On the first day, we entered the small, but lively refugee camp market full of music and Sudanese goods. We stopped and had a delicious tomato, onion, and peanut butter salad with fresh grapefruit juice. Amidst Sudanese music, the exchange of Sudanese pounds, young dread-locked rebels strolling through the narrow passages, and young children bearing Darfuri leather amulets easily distract my attention.
The next day I spent in the camp, the atmosphere could not be more different. Upon approachig the market area, young men in camouflage hurried dismounted their dull green pick up truck covered in mud to fill the tires with air and spread layers of fresh mud truck's exterior--this camouflage apparently works well against the backdrop of the Darfuri mountains across the border. Once under the shaded passageways and inside the market maze, the heavy silence and emptiness signaled that something surely was going on. A few unconfortable minutes later, chatting with a colleague, the soft, distant, yet unmistakable "boom" stopped me mid-sentence. Silently acknowledging the bomb that was dropped across the border in Darfur, we quickly left the market area and mounted our caravan of jeeps. The UN national partners, DIS, escorted us--as they do every day--back for the thirty minute bumpy return through the sand along the Sudanese border, to our compound.
