Almost a year ago I had the idea to start this blog, and as soon as I arrived in Sudan I stumbled across this massive writer's block. What I wanted to do was tell stories that transcended the media stories about the Darfur crisis, and in the end, my rose-colored transcendent glasses never really materialized.


It's not that Darfur is only a story about crisis, but my personal story from living here has been narrower than I imagined when I first arrived. A lot of my life is focused on work and the team of wacky and brave folks that work with Medair our here. The team is constantly changing--I posted some pics here of the team, one from July, the other from November. If I had one from right now, you would see that more than half of the team has moved on and new people have taken on their roles.

So tonight as I tossed and turned a bit, I thought of a few things to share on this blog--akherran! (That's finally in Arabic.) The last tidbit for this post is about my favorite type of Sudanese humor. Sudanese have really mastered the art of irony. The other day, Miriam, my friend and the head cook for our office, was in a meeting with her new manager, who is one of the new foreigners who lives in my reality TV type housing and team situation. Anyway, my housemate mentions that she's seen some mice that live in the kitchen at the office, and takes a pause. In the pause, Miriam smiles at her and says, "Oh those mice? They don't live here, they are just coming and going, passing through."

And so it is with me and this blog--I haven't yet started to really make this thing live, but tonight, I decided to pass through.