[简介]

我们的小组队再度探访从我们(iACT) 2006年第4天 的妇女. 她们与我们分享他们的家和她们想离开营地的渴望. 再次, 没有采取行动所付出的代价变得非常清晰.

第四天

加布里埃尔指出他去年已经访问了这个难民营,并且见过她们.

其中有一名妇女刚生了婴儿,一个月大.

在这个社会里,妇女如姐妹般在一起照顾子女.

在其中一名年轻的妇女被采访的帐篷下,她们谈起她们的生活情况. 帐篷里 热得很,气温比外面高得多. 妇女们睡在沙土上,如果是湿了,他们就生病,他们解释说.

其中一名年轻女子问他们什么时候会将和平带来她的国家.

她前一年逃到难民营, 并把她拥有的一切抛在后头, 奔步三天才到达, 在这个营地住了一年. 这个录影带显示, 难民对前往的西方营地访客所抱着的希望. 这个年轻的妇女所问的问题, 就是一个活生生的呼吁. 她的父亲和弟弟都不在该营地. 接近她的一名孩子的父亲被杀死, 小孩住的帐篷里此并不远.

然后他们参观妇女们的厨房. 妇女问候Stacy (她去年和加布里埃尔参访营地) .

Jour 4, 13 Juillet 2007

Gabriel rappelle qu’il est déjà venu dans ce camp l’année passée, et reconnaît des femmes  qui étaient déjà là.

L’une d’entre elles a eu un bébé, âgée d’un mois.

Dans cette communauté, les femmes sont soeurs et ont des enfants avec elles.

Sous la tente où une des jeunes femmes est interviewée, ils parlent de leur condition de vie.

La chaleur est étouffante.

La femme dort sur le sable, et comme il est humide, elle tombe malade, explique-t-elle.

La jeune femme leur demande quand ils vont amener la paix dans son pays. Elle s’est échappée l’année antérieure, laissant tout dernière elle, et se trouve dans ce camp depuis un an. Cette vidéo montre tout l’espoir qu’ils portent dans les visiteurs occidentaux pour en finir avec les camps. Sa question est un appel poignant.

Son père et son frère ne sont pas dans le camp.

Près d’elle un enfant dont le père a été tué vit sous la tente, avec elle.

Le dernier plan se fait sur le visage triste d’un enfant obligé de vivre loin des siens dans ce camp.

If a person has experienced a lot of suffering for a prolonged period, one may expect it to leave a mark. If there has not been effective outside assistance in bringing peace to one’s homeland, one might at least be cautious towards outsiders. Not so with the people we have met and seen so far. We have been warmly welcomed by every family we visit, and treated as though we were part of their community. Everyone has been kind: giving interviews, showing us around their homes, even creating quiet spaces in which to talk more intimately. The latter is no mean feat — almost the moment we arrive at the place where Darsalam, Sumaiya and others live, at least 15-20 kids appear and start walking with us, even following us into the compounds of people’s homes. From the looks of it, it is a very tight-knit community.

The kids are amazing at dispelling sorrow and despair, without even trying. As we are about to leave for the day, they gather about the car. As I walk to the car, they come to shake or hold my hand, smiling and saying good-bye. I try to hold everyone’s hand as I don’t want anyone to feel left out. It also makes me very happy. On our drive through the camp or back to home base, we pass many kids playing or just spending time outside. Almost all of them wave to us. At first I was not used to it, but now I wave back at everyone. How important and meaningful it is, the simple act of greeting one another and wishing each other well.

All this is in stark contrast to the reality of life in the camp. In past years, watching the i-ACT videos in the US, I sometimes found myself thinking that life in the camps looked “not so bad”. I now know that this is an utterly false impression; no doubt due to my ignorance, the resilience of the refugees, and the warmth they project.

Hamara (the lady in blue) has to sleep on the sand inside her tent, and it makes her sick. Sleeping on the sand must be a common practice, as we have seen far more people than beds. The inside of the tents we’ve visited was unbearably hot; they have no windows and are made of a fairly thick material which traps heat. The material is opaque and there are no transparent parts to let light through, so the tents are invariably quite dark inside. Everyone talks about needing more food, and needing better food. People may be getting rations equivalent to their daily calorie requirements, but this doesn’t account for quality nor variety of food. From what we’ve seen, they do not fare well in those regards. Imagine eating the same grain, mixed with millet, cooked with oil, for 4 years. The NGOs face huge challenges and constraints, sustaining hundreds of thousands of people in an environment that is not only as tough as it gets operationally, but also presents mortal danger. I’m sure they work very hard, but the fact of the matter is, this is no way for a human being to live for long periods of time.

There are also the less tangible things, which are just as vital to human life and inflict just as much suffering when not present. We ask people what their occupation was in Darfur. All we’ve asked were productively employed: farmers, teachers. In the refugee camp the majority are unemployed. Part of displacement is separation. Families are split up over distances that while relatively small in a modern, stable environment, can mean worlds apart where there is no communications infrastructure and where physical travel involves mortal danger.

Hamara asked us when we will bring peace to her country so she can return. “This year or next”, she asked. We, at that moment the representatives of the international community, had nothing much in way of a good answer. “We will take your message to the world and ask that peace be brought to Darfur.” I wonder how she felt.

Mary Ann,
If everyone could relate like you, these people would be back in Darfur. Amor y Paz,Connie

Pam B.,
I’m happy I made it too.But remember I’m here bringing YOUR message. Amor y Paz,Connie.

Mimi,
It is great to be around the people they make you feel welcomed and they always are smiling but yes it is so sad to see the conditions they live in.It does make me so sad.Amor y Paz, Connie.

Valeria,
The bugs are giant! But don’t feel bad, I’m kind of getting used to them. Amor y Paz, Connie.

Rachel,
As LOUD as we can ‘till they hear us! Amor y paz,Connie.

Zaharita,
Que bueno que te gustan mis recuentos de los hechos. Espero que a todos.Amor y Paz,Connie

Tere,
Estoy segura que esa es la clave: LA FAMILIA. Amor y Paz,Connie.

Replies to Zahara, Mimi, Valeria, MaryAnn, Pam, Tammy, Rachel and Sylvia.

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Note: Ali is a member of the i-ACT team who acts as the team’s guide and interpreter. He lives in Chad with his family.

For me it’s too difficult –

“I need to go back to my home and when you will send me there? I stayed 4 years here and it is too much. I don’t want to stay more.”

This is a young lady that we met this morning in the camp. I replied to her that as soon as there peace in her country she will go. And she asked, this year or next year. You know it is a little bit hard to stay but they do not have a choice.

Ali

Very Full Days

After getting back from the camp, the sky became extremely dark, with thick clouds moving over us. A little later, it started to rain. We’re lucky that our little huts have a good roof, insulated with UNHCR green sheeting. We have continued to get wave after wave of bugs, all shapes and sizes—crawling kind, jumping kind, flying kind—they keep coming at us in this little hut. It still feels like home, with the three of us on computers, and cameras and other gadgets all over the place. It’s hard not to trip on one chord or another.

It is so nice to have Yuen Lin with us. Besides being a great guy with a hilarious, although quiet, sense of humor, there is not a tech problem he hasn’t been able to handle, from all that we’ve thrown at him. He even found Connie’s lost Day 4 Journal, saving her from having to type it all over again. With her slow, slow typing, that would have been a couple of hours of extra work. Connie loves YL right now :)

Day 4 was a full day at a camp. We check in through the multiple layers of registrations, as Connie described on her Journal yesterday, but after that we walk and make it through the camp on our own and not the part of a tour. The people we meet have no idea that we’re coming, and we usually catch them as they make it through their normal routine: women building their fences, braiding each other’s hair, or preparing a meal. As everyone notices when watching the videos, there are very few men in the camps. If we notice it with our eyes, I wonder how the hearts and souls of these survivors experience that void.

Back at our home-base, our little hut full of machines, we get to work. We write, download pictures and video, and we make sure everything is ready to go for the next day. The editing takes me hours—long hours. I have to download all the footage taped at the camp, and this is downloaded in real time. As it comes down, I look and make notes about what I might want to use for the day’s i-ACT clip. It is quite a challenge to decide what to pick. I wish I could share every child’s face with you.

We go to sleep late at night, and it’s actually more like early in the morning. YL fell asleep in his chair, with his head resting in his arms over his computer. As I was shutting my MacBook, YL was waking up and starting to type away, as fast as Connie is slow, as if he did not miss a beat during his sleep.

If you find a face that you like from Day 4, please do at least one thing for him or her today. Take at least one action that might help them go home. Do it as if that face belonged to someone whom you love dearly. I’m pretty sure that you don’t even have to pretend. It’s impossible not to love these faces and the people behind them.

Paz,
Gabriel

Can we relate in any way with all of our refugee friends?

Last night was a little tough for me. I hate to whine especially after everything I’ve seen but I’m going to anyway. Yesterday we worked non-stop, everything was fine until we had to turn on the light. Hundreds of bugs came in from the spaces between the walls of our hut and the grass ceiling it also has a plastic green covering that reminds who our host is because it has the UNHCR logo written all over, this prevents the water from coming in. I am not a BUG person so these guys were uuuuuugly! I felt bad because Gabe and Yuen Lin did not complain at all, as if they were sitting in an office in an elegant high-rise building in downtown L.A. It was hard for me to concentrate with these African insects jumping on my neck, dancing in my hair, popping in my mouth; well, you get the idea. So I don’t know how the translation turned out, hope our Spanish-speaking viewers understand.

I started out the day with hardly any sleep, (thanks to you know what). Gabe and I worked until mid-morning; Yuen Lin worked the latest so we let him sleep-in until 10ish.Then we were off to another camp. Again the same check-in with all the different authorities that you are sure are not going to let you come in but then suddenly say O.K.

Again we were swarmed by children, especially ages 3 to about 12. By coincidence we got out of the car and Gabe immediately recognized some of the women, and they Gabe. They were all happy to see each other. We had interesting conversations, that you will hear and view. The conditions were just about the same as I described for the first camp, deplorable! We talked to the women and learned that there is not much for them to do all day and most of these refugees have been here for 4 years! Can you imagine what that does to your psyche? The boredom that sets in has to be debilitating. There is not much to cook, not much to wash, some of them only have the old rags that they are wearing, so mostly they sit around and talk with family and neighbors. Every day, that is it!

Almost all of the children go to school in the mornings. In the afternoons they hang around in groups and play between the corridors of their tents. Many little kids are taking care of little kids. They teach them very young to care for each other and it seems to me that they enjoy very much that task.

These people love to smile! I do not know how they can keep it up. I think about any of us in this same situation and am sure we could not keep our spirits up for so long and with no hope of returning to our homes in the near future we would all be desperate. They are strong, but as one of the young women said;” I WANT TO GO HOME!” This I can relate to. Imagine loosing your home and not only that, but also many family members, and a refugee for so long. I would want to go home also. I can relate to the love for family that is obvious here at the camps.

Maybe we don’t speak the same languages and in every aspect, live very differently, but we can all relate to the basic human rights, to have a dignified standard of living, to go about without fearing for your life. To be productive and live where we want with the people we love.

Can you relate to that?
Amor y Paz,Connie

Hola Amigos,

Hoy fue un dia de muchas emocines (para variar).Llegamos al campamento y casi de
inmediato Gabriel se encontro con varias mujeres con las que ya habia hecho amistad.
Muchos de los que estan aqui en este campamento ya llevan mas de 48 meses.La pobre
gente ya no puede con las terribles condiciones ; las letrinas ,pozos a cada 100 metros
entre las tiendas de campana (el olor espantoso!),la mayoria no tienen donde acostarse
y simplemente se tiran en la arena para dormir.La arena tambien se les mete a los
pulmones y los enferma.Las mujeres tambien platican que no tienen nada que hacer.Te
imaginas tanto tiempo sin hacer nada!Esto perjudica la mente de cualquiera.Poca comida
Y el mismo grano que se mezcla para hacer un atole que no tiene sabor,todos los dias!
Y a pesar de todo la gente sonrie!!!!! Que inceible.Yo no se quien de nosotros podria
vivir en este infierno?

Platicamos con una joven,.Ella nos dice que quiere regresar a Darfur pero que no es
seguro en este momento porque el gobierno los persigue. Tambien un nino hermoso nos
dicen las mujeres ,le mataron a su papa.Gabriel volvio a ver a Darsalam una joven que
estaba embarazada la ultima vez que vino y ahora conosimos a su bebe.
Nosotros no somos reporteros profesionales somos gente comun y aqui vinimos a visitar
tambien a gente comun,familias que se quieren y solo desean regresar a sus vidas
productivas de antes.Y que por mientras, tener los mas basico para vivir sanamente es
indispensable!