Photos: Lolín Menéndez rscj / JRS Montse with teachers and SECADEV staff at Kounungu Mother of Sorrows, Mahmata Farchana

During the last Provincial Assembly that I attended in Uganda-Kenya, we spoke at length – and with much hilarity at times – about wearing several hats. When I returned from the USA to Rome I received a call from the JRS office, asking me to come in for a “chat”.

The conversation included an invitation to participate in an assessment mission to the refugee camps in Eastern Chad in order to assist JRS and Caritas Chad (SECADEV = Secours Catholique et Developement ) to design a program in education and social services to be implemented jointly. I left the office with a joyful heart… and with a new hat with the JRS logo.

The visit to Chad meant wearing yet another hat, the hat of someone who comes for the first time and who meets new persons, new scenes, new situations. I was very happy that Asunta, the regional superior for Chad, made her way into the arrival area and shepherded me through immigration and customs. (Although I arrived at 4 a.m., the two communities of N’Djamena were there to meet me.) I went with Asunta to the 7 am mass and found a scene that I had read about in so many Society accounts: the open-air church, the mud brick seats, the multicolored congregation (in dress; we were the only two foreigners). It was the Sunday in which the newly baptized came to receive communion from the Bishop. I was thrilled that Mgr. N’Garterie, the first Chadian Bishop spoke of the plight of refugees: “There are brothers and sisters who are dying in our arms, and we as church must do something for them”. Asunta introduced me to him after mass, and he was glad to see the physical evidence that JRS had come to assess the situation and, very importantly for him, in the person of an rscj.

On Monday I went to the SECADEV office and discussed the practicalities of the trip to the camps, and left assured of a place in the UN plane for the next day. But that evening a phone call informed me that the flight had been cancelled. “Wouldn’t you know?” Par for the course in an emergency situation! We set out the next day, 5 of us in an air-conditioned Toyota, on a journey that took a day and a half instead of an hour and a half. But this gave me the opportunity to enter gradually into the reality of Chad: vast, seemingly empty, silent… Soon after N’Djamena the paved road changes without warning into sand, and one is submerged in a Biblical scene: people riding donkeys, women at the well, turbaned men on horseback, children everywhere, caravans of camels, decrepit lorries piled high with goods and with people…. sand, sand, sand… deep blue sky, a thorn tree here and there, wadis with no water during this dry season but hosting lush mango groves, villages of thatched huts with walls of mud and straw mats. I must confess that I did not regret this opportunity.

Montse Prats, a YP from northern Spain who was eager to experience firsthand the situation of the refugees and came with me on the trip. Montse had worked in a project for immigrants in Spain, so this was not a totally new experience for her – in fact, each day she found more and more similarities. That night I had another learning experience: we stopped for the night at a SECADEV compound, and we were shown a place on the ground where we could sleep, in an open courtyard filled with cars and drivers! We were the only two women, and I was not expecting this to happen in a predominantly Muslim society- but there went one of my preconceived notions. Later on I saw that this is common practice and men and women are very at ease in relationships. We did not get much sleep, but the stars were spectacular! Finally we arrived at the Catholic Mission at Abeché, which became our base for the next ten days, and where we were welcomed by the Jesuit PP who alone is in charge of a 10,000 sq km parish.

Our journey to the camps began the next day. But before, why are these people from Sudan here in Chad? From JRS Dispatches: “The conflict has been marked by a struggle for land as the Sahara desert creeps south. Rebel groups are allegedly fighting the army and its Arab militias to force the Government to do more for the economic and social development of Darfur. They accuse the government forces and their allies of violating earlier truces and arming the Arab militants against the local 'black' population, while international relief agencies have complained about continuing obstacles in gaining access to government-controlled areas of Darfur.

According to relief agencies and human rights groups, pro-government forces have conducted a "scorched earth" policy which has forced many black communities to abandon their villages and their land. The government has denied this. However, there have been almost daily reports of atrocities against civilians.”

The people with whom we talked (through our escorts or other translators) tell the same basic story: raid at dawn by mounted gunmen (the Janjawîd, “men with guns on horseback” who are the government’s proxy fighters), helicopters coming later to finish the survivors, Janjawîd coming back to loot and burn, backed up by helicopters or Antonov bombers… The refugees come from different areas of Darfur, not just from border towns and villages. However, those with whom we interacted must be carrying the trauma deep down inside, as we saw no overt signs of this. They had no reasons to give as to “Why is this happening?, except “Because we are black”. It is significant that this is not a religious conflict, as all involved are Muslim, but an ethnic one between Arabs (those whose grandparents or parents were born in Saudi Arabia) and blacks. When we asked if they had recent news of what was going on at home, we were told that “there is no one over there now so we get no news”. Those with whom we spoke said that they did not want to return home, “not now”, “not yet”…”some day, Inshallah” (God willing.) Most NGO workers with whom we talked predict that the situation will last another 12-18 months, in spite of negotiations.

What did we see? A lot of silent suffering, a lot of patience…. And a lot of disorganization and confusion. I can honestly say that in all my years with JRS, this is the worst refugee situation that I have ever encountered. I call it a “second rate emergency”. The international community seems not to be present efficiently and effectively- not to mention compassionately.

SECADEV is doing a brave job in managing three camps, but their field is development and not emergency UNHCR does not have its act together, nor does World Food Program: in spite of warnings from those on the ground, food has not been stockpiled for the rainy season that is about to begin. In fact, distributions are already overdue and we were not able to visit one of the camps for a second time because there was unrest among the refugees. Sites for camps have been chosen according to unrealistic estimates of available water, and the wells dug give too little so that water has to be brought on ancient cistern tanks that constantly break down (we met two of them on the way to one of the camps, stranded). There is little coordination between NGOs and no quality control of the work done …. Refugees along the border are worse off because they receive neither food nor water. The welcome of the local population, often relatives by blood or marriage, is beginning to wear off as there is competition for the scant resources: firewood, pasture for animals, precious water. So many refugees pack up their bits and pieces and carry them on their donkeys and camels to the already overcrowded camps. This poses another potential conflict: those who are registered in the camps see the newcomers as competitors for the dwindling resources. And the environment- those few trees that you see in the pictures – how long will they last, when thousands need to cook and build shelters?

What did I see, hear, experience?

• At the border, people living in frail shelters in sand and sun, with temperatures that reached 45° on some days. Those lucky to have escaped during the last months of 2003 were able to cut grass and to construct some dwellings similar to those at home, close to Chadian villages. And yet, they are too close to the border so that the Janjawîd are a real threat even when on Chadian soil, as was the case in Mahamata, where we had to leave quickly as the Janjawîd were reported in the nearby wadi.
• At the border town of Tiné, several kilometers of refugee shelters facing a town that has grown suddenly from the riches of being a stop in a trade route from Kuwait and Dubai, a town where you can buy anything from satellite dishes to French perfume, with an enormous mosque and a state-of-the art primary school for 535 children.
• A land still marked by civil wars, where charred vehicles remain as witnesses of yet another conflict.
• Camps that are constructed for the refugees, unlike in other situations where they are given plastic sheeting an poles… because there are no poles to be had in the area. The result: an “orderly” setup, row by row, so different from home. And yet, those who have been there longer “personalize” their living area, building a wall, a shelter, a kitchen….
• Unsanitary conditions, which will pose greater danger when the rains start: human and animal waste all over the camps, few latrines for people who need instruction on their use, animal carcasses in the open, waiting until the wind dies down in order to be burned….
• The serious effort of various teams of Médecins sans Frontières to provide basic medical care and vaccinations as best they can.
• The inability to provide services, for the moment, to vulnerable populations: elderly, pregnant women, unaccompanied children.
• The “pornography of humanitarian aid”: visitors having their pictures taken next to the UN plane as they stopped by on their (literally) flying visit to the refugees.
• Chad, eastern Chad: the wounded heart of Africa.

Who gave me hope?

• The refugees, their enormous patience the water points…but how long will it last? The long lines of jerrycans, sometimes 4-5 deep and God knows how long, dispel any illusion of a biblical scene of waiting at the well.
• Two women making clay pots, who carry in them a wealth that enables them to live from the work of their hands… but, who must make a hard choice: to use the ration of water to work for life, or to drink water for life, to so as to do some work?
• The parents and teachers, eager for the children to start school, the enrollment lists drawn up long before the school shelters are up, the insistence that school must start and go on continuously until the end of the year because “our children have missed too much school”….
• Conversations with prospective teachers, their eagerness for formation, the hope of receiving something that they will be able to take back with them to Sudan.
• The woman who gave me her most beautiful smile when I asked if I could take her picture.
• The response of JRS International, willing to send a team to support SECADEV and build up its capacity in the field of education, for the time needed for SECADEV to take over, with the attitude of “we must decrease and they must increase”.
• The attitude of my RSCJ sisters in Chad: their concern for the refugees, their interest on this mission, their eagerness to help and to give, out of the poverty of their numbers….

For all of them, and to each one, I am deeply grateful!

These are but a few glimpses. Nothing can describe the burning heat and the lack of shade…. and the powerlessness experienced in face of so much need, so much disorganization, such a sense of not being heard or seen by the international community… at a time when the gospel readings spoke of the Bread of Life, the living bread that is life for the world.

Gather them, Abba
into your motherly embrace.
For they have no shade
but the shadow
of your wings.

"Spontanés" waiting at Farchana	Mahmata	Tiné
Kounungu	Kounungu	Teachers from Farchana
Toulum	Mahmata	Tiné