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.