Because we were about to land in hell.
Chapter 81
AT THE BASE in Nyala, we secured a ride out to the Kalma Camp with a five-truck convoy carrying sacks of grain and crates of F75 and F100 baby formula. Adanne seemed to know everyone here, and I found it interesting to watch her work. Her gracious smile, not her attractiveness, seemed to be her secret. I saw it succeed again and again with people who were overworked and stressed to their limits.
Camp seemed like the wrong word once I actually saw Kalma.
Yes, there were tents and lean-tos and stick-straw huts, but they stretched for miles and miles. One hundred and fifty thousand people lived here. That’s a city. And one that was overflowing with unbearable suffering and heartbreak and death by everything from Janjaweed attacks, to dysentery, to childbirth without drugs, and usually without a doctor or midwife.
Around the camp’s center were some signs of permanence, at least. A small open-air school was in session, and there were a few walled buildings with corrugated tin roofs, where limited food supplies were still available.
Adanne knew exactly where we should go first. She took me to the United Nations’ Commission on Refugees tent, where a young soldier agreed to do some translating for us, although many of the refugees knew bits of English.
The soldier’s name was Emmanuel, and he had the same kind of sinewy height, dark skin, and deep-set eyes I’d seen on many of the so-called Lost Boys who had emigrated to DC over the years. Emmanuel spoke English, Arabic, and Dinka.
“Most of the people here are Fur,” he told us as we started down a long dirt avenue. “And eighty percent are abused women.
“Most of their men are dead, or looking for work, or for resettlement,” added Adanne. “This is the most vulnerable city in the world, Alex. No exception. You will find out for yourself.”
It was easy to see what Adanne and Emmanuel were talking about. Most of the people we found to speak with were women who were working outside their shelters. They reminded me of Moses and his friends, because of how eager they were to share their terrible stories with someone from the outside.
One woman, Madina, cried as she wove a straw mat and told us about coming to Kalma. The Janjaweed had destroyed her village and killed and mutilated her husband, her mother, and father. Most of her neighbors and friends were burned alive in their huts.
Madina had arrived with three children and literally nothing else. Tragically, all three of her children had died at the camp.
The sleeping mats she made were in demand because of dooda worms, which came out of the ground at night and burrowed into the refugees’ skin. Whatever she earned went toward onions and grain, though she hoped to have enough to buy a patch of cloth one day. She’d been wearing the same toab since she’d gotten here.
“When was that?” Adanne asked.
“Three years ago” was Madina’s sad answer. “One for each of my children.”
Chapter 82
“I HAVEN’T LOST sight of your Tiger,” Adanne said as we trudged along. “He recruits boys here. It’s easy for him.”
“You were right about the horror, Adanne,” I told her.
I was eager to speak with people in as many sectors of the camp as possible, but when we came to one of the few medical tents, I had to stop again. I had never seen such a bewildering sight in my entire life.
The tent was overflowing with sick and dying patients, two and more to a cot. Bodies were jigsaw-puzzled into every available space. To make matters worse, long lines extended outside, at least three hundred very sick women and children waiting for treatment, or for a better place to die.
“Sadly, there’s little to be done to stop their suffering,” Adanne told me. “Medication is scarce, much of it stolen before it ca
n get here. There is starvation, pneumonia, malaria. Even diarrhea can be fatal—and with the water and sanitation problems, there is no end to it.”
I saw one doctor and two volunteer nurses. That was it. The entire hospital staff for thousands of very sick people.
“This is what they call the ‘second phase’ of the crisis,” Adanne went on. “More people dying inside the camps than outside. Thousands. Every single day, Alex. I told you that it was horrifying.”
“You understated,” I said. “This is unimaginable. All these people. The children.”
I knelt down by a little girl in one of the few beds. Her eyes were clouded and looked unreal. I brushed away a buzzing cluster of black flies gathered at her ear.
“How do you say ‘God be with you’?” I asked Emmanuel.
“Allah ma’ak,” he told me.
I said it to the tiny girl, though I don’t know if she heard me. “Allah ma’ak.”