The sky shook. Fatima Saheh peered out of her hut, squinting in the wind and dirt that swirled around her, sucked up into a heavy chop-chop. The dust blurred everyone into shadows. She ran into it blindly reaching for hands, stumbling and looking back, seeing her uncle circled by men on horseback, shot and fall, blood pooling around him.

From the edge of the village, she saw helicopters over the huts, turning and shooting at the people below. Fatimah ran up-over hills, across dry river beds, around bush. She ran with family away from the fading gunfire.

The sun rose and fell on them, spinning her shadow like a needle on a broken compass. She walked on swollen feet, breathed though a dry throat, watched the horizon. Someone shouted. Men on horses trotted into the open, pulled the reins and galloped toward Fatima.

Lost in Translation

I learned about Darfur in 2006. On TV, sorrow creased faces begged for help. It reminded me of 2005 when news showed a flooded New Orleans, families on roofs reaching up for rescue. It took a day to buy a ticket and be there, giving food and picking up stories. It took almost two years to stomp the water and screams out of my mind.

I taped a map of North Africa over my bed and studied Darfur. The war was televised in 2004 but it began in the 1890’s when the English drew borders that boxed the Arab north and African south inside one nation. They developed the north but left the south barren. After liberation, Arabs saw them selves a degree above the Africans and since then both have fought over the identity of the nation.

In between the rounds of war, old rituals continued. Each season, Arabs herded cattle to the southern region of Darfur where Fur, Masaaleit and Zaghawa tribes welcomed them. The cattle fertilized soil and helped carry supplies but in 2003, a drought in the North dried wells, turned earth to sand forcing many Arab herders south. They wanted more than grazing for cattle, they wanted new land.

Rifles were handed out among African tribal men. Anger crystallized into rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. After they raided a government military outpost, the Arab dominated government, flush with oil money, bought weapons for the Arab herders creating a militia we now know as the Janjaweed.

The Janjaweed galloped into villages; shot men down, ripped women apart, stuffed bodies into wells. Refugees fled to Chad and Central African Republic. In the years that followed, 2.5 million were chased out of their homes and 200,000 were murdered.

Careworn

I arrived in N’Djamena and was driven through a sun-lit haze of dust and traffic to CARE, an international aid agency. The guard opened a heavy metal gate, inside Joseph Makusa greeted me with a cautious smile. We went to his office. “First thing is people are afraid to say what they think here. It is dangerous” his eyes searched the air for the right words. “The president Idriss Deby and his tribe keep the money and power. The rebels reached the city last April but the French troops helped the president.”

I ask, “France has troops here?” Joseph nods, “They never left. Deby needs them. The country is poor, prices are rising. Oil money is flowing but not to the people. The other tribes want power.” My pen stops. We are talk at the edge of words, like men swimming around each other.

I ask, “What tribe is he from?” Joseph says “He is Zaghawa. Here tribal identity comes before national identity. Tribes wear the mask of a political party to benefit theme selves. No one feels they belong to the same nation.” I push him, “Is the Zaghawa a minority?” He looked up, “Yes.” The see-saw picture of Chadian politics seemed a slippery slope to violence. I asked, “Can what happened in Rwanda happen here with such imbalanced power?” Rwanda was a useful historical reference but Joseph blinked, “I know what happened in my country but…” I saw his eyes stare into a deep memory. Hot shame flushed my face.

Joseph grinded his words, “I hate tribes. I hate African politics. It uses you in a way you don’t want to be used.” I ask him if he lost anyone in the genocide. “Yes…I lost many friends, many relatives,” he stared into his hands. “But,” he lifted his eyes. “We must keep things straight.” As we left the CARE compound, Joseph said, “Be careful.” I scrunched my eyebrows. “You won’t get shot but men will stick you up. It’s a poor country. People are desperate.”

Driving Ms. UN

Each day in N’Djamena some ex-patriot told me a story of a murder or mugging. Every warning was a brick in a wall surrounding me. If I traveled it was by car. If I bought water or exchanged money, a local was hired to do it. The days blurred into one long ride in CARE jeeps staring out of the window, imagining above dirt roads our superhighways, beside each crumbled building our glinting sky-scrapers. It was easy, too easy to measure their poverty against our wealth.

I met BBC reporter Stephanie Hancock at Café Glacier. We sat, ordered coffee and she outlined Chad, “Deby is shrewd. He used the crisis in Darfur to position himself a victim of the Sudan saying the Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir is helping the Janjaweed and the Chadian rebels. But Deby supports Darfur rebels by allowing them to go into the camps and recruit.”

“At least 170,000 Chadians are displaced and Deby hasn’t given food or stopped the fighting. Instead in 2006 Deby armed Chadians, handing out 400 Kalashnikov machine guns to the Dajo tribe. He is as guilty as Al-Bashir. So when the Save Darfur Coalition blames the Sudan I think it fits the American War on Terrorism narrative. Arabs, Al-Bashir and Muslim Terrorists are folded into one.”

“Stephanie,” I hesitated not liking what I was going to say. “It seems the NGO are the only business in town that brings money to people.” Her eyebrows raised, “I know what you’re getting at. War is an industry. Every Chadian with an NGO job supports twenty people unlike the government. Even now, the teachers are on strike because they haven’t been paid in six months. Just five years ago the main road was quiet, no cars only goats. Now they are busy with NGO Toyotas and motorcycles.” I shake my head, swig the rest of our cold coffee and we get up.

I call a driver who takes me to the CARE office. Joseph greeted me. “Tomorrow you go to Abeche,” he says. “We have a plane for you and from there you go to the camps.” My hand went to my chest. “Joseph, thank you,” I looked at him. “Joseph I’ve been speaking English for thirty-two years. I’ve never heard anyone say tribes like you. You grind it.” An angry smile cuts his face. “Tribes,” he grimaces. “I hate tribes.”

The Erased Border

From the plane window I look at Abeche airport, a lone building with a landing strip. On the ground I hitched a ride. On the way the driver yelled at boys fighting in the street. One had curly Arab hair, the other was African. It seemed the war had trickled into the children. As we drove on, I watched them in the side-view mirror, struggling in the dirt and wondered how many years before someone gave them guns to finish what fists could not.

We entered the compound where Francoise the CARE officer ran around showing workers floors that needed brick, electric wires to be routed and computers to be installed. “We just moved in so you came at a bad time,” she said. Later at dinner, she traced her life across Africa. “I was in Mali, in Kenya and now here.” She leaned in, “I’m not an expert but tribal identity starts young. Adults interpret what a child does as Zaghawa or Yoruba. It creates divisions in children that grow into civil war.” I blinked and in that instant saw again the boys fighting in the street.

“You are going to Iriba tomorrow,” she said. “I made the trip, it’s beautiful. You’ll be going with good drivers.” I left the next morning in a caravan of trucks, the dry yellow land rose and fell. I waved to peasants who waved at us. Hour after hour, we wrestled the land with the jeep as the driver lurched up hills, our heads bumping.

We stop at a river. On our side a large semi-truck puttered. The driver tied a rope around an older boy who waded into the foamy currents, hands out like a tightrope walker. He was sucked in. The men reeled him from the river and he stumbled onto land, wiping his face. He went out was sucked under again and reeled back. On the fifth try he wobbled out on the other side of the river. They took the rope, tied it to the truck and signaled the other driver. He started his engine and drove pulling the truck in and through the waves. My driver turned to me, “Chadians don’t build bridges but we know how to cross rivers.”

We got in and drove on. As day faded to evening, the driver turned on the headlights and we passed like a submarine illuminating trucks buried in mud as men slept on the tires cradling their machine guns. We turned away but the afterimage floated in the night.

In Iriba, I met Paul, a CARE officer. We shared too few words to talk for long so we watched sports and clinked beers. The next morning he introduced me to Zoubedia, my translator. As we rode in the jeep to the camp she told me, “The main tribes in this camp are Zaghawa and Fur. In 2003 they came over the border into Chad. They were hungry, afraid. Feet blistered. Women were pregnant. When they delivered their babies died.” Our truck heaves over a hill. I see a burnt tank in the sand. She waits for my eyes to return, “In beginning of this camp they sit all day and cry. When you ask them question they cry deep.”

We ride into camp and walk through a maze of huts. We enter one and Zoubedia tells a young woman who I am. She nods and we sit. “Her name is Saida Vakhid. She is 22 years old,” Zoubedia says. Saida talks to me as Zoubedia translates, “When I was 16 my father engaged me to his sister’s son who was in Libya. He never came so he told me to marry the man’s brother instead. If I did not agree I must leave house. I had baby. After baby I didn’t talk for a year.” I ask of the age difference. “He was 30 she was 16.” I tap the notepad. “Where is her family now?” Zoubedia translates, “She is alone.”

We leave for a meeting of camp elders. “Zoubedia how are women treated?” She nods and lowers her voice, “Women have many problem. Women to women it’s easy to talk. Woman to man is hard. A lot of beatings happen. Men are angry.” We enter a building with a large group of men sit on the rug, the women in the back. The chiefs are on chairs. One with a glowing white turban and embroidered cane held court. I ask the universal question. “Do you get paid enough?” They laughed. “We need four times as much,” they said.

“What would you like to say to Americans?” He spoke with confident joy as Zoubeida translated, “We know about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. We know when the African-American people here our story they will help.” I winced knowing his solemn words would be drowned out in the Hip Hop, movies and celebrity gossip sloshing in our ears back home.

I think of Zoubeida and wonder what she’d like to ask. “The anger from war, does it cause abuse of women?” They squint at the question, shake their heads. “No we don’t’ have that problem here.”

The next morning, I told Zoubeida we heard of Janjaweed used rape as a weapon. She took me to a hut where a young woman sat quietly. Zoubeida told her who I was and she spoke. “My name is Fatima Saleh,” Zoubeida translated. “Three years ago the Janjaweed attacked. They came on horse and helicopter. We ran. Some of us were separated from family. I saw them kill my uncle. They shot him. We were running from the village, crying. Five men on horses pulled me away. They raped me. I remember the whole thing. I couldn’t walk. I laid there for two days. I wanted to die. Someone saw me and gave me water. At first I didn’t say anything. I was ashamed. I told my husband. He knew the situation with us. I’m always thinking about what happened. I want to go home. There is nothing new here.”

Her eyes were wet and bright. Pain emanated from her like a ringing bell. I stumbled out and we drove back to the CARE compound. Night came and I climbed on the truck and rubbed my chest. It was tight as if my heart was pumping Fatima’s voice. I sat there seeing her face every time my eyes closed.

In the morning Paul announced, “Today you go back to Abeche.” Zoubeida and I stood not knowing what to say. The past three days we shared the same stories. Our English created a common light that showed unseen parts of each other’s worlds. She smiled and I wanted to shake her hand or hug but her veil got in the way.

Leaving

On the U.N. flight I studied the land. Grass rose along underground veins of water. My trip had been similar. I flowed in to Chad on the veins of Western aid, riding its jeeps and planes, sleeping on its beds and writing its story. The trickle of Western money and equipment sustains life here.

At the CARE office, Francoise shook her head. “They are planning 20,000 soldiers here. Where are they going to stay? The only way peace will come is if there is a framework for their return and I don’t see that happening for years.”

I flew from Abeche to N’Djamena and was at the airport to catch the first of three flights home. We filed into the jet and flew into the night. I saw North Africa beneath me. It was a black desert with small patches of light like spilled glitter.

In New York, I sat on the subway train, rocketing through the tunnel. In Chad it was easy to measure their poverty by our wealth. At home I measured our wealth against their poverty. My mind imposed a dirt road on every highway, a mud hut next to every skyscraper. In my apartment, I stood over my toilet and flushed, amazed at the water swirling down.

After feeling the distance between these worlds, I could react in one of two ways. Either lay my life down as a bridge or let new experience chip at the memory until I forget what I learned. But after being in a place, the mind may forget but the body remembers. I read a Reuters Africa report by Stephanie the BBC reporter who I met. Gunman had barged into aid offices in Eastern Chad and beat the staff. A shiver went through me. What of Paul, Francoise, Zoubeida? My friends, did they hurt my friends?