依照观众的要求,加布里埃尔再次访问曼苏尔,希望把他的画带回美国. 我们还听到更多可怕的故事,促使难民投奔营地的悲剧,.

他们今天参观的难民营里,妇女们讲述了他们逃生的经历.第一名有7个子女. 她带着孩子连夜逃跑,没有带任何食物.她的村庄寸草不留, 一切被骑马民兵(janjaweed)烧毁. 她还是要回去.

加布里埃尔决定回见曼苏尔(Mansur), 画战争图片的小孩. 一些美国观众看了录象都很感动,包挂加布里埃尔的侄子,迈克尔. 加布里埃尔问曼苏尔能不能给他一张图片,交给迈克尔, 让迈克尔作成一个T-恤穿, 以助迈克尔向他人解释曼苏尔的故事. 曼苏尔给了加布里埃尔两张. 加布里埃尔说,下次他会带来一些迈克尔的图画和T-恤给曼苏尔.

录象尾端给例出妇女及其子女的姓名, 使他们不再是匿名的面孔.

Pausing for a moment to put oneself in the shoes of another makes a big difference. It’s easy to see or hear something without reaching that point where you know how it feels. We all have empathy, and it allows us to come close to how another feels without being in the exact same situation ourselves. Not identical, to be sure, but close enough to relate. As you watch the i-ACT videos, try putting yourself in the shoes of the people we meet. Hopefully through their words and expressions, with your imagination and intuition filling in the rest, you can feel some aspects of the lives of Darfuri refugees. The food, the tents, the sanitation, the threat of violence, the idleness, the separation from loved ones, the abandonment of a life as full as any of our’s, the desire to return the moment there is peace. Hopefully you can, painful as it may be, for a moment imagine how it’s like to be there during the atrocities. When your village was bombed from the air, then attacked from the ground by men in vehicles and horseback, when people near and dear were killed as they ran, when all your possessions were destroyed or stolen. Just as we have not turned a blind eye to the genocide in Darfur, we should not shy away from these feelings.

I love the portraits we took of people. Frozen in a still frame, with no ambient noise or movement, one gets to look closely at the face of a person. Into a person’s eyes. In that instant all pretense falls away and one realizes that if even a single one of these people was hurt, or killed, or separated from family, or forced to abandon home, that itself is a price too high to pay.

We’d like to thank Obo Addy for letting us use his wonderful song in the video.

Artist: Obo Addy & Okropong
Album: Afieye Okroprong
Song: Donno Sings, You’re Late

Jour n°7, 16 juillet 2007

Dans le camp visité ce jour là des femmes témoignent de leur fuite.

La première a sept enfants. La nuit elle s’est enfuit avec eux, sans nourriture. Elle fuyait son village mis à sac et brûlé.

Gabriel décida de revenir voir Mansur, l’enfant qui fit des dessins sur la guerre.

Des jeunes américains privilégiés furent très touchés par ce garçon et ses dessins. Gabriel demanda à Mansur de lui donner un de ses dessins. En fait Mansur lui en donnera deux.

Un diaporama fait des visages de ces femmes et de ces enfants donne leur nom, montrant ainsi qu’ils sont des êtres à part entière et non pas seulement des visages anonymes.

Who will return these kids innocence? That is something that will never be restored. The effect that living this way and the ordeal of loosing family and homes, has on all of the refugees is physical and psychological. And will change their lives forever. That is why we must help them regain whatever little bit of dignity can be retuned to them. Amor y Paz, Connie.

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I ran from my village when the jenjawed and the government were shooting at us. “how did you run?” it’s not easy to run but we escaped only at late in the night when it takes dark, so they can not see us. “Did you bring all your animals? “No not at all i took all our camals some of them were killed for example donkeys and they burned all the houses and the farms as well. And finally my husband was killed during the attack and my seven children ( 3 girl,and 4 boys) are orphan now. That’s was a 40 year old women lives near to Doumaya and Darssalam house.

Ali

Adios.

Este día empezó casi igual que todos los demás. Casi no dormimos pero listos para regresar por última vez a ver a nuestros amigos.

De nuevo las multitudes donde quiera, las invitaciones de pasar a sus tiendas de campaña y muchas más historias personales de las odiseas y vicisitudes que han pasado.

Una mujer nos platicó de su huída de Sudan, de como mataron a su marido y salió corriendo con sus hijos. Se escondían de día y corrían de noche y como no tenían comida, los niños lloraban de hambre. Salieron sin nada más que la ropa que llevaban puesta.

La verdad hoy fue el día más difícil para mí. En estos pocos días me encariñé de esta gente tan hermosa y me entristece tanto decir adiós sabiendo lo espantoso que esta aquí, y que probablemente esto va a empeorar.

Voy a extrañar a Aljafis, Guisma, Hamara, Somaya Darslam, Mansur, a todos los que hemos conocido aquí y que representan a los otros 20,000 de este campamento.

Goodbye.

When I first came to this camp, I never had any idea that I would dread this day.

These past few days have been grueling; little or no sleep, less food, extreme heat, the conditions here at our camp are elementary: we fetch our water and bathe with a bucket, no running water, the latrines are communal and just a hole in the ground! And have I mentioned the bugs? We are so accustomed to our plentiful and comfortable lives, The other day a French man who is an architect and works for UNHCR came up to me as I was filling my bucket for my bath and said to me: “Don’t you tiink that is to mosh waater for your liitel boti”? First I wanted to thank him for “liitel boti” to our standards my body is not little. No seriously I was embarrassed that I did not think how scarce and desirable water is in most parts of Africa and how most refugees here use that bucket a day for all the necessities for a family of 7 even up to 10 .I just can not stress with how little, these refugees live! And while some people debate on whether or not this is a genocide or other complicated politics, one thing is very simple; this situation is not HUMAN!

Again we were at the camp and again surrounded and mobbed we visited again all my new friends .We walked through the corridors and many would wave for us to come to their tent and visit with them, we encountered a group of older women who greeted us and one of them curtsied as she shook our hands and another motioned how her clothes were raggedy and had nothing else to wear. I’m telling you the stories; another woman told of how she escaped with her 7 children after her husband was killed and how they hid by day and ran by night with no food. She repeated over and over that she wanted to go home. As we went on I started to feel a bit dizzy and had a terrible headache and told Gabe that I was going to stay in the car. I think that I was also dreading the moment of having to say good-bye to Aljafis, Guisma, Hamara, Sumaya, Darsalam, Mansor, and every one we had met here and represent the 20,000 at this camp. It is so hard to leave all these friends in this horrendous place.Not knowing whether they will ever go home and if their present condition would deteriorate more.

I took a few minutes, to work up the courage and I came out smiling and taking pictures. It was one last reunion. I said goodbye, there were a few hugs with the kids and we were off.

I am sure you know how I was feeling at the time. Amor y Paz,Connie

A short Journal Entry (Day 7, sorry I missed Day 6)

I thought I was going to have extra time to write on my Journal and to answer comments today, since we went out to the camp very early and came back to home-base also earlier than usual. Somehow the day flew by, so I missed a day of journaling. The editing took me way too long, and I had a conference call that took some time. At 1am, I had to sleep a little. The night before was one with almost no sleep at all. It is 5am now, and light is starting to shine outside the hut. A new day is starting. I was so tired tonight that I did not feel any of the bugs. We did not turn on the light at all, so that they would not be attracted and could not plan their nightly attack. There are still lots of them in here, but not too bad. I hope some of the faces you are seeing are staying with you. It is not all horrible out here. The people are beautiful, and that is a big part of what we want to share with you. The world needs to see the beauty that will be lost if we do nothing. They are not numbers. They have faces. They have names.

Fatma, Ayasa

Shama, Abdraman

Paz,
Gabriel