Personally Darfur

Photo: Will Swanson, willswanson.net

Will Swanson is a blogger, photographer, international public health worker and a friend I made in Ulaanbaatar this summer.  His RedHero blog gave fantastic comic relief to ex-pats in Mongolia, and he's continued writing in his new assignment at a humanitarian aid organization in Western Darfur.  His new blog Darfur Diary provides real life (ie: not media sensationalized or George Clooney-related) accounts of life and death in Darfur, Sudan from a development worker's perspective.  

If you've been following Darfur news in the past month you know that life is getting worse, not better in the impoverished area, despite the International Criminal Court's decision to indict Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir on crimes against humanity.  His crimes include murder, human extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape.  In short, his government is accused of committing ethnic cleansing against the non-Arab people of Darfur, a traditionally agricultural area that has long suffered draught, environmental degradation, intense poverty and the human suffering that accompanies all these things.

Whenever I think about Darfur, I think about a good friend from my resettlement days in Des Moines,  a man named Abdalla.  Kind, gentle, intelligent, full of perseverance, Abdalla loved to sit and chat about current events and his job at a mail center over ice-cold Pepsi.  He rarely talked about his home or family still in Darfur; yet, I know he worried about them every day.

My Easter weekend is dedicated to Abdalla, his family and all Darfurians in the world.  Wishing them safety, health, love and peace now and far into the future.