Hope diaries

Lisa Blaker outside the grass thatched hut she called home.

For an international community consumed with Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Darfur is one humanitarian crisis too many.

Individuals like Lisa Blaker provide hope. The Auckland intensive care nurse is one of a handful of New Zealand aid workers to have ventured into Darfur, the west Sudanese province where Government-backed militia have uprooted two million people, destroyed their villages and killed or starved to death up to 200,000.

Blaker has been to Darfur twice with Medicins sans Frontieres. She's itching to go back.

Her diaries help explain why.

Even in the vagaries of an Auckland spring, Lisa Blaker feels guilty to be relaxing in the sunshine at the Ponsonby home she's minding.

The intensive care nurse returned in June from her second nine-month stint with Medecins sans Frontieres in Darfur, doing what she could for refugees driven from their homes by rampant militia.

Civil war in the arid Sudanese province has driven a third of the population from their homes since 2002, when the Janjaweed militia embarked on bloody massacres against black African farmers rebelling against the Government. Up to 200,000 black Africans have died. Infighting among resistance groups has killed thousands more.

The Khartoum Government has refused a United Nations assistance mission and warned that anyone who turns up on its soil uninvited will find Darfur their graveyard.

An under-financed African Union peacekeeping force of 7000 soldiers and civilian police has struggled to protect up to 2 million displaced people living in makeshift camps. It was due to leave on September 30, raising fears of an escalation in the killing, but extended its stay until the end of the year.

Within this vacuum, volunteers working for aid agencies represent the only international response to the genocide.

MSF launched the biggest humanitarian effort in its history in Darfur in 2004, running primary health care clinics, a surgical programme, nutritional programmes and providing assessment and practical support for those displaced by the war.

MSF has 170 international staff and over 2600 Sudanese working in 18 locations around Darfur. Among the internationals are a handful of New Zealanders; many more Kiwis work for other aid agencies.

On her second trip, Blaker was based in the south-eastern town of Muhajariya, working at the hospital and travelling to the camps by Land Rover to set up mobile clinics, often staying overnight.

Blaker has returned to work at Middlemore Hospital, her frequent employer of the past decade. But the 35-year-old plans to go back to Darfur after Christmas for her fourth overseas aid posting.

"I've been bitten by the bug," she says.

"Since 2000 I've led parallel lives - one working in intensive care as an associate charge nurse and the other working in the bush and sleeping under the stars.

"My charge nurse told me it was time to make a choice - that I couldn't keep switching from one to the other.

"Well, MSF wins every time."

Rumours of a pending escalation in the conflict, with the Government-backed militia preparing to attack the rebel stronghold of Muhajariya, has heightened Blaker's impatience to return.

"It's not enjoyable, it's not pleasure - it's this powerful sense of satisfaction and purpose."

Tuesday, October 18
"The 5 of us stood side by side while the soldiers walked around us. No one made a sound. In the heat, surrounded by 300 people, that stillness was eerie.

Three of them had camel whips, the long, thin leather ones. They moved around the outside of the crowd with their guns and whips, and we were all watching them, wondering what they were going to do.

All of a sudden the three with the whips started into the crowd, spinning and cracking the leather whips as they tried to hit people. Everyone who could run did. In seconds the whole area was nearly empty, and the soldiers stood in the shade laughing. The only people still there were the seriously ill ones, the ones that couldn't run.

The 5 of us stood still in the sun. We had all turned our heads to see what they were doing with their whips but our feet hadn't moved in the sand.

That was when I felt frightened. When I realised what it must feel like to be one of the people here. To be completely powerless, knowing that at any moment your freedom, your health, your life could be taken away by someone that doesn't care."

Wednesday April 19
I arrived at the hospital at 9.30 this morning. The attack happened two days ago and I needed to speak to the victims, to hear their stories. My translator Adam Ali* and I walked across the compound and stepped into the men's ward. It was already hot outside, so someone had strung blankets over each doorway to keep out the sun.

We walked to the foot of the first bed. "Hello, my name is Lisa and I am one of the nurses. Could we talk to you about what happened on Monday?" The family were standing and kneeling around the patient's bed.

His head was tightly wrapped with white bandages, his eyes swollen shut. He was covered with a heavy grey blanket and every few seconds he would kick and thrash under the blanket, his arms flailing as he struggled.

His brothers would quickly take hold of the blanket and use it to pin him down, trying to stop him moving. He would stop struggling, his arms resting by his side and he looked peaceful for a moment. Then he would start struggling again.

"He's been like this since we arrived," said one brother. "They hit him on the head, he was bleeding everywhere." His mother was kneeling beside him. Every time he started to struggle she would speak to him gently. "Go to sleep, everything will be all right. I am here." Over and over she repeated it.

"We'll come back later," I said.

We turned to the next bed. A man lay back on his bed, his sheets in a tangle as he kicked at them in the heat. "Hello, my name is Lisa. Could we talk to you about what happened on Monday."

"They shot me in the back and in my arm while I was running away," he said abruptly. "I know their faces. I know some of their names. I know where they came from and where they went when they had finished killing and stealing. But I'm not going to talk to you. Talking to you won't help, it never helps. You kawadjas [white people] come and look and talk and take notes every time this happens. But it never helps."

I stood there listening to Adam Ali translate the patient's words. I felt a wave of shame at my job. Who am I to talk to these people? Is he right? Will my listening and taking notes change anything? Will anyone else listen to his story?

I stumbled through the words of an apology and walked to the next bed. Unable to meet the eyes of the next patient I started again. "Hello, my name is Lisa. Could we talk to you about what happened on Monday?" The patient's family welcomed me, cleared a space for me and I sat cross-legged on the floor beside them. For half an hour I sat there, looking up at the patient and around at the family as they spoke. Listening to his story and trying to take notes as I blinked away the tears.

His story filled me with pain and sadness. His words wove a story of such pain and brutality that I had to put my pen down and tell myself to breathe. In, out, in, out. I became aware of the way the sand was rubbing against my ankles as I sat on the floor. The way the flies gathered around the half filled bowls of food under the bed. In, out, breathe in, breathe out.

His story of the attack told of a government helicopter, soldiers in vehicles, militia on camels, horses and donkeys. Most of the militia brought trailers with them, to load up the spoils of war. They circled the village, then began firing.

They shot some in their homes, some as they ran away, they chased, intimidated and killed indiscriminately. Once the village was empty they moved from house to house, taking all the belongings they could find. Everything. Beds, clothes, sacks of grain, cooking pots, tea cups, shoes and animals. When villagers returned after sunset they found their homes stripped bare. The message was clear - there is nothing here for you, you are not welcome.

The villagers returned to search for relatives among the bodies and all started to move south. Taking only the clothes they wore, they walked through the night and some arrived in our village the following day.

The wounded were brought by truck the night of the attack. "They shot me in the legs, both my legs," he said. "But Allah was watching over me, and they didn't kill me. I just lay there and waited for my family."

I wiped my eyes, thanked him and stood up. My knees were stiff from sitting on the concrete floor and my ankles raw from the sand. There was a shout from a bed behind me and we turned. The family that had been standing around the first bed were wailing and beating the mattress with their fists.

His mother knelt, crouching on the ground as she rocked back and forth and cried. He had just died. Four soldiers had held him down and beaten him with their guns. One beat him with an axe. In an act of senseless violence they stole his life.

I turned to my translator. He looked at me, took a deep breath and shook his head. "We have to carry on, Lisa. We have 16 more patients who can tell us what happened. We have to listen to them."

So we walked to the next bed. I stood at the foot of his bed, my heart full of sadness and my eyes full of tears. "Hello, my name is Lisa. Could we talk to you about what happened on Monday?"

Tuesday, March 9
Penny has been dancing in the delivery room again. She says it's the best way to get her ladies to deliver, bodies moving, standing upright, pelvis swaying. She put on some music and soon all the midwives were dancing. Six of them, dancing, shaking their shoulders and laughing.

After 16 hours of labour the woman was so tired, but she was trying and laughing in the dark. There were kerosene lanterns on the floor, each making a little pool of golden light. The room smelled of kerosene and sweat and perfume. And it was filled with love.

In the end she needed a caesarean. The baby just wouldn't come through all that scar tissue. Why do they circumcise these women so badly? The baby is fine, though. A boy. Everyone was so happy.

I went looking for Penny half an hour after the woman was taken back to the ward.

She was lying on her side on a narrow string bed. Penny pulled back the blankets. Blood clots stuck to the sheets, to her legs, to her life. She was bleeding to death. The one drug we needed to try to stop the bleeding was finished. We've been out of it for two weeks.

I called the surgeon while I waited in the shadows. Penny and the midwives were doing all they could. It is so hard to see what you're doing in there. The biggest solar light was needed to prepare the theatre for the surgeon.

Perhaps they could stop the bleeding in the theatre. With the dim light of the lanterns, the moving shadows, too many people in the room, blood-filled sheets making it hard to turn her it was impossible to work properly.

Penny shouted out "she's not breathing, STOP!" Everyone stopped. There was nothing, no breathing, no pulse. The circle of her family drew closer, each watching for our success. Her one-hour-old baby was on her grandmother's lap in the shadows of our catastrophe, warm and asleep. The women outside started to wail, the men came closer to check, to touch, to cry.

Some people say that people here grieve less. That people here are used to the pain, that they expect it. It's not true. If you had stood with me in the dark last night you would have seen grief. They wept. They beat the ground and wept and prayed.

Penny and the dancing midwives stood in the dark and wept too. And I know that their hearts were breaking because they have lost another one, and there was nothing they could do.

Friday, November 4
We sat on the wall that encircles the clinic and watched the sunset last night. The warmth from the stone wall, the smell of the hot, dusty evening, the sounds of the town from across the lake. We saw 275 patients yesterday. By the end of the day my body ached and I could hardly keep my eyes open. But it was worth it to have seen that sunset.

Children were coming to the edge of the lake to fill their jerry cans. I watched their silhouettes against the orange sky as they led their donkeys into the water. The donkeys walked in until their bellies were touching the water, and if it is possible for a donkey to smile, I'm sure they were smiling at the end of their hot, hard day.

Some of the children had water fights, kicking and throwing water at each other and hooting with laughter. Some went swimming, floating out on the dark water while the donkeys had their fill of water. It was so calm, not a breath of wind.

When everything else around us has been so chaotic and stressful it means so much to me to see life, normal life, carry on. Children are children wherever they are. Laughing, playing and just being children.

After sunset the children left, their jerry cans filled with water and their donkeys content. One donkey was carrying three children, one little boy was hanging upside down under the donkey's neck. The donkey didn't seem to mind. I sat a while longer and just enjoyed the quiet.

Thursday, April 20
I stood beside the landcruiser this afternoon, waiting in the sun. We were waiting for the go-ahead from the other team so that we could drive over the ridge and cross the front line. They had a sick patient for us, so I was anxious for the call that would allow us to go and get her.

We had stopped near the hand pumps. There were no trees nearby, just a few bushes where the sheep and donkeys were trying to squeeze into the shade. Usually the hand pumps are crowded with women, all queuing for water. But because of the recent fighting, people were staying away. The only people collecting water today were children and old people.

The old man had walked up to our vehicle as I waited. His clothes were threadbare, his white jelabiya was torn and dirty. It pulled and tugged against his legs as the wind blew. His feet were bare, the skin dry and covered with sand. My feet burn if I try to walk on the sand without shoes. Does he not feel the heat?

He stood looking in through the back window, asking Omar* if he had seen his donkey. He lost everything in the attack on Monday. His house, his belongings, his food, his animals. Everything.

"Please, I've lost my donkey. Have you seen her? She's brown, with a white nose. She's my only donkey," he asked.

"No sir, sorry. We haven't seen it," said Omar.

"I need to find my donkey," he repeated. "I haven't eaten for two days. I need to go to the market to sell my donkey."

"Sorry, asma. I can't help you. Goodbye," Omar replied.

We were in the middle of nowhere. It was hot. The radio call could have come at any second to give us the go-ahead. We were all feeling tense, sitting so close to the front line. Jack sat in the front seat, his face red from the heat, his cigarette hanging out of the window. He took a chocolate biscuit from the packet in his bag and offered me one.

"Jack, how can you eat in front of this man?" I was nearly in tears listening to the old man talk. "He hasn't eaten for two days and you're eating chocolate biscuits in front of him."

"I was eating them before he arrived," Jack said. "I didn't ask him to come over, so why should I stop? Besides, if you help one then you have to help them all. And I don't have enough biscuits for the whole of Darfur."

I took the proffered biscuit and gave it to the old man. Mohammed*, our translator, reached out from the back seat window and held out his biscuit as well. I pulled a few dinars from my pocket and gave it to him quietly.

The old man put the money and the two biscuits in his pocket and said thank you. He walked away slowly, his eyes focused somewhere in the distance. He talked quietly to himself, "where's my donkey? I need to find my donkey".

There is nothing saintly or foolish about giving an old man some biscuits and some money. In a war or in your local community it's compassion that keeps us alive. It's not futile. It's not throwing money away. You help who you can, while you can. Maybe it makes a difference and maybe it doesn't. But I believe you have to try.

Thursday, June 1
When the wind picks up we know we have 10 or 15 minutes to find shelter before the rain comes. The wind is not mere breeze, gently lifting leaves and cooling the brow. It comes in powerful gusts, slamming doors, sending teapots and small chairs crashing across our compound.

The wind brings the sand and in seconds you feel the sand whipping against your skin in hot, sharp gusts. It's then that you know you have to run.

The rain starts to fall slowly. Fat, heavy raindrops that leave little craters in the sand. In minutes the ground is pockmarked with them.

There is always that first wet earth, hot sky smell, the smell of life and growth. In every storm I stop and stand still to take in great breaths of the warm air, wet, storm filled air. And every time I feel tears in my eyes, tears of relief that the rains bring.

Tuesday, October 13
Today I felt frightened for the first time. We arrived in the village around 9 o'clock with plans to see what the health situation was like after the last attack. It didn't take long to see there were so many sick people that they needed to see a medic. Unfortunately I was the only medic.

It was so hot, every time I stepped out of the shade I felt as though I was on fire. Even the birds had stopped singing in the heat. My skin was covered in sand from the windy drive. We parked our two cars under the trees and set up the clinic between them. One end for me to see patients and one end for the drivers to dispense medications. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The village leaders put the word out that we had arrived. In less than an hour there were about 300 people under the trees. I climbed on to the roof of one of the cars to work out how we were going to manage. People were everywhere, pushing, surging towards the cars. They haven't seen a doctor for two months and it's the peak of the malaria season right now.

Abubaker* is one of the drivers, but his hidden talent is doing malaria tests. He had about 12 of the tests lined up on a cardboard box, each neatly labelled. If the patient complained of a headache and fever he had taken a blood sample before they knew what was happening. Where would I be without him?

I thought we were doing okay until the soldiers arrived. Three vehicles drove up fast and stopped, side by side. Everyone froze, it was completely silent under the trees. The weapons on the back of each vehicle were huge, I've never seen guns like that. And each soldier carried more, their bodies covered with the sort of weapons I've only seen in pictures. I had six sick babies lying in the sand between the cars, so I left my colleague Mike to do the negotiating while I carried on working.

They gave us five minutes to pack and leave. Mike talked and asked and pleaded for more time. And while he talked I treated the babies, thinking just one more, one more. They got angry when they saw me working and made me walk over to them.

We had to surrender our radio, the phone and the batteries. The five of us stood while the soldiers walked around us. No one made a sound. We stood like that for about five minutes. The soldiers all jumped off the back of their vehicles, their guns and grenades clattering as they landed. Three of them had camel whips, the long, thin leather ones. They moved around the outside of the crowd with their guns and whips, and we were all watching them, wondering what they were going to do.

All of a sudden the three with the whips started into the crowd, spinning and cracking the leather whips as they tried to hit people. Everyone who could run did. In seconds the whole area was nearly empty, and the soldiers stood in the shade laughing.

The only people still there were the seriously ill ones. The five of us stood still in the sun. We had all turned our heads to see what they were doing with their whips but our feet hadn't moved in the sand.

That was when I felt frightened. When I realised what it must feel like to be one of the people here. To be completely powerless, knowing that at any moment your freedom, your health, your life could be taken away by someone who doesn't care. And knowing that there is nothing you can do about it.

* Some names were changed for security reasons.Darfur aid

* The Red Cross

The Hanover White Tie and Diamonds Ball will be held next Saturday to support Red Cross programmes in Darfur. The Victoria Park event (tickets $390) includes an auction with travel to Monaco's annual Red Cross Ball as the major prize. Email: liz.fraser@redcross.org.nz

To make an automatic $20 donation: 0900 33200

* Medecins sans Frontieres

* Amnesty International

* Unicef

* World Vision

* Save The Children

* Christian World Service

* Oxfam