

This is a hard duty station. We can't leave the compound past 6pm, there are camel spiders the size of small children crawling around, and the company is limited. The personalities are bold and there is no place to go when you just need a break. you can't sneak off to the cinema, and your friend's houses are all next door. The atmosphere in the camp ends up being the mindset of the best way to amuse oneself is to create conflict between others and watch it unfold. It's slightly depressing.

I have combatted this with books. I forgot what it is like to read for pleasure and I am thoroughly enjoying rediscovering it. There are bars that people go to every night, and I have been a couple of times, but they are breeding grounds for camel spiders and I find that the last thing I want to do after spending an entire week with the exact same people is spend an evening talking about the same things, this time only fueled by alcohol. I know, I am risking sounding slightly dismissive, but it's amazing the things you will do for some peace.

This is after one week. Imagine what it's like after two years....

The Resettlement Conundrum

I work in the resettlement department here in Dadaab, and our job is to screen cases that might be eligible for resettlement based on the family composition, whether the case fits within the boundaries of the '51 Convention, and whether it is a case that could get through the rigorous screening done by not only UNHCR, but the resettlement countries as well.

It's hard in the respect that every day you have families of refugees who are selected to come before you, and your job is to screen and screen hard--try to detect fraud, trip people up, make sure that the stories they are telling are true, that their families include who they say they include. It's exhausting being suspicious of a group of people everytime they walk through the gates because when you stop and really think about it, no matter if they're disabled, victims of violence, or are just plain old refugees who fled from violence, they are sitting in a pretty crappy situation that most people would want to escape from.

There are a lot of debates among the staff about whether resettlement is a good thing, and if it is something that UNHCR should be doing at all. It is not an easy question to answer, and I have found that the more I think about it, the more complicated it gets in my mind. When I arrived last week I came thinking that of course resettlement was good--of course countries should open their arms and help these people if they qualified, and why wouldn't they. But it's much deeper than that, and recently more studies have come out that aid in questioning the rightness of it all.

Before I left DC I was able to catch "The Lost boys of Sudan" with Jay while studying for my Property final. I would watch some and study and listen in on a little more, but it was evident through all of it that these kids from Sudan had some serious problems when they arrived in the US (if you have not seen it, I HIGHLY recommend checking it out). Seeing the refugees here, it is not hard to imagine why.

I remember when I was in Mali and volunteers would end their service having a life changin experience thanks to the Malians who led them through it, and decide the only way to thank their best friend was to buy them a ticket to the US and bring them over for a visit. I would watch in amazement as this would happen, as I could only imagine what it would be like to be the babysitter to these Malians once they arrived in America. It is hard to imagine the look on a Malian's face who has never been farther away from their village than the market town when they go to a grocery store, walk into one of our homes, or see any of the things in America that we all take for granted.

Now picture the refugees. The are people who have been sitting in a camp for the last 15 years with nothing. NOTHING. And we think it's a good idea to pluck families here adn there out, put them on a plane and fly them to Dallas Texas with the hope that the church group who has volunteered to be their guide will actually live up to that and not desert them 2 months in because it is a larger task than imagined?

It's culturally jarring, to say the least, when people are resettled. Yes, there are schools in the camps, but most of the people who come through the resettlement office are not fluent in English, and it is rare that there is family member who is. Some people ask why not resettle the cases of families who are educated, speak English, have exposure to other cultures adn not the cases we are looking at. The answer goes back to protection, and the people being resettled are the ones who are at most risk of violence and persectution within the camp.

It's a hard question to struggle with, because it is hard to look at 130,000 people and say that they should all keep waiting for peace to come to Somalia, but it is equally as difficult to imagine the transition that they will have to go through if they are resettled. So many of these people just want out, and they can't imagine anything worse than where they are living now, other than being forced back into their home countries that are still at war. But you have to wonder, is it better to move them to the US where the populations of Somalis are small and the only family who goes are the family members who are immediate? Is there more security in that, or are we doing them a larger disservice? Would resources that are being used be better spent on protection within the camps, more schools, and more scholarships for the kids who qualify?

They are hard questions. And they probably have no answers. And that's where we all lay our heads at night here in Dadaab.

How Humanitarian can Humanitarians Be?

Weekends in the camp are long. What do you do in the middle of a refugee camp in the middle of the desert? We went out to Ifo yesterday morning to see the food distribution that World Food Programme does for all of the camps. In collaboration with USAID and UNHCR they provide all of the food for the refugees, and have for years. I was interested in the process, for as much a reason to see just HOW food is distributed to 45,000 people twice a month as well as exactly what we are providing.

The United States provides 75% of the food that world food programme distributes. I know, all the Americans readers are probably patting themselves on the back right now thinking, huh, we're not so bad after all when it comes to humanitarian aid. And the truth is, 75% is a lot of food, considering it is not only the camps in Dadaab that are being subsidized. But it is in looking at the kind of food that is being provided where the problems arise.

Having spent the better part of 2 years working in public health in Mali, with populations of women and children, most of whom were wildly malnourished, I have a special place in my heart for things like food programs that are designed to aleviate hunger and provide a solid source of nutrition for people. I saw in Mali the possibility of taking a staple like millet and amelieorating it with simple leaf sauces to enhance the nutritional values. The choice of grain, to me, is one of the most important choices, as there are MANY different grains with varying nutritional values. I would always look longingly at my friends who were in the southern regions of Mali where rice was the staple (white rice, mind you), but know that the millet eating populations would get a more complete meal than the rice eating populations since millet was just so much more complete.

Here in Dadaab there is no millet. Instead there is sorghum, and lots of it. The way that food is rationed out is by person--for each extra person, one more portion of each grain is added. The rub is that the sorghum, when the Somalis get it, is not already shafted, so about 1/5-1/4 of the bulk is discarded in the preparation. In addition to the sorghum, each person also recieves a small amount of maize, oil, salt, and a corn/soybean mix. The refugees are given nothing to create a sauce for their grain, or any sort of powdered milk, just the grain and salt and oil. It is not a lot. And it is not a lot of grains that are not terribly high in anything. It was slightly upsetting.

Here is the debate: when we give food aid, should we give the grains that will yeild the highest possibility of a complete and healthy diet, or should we fill the truck with whatever surplus grain we have left, while continuiung to pay farmers subsidies to stop producing so much of the other grains? I think, if you know me well, you will know my position on this. But I will go ahead and elucidate it anyway.

The grains that are being provided are not complete, and the people in the camps know it, because their kids are malnourished and everyone is still hungry. No, I don't think that is the America's job to be the world's breadbasket, but I do think that if we are going to participate in programs such as this, we need to do it completely and stop paying off farmers to stop growing grain. Instead, when the soy farmers have a surplus, or more acerage where they can harvest the beans, let them, then BUY the goods and use those. There is no perfect solution, but there is a better one than what has been developed now.

As we were walking through the barns and sheds watching the people get their food, I asked whether there was a larger ration for expectant mothers, or those who are breastfeeding. Apparently, there is a program in the maternity, but it is hard to be a part of, and it does not provide much assistance.

One point of view that has been raised is that giving the refugees a sub-standard of food, not allowing them to develop economically, not giving all of them proper houses is good, since this should not feel like a permanent solution to them, and there should be no incentive to stay. I do not agree with this assessment.

In a perfect world there would be no refugees, there would be no civil war or minorities, no warlords with machetes and guns directing the stronger propulation to run around the country hacking people up, raping women, and shooting people in the face. Governments would function FOR their people, not against them, and global decisions would not be predicated on oil. But, suprisingly, utopia does not exist, therefore we deal with what we have.

In Dadaab, it's a lot of people who fled for a pretty solid reason (see above). I don't think there is one person on earth who would advocate for permanence in refugee camps, but I think there are a lot of people who understand that human beings should be afforded a certain level of protection from harm if possible. There are "transit centers" in all of the camps that house ethnic groups who are at a high risk of facing violence within the camp because of their ethnicity. We went to one yesterday where there were Ethiopian Anwouks staying and I started chatting with one. He had fled with his family in 2004, had bullet wounds all over his arms and wrists. I was asking him why he left, why he came here. He said that when you're given the choice between war and suffering, he had to choose suffering because of his family--he could not risk having them remain in Ethiopia. What kind of a choice is that? And what kind of humans would we be if we said "tough shit buddy, grab a gun and may the best man win"?

UNHCR is a protection agency, it's not a resettlement agency. We tell every refugee that resettlement is not a right when they sit down for their interviews. And I agree with that. It's problematic that UNHCR is so terribly lacking in funds and it makes me wonder if it will continue to survive, but as long as it does do we not have an obligation to the common humanity to continue to protect people? I would like to see someone who is able to look a group of people in the face, people who have fled, who have watched their husbands adn daughters and parents get murdered, who have been raped and tortured and beaten, and tell them that there is no more protection. That the world is back to the Hobbesian dog-eat-dog nature, and that they need to go back and fend for themselves. How can one do that? Or believe that is the right thing to do? I don't think that refugees should be shipped to the US or Canada or Australia and resettled in droves (see next post for more on that) but I do think that by sharing a common humanity we adopt a duty to not turn our backs in our comfortable homes and toss people away like garbage under the survival of the fittest rationale.

It's easy to lose sight, after 15 years, of the reasons that people have come to Dadaab. But Somalia is not a functioning country, and there is no fucntioning government. Babies have been born in the camps, marriages have occurred, people have continued to live. Would it have been better to force the Somalis to stay and be annhilated just like the Hutus in Rwanda while the stronger nations just conveniently ignored the situation and Hobbes' world unfold? How can anyone say yes to that?

When A Nuclear Family Explodes

It is the second day in the camps, and each day brings more and more questions and less and less answers to the forefront of my mind.

I remember when I was studying for the LSAT spending one Sunday after another wading through complex word prolems trying to figure out who would be sitting next to Shelly playing the flute if Sam with the trombone suddenly fell off the face of the earth. Today, we were confronted with a similar and equally as perplexing challenge: the family composition.

Americans love the nuclear family. We relish the idea of happy parents with their son and daughter, appropriately spaced in birth by about 2.5 years, living behind a white picket fence and eating sloppy joes while playing with Spot the dog. Yes, there is the extended family--aunts and uncles, cousins and such. And sometimes there is a grandparent that gets adopted into the nuclear family, but that happens only when there is not a retirement home within sufficient distance from the family's 2.5 acre family home on a suburban culdesac.

Enter: the African family.

One of the largest challenges of the job that is to be done when screening refugees and determining whether or not they qualify for resettlement is making sure their family members are actually all related, and only the immediate members of the family are the ones who are being considered for resettlement. The "extraneous" members, or non-nuclear aspects, are screened out and sent back to the camps. This is a difficult, if not impossible, idea to convey to Somalis and most Africans in general. When we receive the sheet with the family data, listing the head of the household and any dependants, we usually have a list of about 6 or 7 people, sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on how many children there are, if there are children who were married whose husbands have died, or if there are grandchildren who are adopted into a family after their parents have been killed. But generally, the list is not terribly extensive.

We receive the list and look it over, identifying the individual with the disability, and head off to the holding pen to locate the family. This morning, the pen was swarming and packed as people were also being screened for other purposes. We went through a couple of cases with nothing out of the ordinary going on, and hit case number three. Walking outside we had already identified potential problems with how the family comp looked--one older woman, all her brothers and sisters, and a stray grandchild. No husbands, no children. When we arrived to call her name we expected that 5 people would walk forward, maybe 6. Instead, we were confronted by the slew of people, all claiming to be brothers and sisters, uncles, children, husbands.

We have to be careful when we deal with these families. One thing that UNHCR is particularly cognizant of is not separating children from their parents which could lead to serious custody issues once the family has been resettled, and a terrible situation for UNHCR in future resettlement endeavors. For example: what often happens is a mother and all of her children will come for an interview. One of her children will be disabled, a couple of the kids will be married, but the spouse of the married child is no where in sight. Instead, you have 8 people who are trying to be included in the case even though some may have spouses elswhere in the camp. If we include the married people and not the husbands, and the family is eventually resettled, the father can come waving a stick claiming the custody rights that he, indeed, has.

It is hard to look at a family and start peicing them off. OK, you, you and you are ok, but I'm sorry ma'am, you're husband is here and you have two chldren with him, therefore even though the rest of your family is going to be considered, you are no longer affiliated with the case, so go back to the camp and continue to hang out.

Another common problem is the stray child. Where did this child come from? Is he on your ration card? Oh, you had him with your first husband? Where is he? Oh, he's dead? huh. ok, well. right.

The problem is that people will tell you anything to get out. They will leave spouses behind, they will give their children to others. The desperation is at a point where it is permeating everything, and while I stand and look at a group of refugees whose lives have been tortured and hard, I look at them wondering how they are trying to scam the system. And this is only day number two.

So back to the LSAT problem. Who goes, and who stays? There are no marriage certificates, and there are no paternity tests. There are, however, strict guidlines set up by the UNHCR and the resettlement countries as to who will qualify and who will not. We look at a family and say great, there is the mother, the father, and the children, and they are all present and accounted for, but the Somalis don't see it in the same way. They say: Look at these people who have saved me, who have shared my pain, who have been adopted into your idea of a nuclear family when parents were murdered, and their children died. Look at the cousins who fled and have no one but us. This is our family, every last one of them.

But...when it comes down to it...most of these people are willing to leave some behind at the opportunity for resettlement. This morning we had the case of a father and his disabled son and three other children, one of whom was married and had a child. When we asked her where her husband was, and she replied: oh, in the camp. We had to tell her that she was off the case. We looked at the father and explained that the only way to move forward was without his daughter and whether he wished to continue, and his reply was: oh yeah, she's got her husband, she can stay here.

Nice. Love you too dad.

But, everything else aside. Nothing is easy here, and I wonder what I would do in the same situation. When I arrived I thought how perfect it would be to get some groups into the camp and start some economic development projects--give these people some tangible skills that can be translated to the real world. But we can't. It's NOT ALLOWED. Groups can't come in and do this econ development, the government won't allow it. So instead, they sit. And wait. And hope that one morning when they walk up to the board where the names of the families to be interviewed each day are posted, their name will magically appear.

Until then...

Day one

The emotions are more that I thought I would feel while interviewing potetional candidates for resettlement. They file in as families who are seeking peace and finality, a new start, a place to call home. They are looking for a way out, and many of them are doing so in ways that are not entirely honest, and in ways that are glaring with a mix of desperation and hope. And I sit before them with my pen in my hand and my interpreter at my side and wonder exactly how I got here and what this summer will hold.

We went to the one of the three camps today for the first time. We've been in Kenya a week, Dadaab since yesterday, and all three of us are still raring to go. We are beginning to see, in only the first day, the kind of worn down, tired looked of the permannent UNHCR staff, many of whom are finishing their tours and are on their way out. For us, this is all new, all exciting and we are blissfully ignorant of what we are to confront in the next 6 weeks.

There are three camps that comprise the Dadaab (Duh-dobb) refugee camp area. Ifo (ee-fo), Dagahaley, and Hagadera. Ifo is the closest, about 5k away and Dagahaley is the farthest at roughly 15k out. There was a national holiday today, so most of the UN staff were off, but Kevin wanted to get us out there, and none of us wanted to sit around for the whole day, so we took off at about 7:45am for Dagahaely.

The "roads" to the camps are washed out river beds. There is simply and expanse of red sand and sage brush as far as you can see, with water towers that were installed by CARE or UNHCR dotting the landscape calling out to the camps that they hydrate and feed. It takes about 25 minutes to get to the Dagahaely (Daga) and the route is eerily empty. In Mali, I remember no matter how far away you were from "civilization", if you were just outside Bamako or 100k into the bush, there would always be herders and nomads wandering around. Here, it is deserted with few people spotting the landscape.

We travel with police escorts, one truck in the front and one in the back. They are filled with Kenyan police who sport AK-47s and headwraps and drive like maniacs through the desert. I have to wonder if I actually feel more or less safe with them at our helm.

The camps all have satellite UNHCR offices where we do our interviewing during the day. They are generally at the entrance to all the camps, and not within the heart of them. We arrived today to talk a little bit about what it was we were going to be doing, see the camp, and dive into some cases. What we are doing is working on a resettlement project that is focusing on disabled refugees and survivors of violence who are facing particular protection probelms and targeted violence within the camps as a result of the their disabilities. My job, along with the other two interns, will be to interview the families who are seeking resettlement as the first phase of this project. we are doing the preliminary interviews, getting the information, family history, composition, background on the disability, affects of the disability in the camp and making preliminary recommendations as to whether the families qualify for resettlement under this specific program, which would lead to other interviews and possibily resettlement. I know, it sounds as though I weild an undue amount of power for someone who just arrived, knows peripheral information about the different groups we are working with, and who has no experience with this kind of thing, but there are many checks in place and lots of reviews of our forms and recommendations and whatnot.

Kevin has been remarkable with all of our questions and concerns and giving us the background information on what exactly is going on in the camp. Between the three camps there are 150,000 refugees, many of whom have been here since the early '90s when the fighing first broke out. A frustrating component to all of this is the continuation of eruptions of violence which sends more and more Somalis over the boarder every week. It is hard to see the impact of the work when it seems that every time some leave the camp for resettlement, more and more come in.

I asked Kevin yesterday how long this is sustainable. The UN and CARE have been here from the beginning, first in crude tents with few solutions and now with entire compounds and staffs and airconditioned offices complete with satellite internet and television. This operation is clearly not temporary, and it seems that sooner or later there will be more crises, more populations who are fresher and who need more urgent aid. The money is finite in the UN as we are all becoming well aware, but the answer was more than I expected. As Kevin explained it, the UNHCR is a protection agency, it is not an agency of immigration that can pull out whenever they feel they have filled their quota. As such, the UNHCR will remain here as long as there is a credible threat and well founded fear that should the population return to their homes, the violence will begin again and they will not be safe. With the situation in Mogadishu and the rest of Somalia what is still is, it looks like by the time the UNHCR leaves Dadaab there will be a Safeway supermarkert, motel 8, and Blockbuster set up as well.

Kevin began the day with some briefings, and immediately sent two of the interns out into the camp with an interpreter and driver to see the grounds, leaving Steph and me to observe the first interview that Kevin was going to conduct. The families being interviewed are held in an area outside of the immediate office where they are frisked for potential weapons and asked to wait. It takes about an hour to do an interview, longer for us since we are starting out, and we had 8 families to get through in 5 hours. kevin took us outside to the pen and located the family we would be interviewing. We needed to make sure the entire family was present and that the individual who claimed to have the disability was actually disabled. It's difficult in situations like this when the families are large and complicated, many wives, tons of children, and lots of fraud. One of the main things that we need to be congnizant of is the reality of trafficking and the ease with which refugees are willing to sell off one child for lots of cash and absorb another child into their family whose family would not necessarily qualify for resettlement. Desperation creates remakarkable choices made...

Our conversations with the refugees are confidential, shared only with the translators and the other UN staff memebers. The translators are primarily young adults who were raised in the camps, educated in the camps, and most likely will not be prime cadidates for resettlement. It's hard, seeing educated, bright, kind, motivated individuals who you would love to send to the US to give them a solid future but are prohibited from doing so because they do not face protection issues in the actual camp.

The families we saw today all had children who were diasabled, ranging from severe physical disabilites to mental handicaps. Inside the camps people seem to be ruthless--lots of people wiht nothing to do has lead to a palpable electricity of frustration and boredom. There is almost zero opportunity for economic advacement, so the situation is that thousands and thousands of people are just waiting, bored, unhappy, hungry, pissed off. As a result, they make their own targets and those people are generally the helpless. Listening to the mothers tell the stories of what has happened to their children who can do nothing and whose only crime is a disability was heartbreaking. I found myself looking away when they would talk of beatings, and watched the siblings subconsciously protect and stroke their handicapped brothers during the descriptions. It was hard, looking at these kids who are literally at the mercy of whomever they come upon.

I did my first interview by myself after doing one with Kevin, and it is far harder than one would expect. Trying to get the story straight, asking the women to please recount again how exactly her husband died 14 years ago when the fighting broke out. Did you witness it? How exactly was he killed? where? Were you injured? Yes? Please Explain. Would you ever consider going back to Somalia now? The resounding response to that is an adament no. I cannot imagine the fear that these people feel.

We went around the camp for about 10 minutes today, very briefly, as Kevin was finishing up. When I was in Mali I would remark that in Africa there is no difference betwene the "have" and "have-nots" as there is so little difference between most people. I realize now how ergrigiously wrong I have been.