At about 4:30am, I start to hear the roosters compete for loudest. Then the donkeys follow with their heehawing, along with some confused horses jumping in to the fray. I toss and turn for about an hour, on my foam mattress on the floor, trying to get just a few more minutes of rest before […]
Author: Gabriel
Gabriel co-founded Stop Genocide Now in 2005, which gave birth to i-ACT in 2009.
He became involved in the situation in Darfur out of a sense of personal responsibility. He believes the power of community and compassion, combined with personal empowerment, can bring about meaningful change.
At home at Djabal – ?
We arrived at camp Djabal at about 2:30pm, which is pretty late to be starting work at a refugee camp. Djabal is a very convenient camp, though, because it is only about a 10 minute drive away from town. The camp looked empty, since people get away from the heat and out of sight during […]
Nothing Like Home
This post is to go on our i-ACT8 Day 1 page, but it seems like I’ve been away from home for so long. I miss my kids, Mimi and Gabo. It is the hardest part of coming on these trips. It makes me sad that I leave them, and I am continuously reminded of them, […]
Made it to Abeche!
As always, it’s quite an adventure just to make it even close to a camp. It is now June 14th here. We left Los Angeles on June 10th. We are closer to our first camp, but still a flight and a short drive away–two more days. It is really good to be traveling with our […]
Mia sent a note to friends and fellow Darfur activists, “I am ready to go on a hunger strike.” Mia has visited the Darfur region eleven times, spending countless hours hearing the horrific stories of survivors. She also spent hours creating community with the proud and courageous men, women and children. They did not know […]
It has been more than a year since I met Adef and his beautiful family, but he received me at his home with such joy and recognition that it felt as if we were best friends, reuniting after a short time apart. The smile on my face lasted a few minutes, until he told us […]
So many faces.
I have all these little faces floating through my mind. The children of camp Djabal are special, just like my two little ones back home. It’s been a rough, productive, exhausting, beautiful, sad, exhilarating trip. I just saw little Guisma’s face on the slide-show I put together. I wonder if she thinks about her baby […]
We got to laugh quite a bit today. At New Sudan School, we spent time with students again. I asked if anyone knew a joke. A girl in blue stood up and started singing. The whole class erupted in laughter. I was laughing without knowing what the song was about. The song was in her […]
With the children
This is the third day we visited refugee camp Djabal. We are doing work for the Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools Program, which will connect students in the US with students in the refugee camps in Eastern Chad, starting with camp Djabal. It is fun collecting the profiles of Darfuri children and spending time with […]
The lucky ones.
There are over a quarter of a million Darfuri people living as refugees in Eastern Chad. About eighteen thousand of those live in camp Djabal. Approximately sixty percent of them are what we in the US consider children. What is sad to realize is that these are the lucky children of Darfur. They are only […]