Six Months in Sudan Read Free

the last few months, my heart was not. I wanted no ties. My departure seemed like a convenient breaking point for us, at least to me. We arrived at a bar full with my friends gathered for a birthday party. “So when are you going?” one of them asked, as uncertain as I was from my flightless holding pattern. “Soon,” I said. I lingered by the bar, sipping a beer, and after a few minutes caught Sarah’s eye. We spent a last night together in my borrowed home.
    I woke up alone. I could hear Sarah. In the shower now, now on the stairs. The door creaked open, paused. Creaked shut. Gate clattered. I swung my feet onto the cold hardwood floor. The house was silent. I got dressed and walked downstairs. My packed bags were by the door, and I moved them to the snowy porch. I turned the lock for a final time, then dropped the keys in the mailbox. I had no home. I was free.
    The story started when I was sitting on the plane, flying from snowy Canada to snowy Switzerland, my backpack wedged in the luggage hold below me, writing a letter.

12/02: jet plane.
    in the airport, finally on my way. i have been waiting for a beginning for some time, not knowing where or when it would come. it’s here.
    of the many lessons i thought i might learn with this, i knew one would be: “be careful what you wish. you might get it.”
    i said i would go anywhere, that i wasn’t afraid of being isolated, that i had a wide complement of medical skills and could do a little of everything. i could work in a small team with little backup, improvise if necessary. if there was a time in my life where i could go to a place that required close attention to security, it was now. no wife, no kids, no house, no debt, no one waiting for me to get back.
    so, i wished, then got it. i am off to sudan. a small town in the middle of the country, right on the border between north and south. for those with a grander memory of the struggle there, you will know that it has been at war for decades. much of it is between the south and the north. it is a conflict about resources. and allegiances. and history.
    darfur has become a media story, particularly in the past three years. there the war rages on, and the fighting is vicious. but sudan has rarely been at peace since its independence in 1956. it has more people displaced from their homes, because of conflict, than any other place in the world. most of them are from southern sudan where war still smolders. the people there feel deeply the effects of chronic conflict. for a nation, it is like a chronic disease. one wastes away from thousands of tiny insults.
    the place that i am going is called abyei. you can check it out on google earth. it looks like a smudge in the sand. it sits in an area claimed by both sides but owned by neither. tensions, i have been told, are high.
    i will be working in a small hospital with a small team. the patients will be regular size. the mission is a new one, and there isn’t much infrastructure. aside from that, i know little else. i will find out more in geneva.
    boarding now. i learned something else these past few months: one shouldn’t think with certainty about the future. it has helped see me through.
    that’s it for me. boarded. wine service. better take it while i can get it. soon, suddenly, sudan.

I ARRIVED IN GENEVA on an overnight flight and stood sleepless, blinking under bright lights. I hefted my two bags from the circular parade of black cases and looked at the clock. I was overdue at the MSF office with still a train to catch.
    This is the way it works in MSF as a volunteer: you are either in or you’re not, you buy it or you don’t. You take public transit and stay in hostels. You brief sleepless and fly economy. An unnecessary dollar spent on you is one less for the field.
    I put my backpack on and tightened the straps until it felt snug and weightless, then stopped at a kiosk to get a train schedule. Minutes later, the Swiss countryside was blurring beside me.
    I