Writing a book is serious work!  This year is the big year for publishing.  I'll have more information for you guys soon but I wanted to drop and and say

 

I"M ALIVE and I love ya all.

 

NOW GET BACK TO WORK!!!!

Winter had come and along with its ferocious winds and mountains of ice it had brought a terrible darkness which felt like it had seized my heart and stuffed it inside a brooding closet.

 Darkness was like a thief to me, it stole my wings and as a dreamer I am nothing if I cannot fly.

 I knew this winter seemed abnormally depressing because I hadn’t experienced the season for nearly three years.  Where is the sun? I wanted to know! How does anyone function without it?!?!?!

 I had gotten so use to Africa’s fiery ball of orange and yellow electrifying my every move that I was like a junky, feeling nervous and paranoid, without my energy fix.  I wanted to take a magnifying glass to the shadows and see what was lurking inside them.  Was it depression? Was it some ill and twisted fate waiting to pounce on me? 

 No, Shan. It’s just winter. It’s supposed to get dark.

 I had to keep reminding myself of this, but in truth it was a lie because it wasn’t just the winter that was causing my soul to jerk like a Mexican jumping bean in the night, I was missing my students, my apartment on Urine Alley,  my Sudan.

 I had been in such a damn hurry to leave it on June 20^th that I had gone without even looking back, actually I remember having to make a very conscious effort to not look back because it was too much in that painfully dramatic moment, to acknowledge that deep inside my emotions of steel my heart was sobbing for the loss of a friend I would never see again.

 Don’t look back Shan, don’t look back. 

 So I had kept my gaze locked on the seat in front of me and on my unclear and unsure future.   But I had to, because if my focus wavered, even just a bit, my love for Sudan would have crippled me, left me lost in a blur of tears and trying like a loon on the loose, to stuff its deserts of urine and slime and children of prostitutes and thieves, into the weeping embers of my heart.

 And now it was gone…

 Would I ever see it again?  Would I ever ride on the backseat of a beat up rickshaw, one with plastic hearts that dangled from the windshield with the words ‘BIN LADEN’ plastered on its rear end?  Would I ever here the cool accent of the Sudanese as they spit, rather harshly, the very difficult Arabic sound, ‘kh’, which took me months and months to master?

  If only I’d acted like a proper friend and given it a decent goodbye, if only I’d known how much I would miss it after it was gone, then I would have written Sudan a letter and stuffed it in a bottle, then thrown it into the Nile and on the inside a white crisp paper would read the words that were forever etched on my soul: 

Thank you for the laughter and tears.  Thank you for a healthier perspective.  Thank you for simplicity.  Thank you for calm. Thank you for direction.  Thank you for life.

 Sudan was, without a doubt, my first love.  It was the only thing that had managed to put a lasso around my wild and restless heart.  So was I destined to long for it in the way everyone longs their first love? Maybe…

 But just like a first love, however fantastic the fling, it was and is time to let go of that sweet and unforgettable moment that, however irreplaceable, will never be again. 

 

I’ve always seen myself as a rock n’ roll chic (thus the shoulder length earrings, edgy tanks and rugged baseball caps that are brimming out of my closet) so my decision to get a scooter—one that set itself from the rest by offering a 150 cc engine and was pink for crying out loud!!—probably came as a shock to know one who knew me.  But it was obvious that everyone else who cruised the conservative streets of my hometown did not know what to think of my pink ride and leather jacket

“I love your bike!,” old grannies would shout to me from their Oldsmobile’s while stopped at a red light.  Younger women would often asked, “where’d you get it?” Little girls would point at me from the backseat of their parents Sedans, no doubt comparing me to their Barbies at home, while the males- both young and old--were always staring.

 As a woman never shy of the spotlight I’d make nice with polite conversation and a pretty smile and off I went, with the engine roaring and hair flowing.  But after less than a month of riding, the rain came and people were staring not because I was the cool girl on the bike but because I was the cold girl on the bike.  Their eyes said: is this girl crazy? Why doesn’t she take cover?

 If they only knew what I was doing and where I was living just four months ago then they’d know exactly how crazy I really am, I’d think to comfort myself.

 But they couldn’t know that my refusal to get a car was because I was hoping to head out on a new adventure in a few years and a car would be an awful expensive burden to get rid of when the time came to depart.  

 Of course, when winter came, I’d have to carpool but for now I was thoroughly enjoying the direct contact with the environment. The tiny ness of my new ride simplified my life with a $2 gas tank and gave me great agility in most tight spaces. 

 “Well, if you’re going to ride in the rain you should at least take a motorcycle class to refine your skills,” my dad suggested, not liking the new risk I was taking one bit. 

 I decided he was probably right and enrolled in a training class that was not what I expected.  First of all there were no cute, colorful scooters to train on! Only hard core Harleys, Hondas and Suzuki’s and they were all manual transmission—something I hadn’t had much practice with! Those in my class, who were a pleasant mix of old, young and non biker bad boy, were just as scared as I was when the time came to straddle our borrowed metal and take it for a spin.

 One lady named Gretchen, who kept stalling the low riding cruiser she was given to practice on, told me she had just bought a Vespa and that it had tipped over on her in the garage.

 “That’s why were here right now,” her husband said from his sparkling blue Suzuki which was exactly like the one I was riding and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out how to put it into neutral.

 After several hours of circles and weaves in a University parking lot with our Nazi-ish trainers screaming, “do not look at the ground!!! What’s the matter with you, do you want to be killed??!?!” it was time to practice emergency braking.

 “Am I supposed to push the clutch in and then break? Or do I have to downshift first?” I asked a thirty something young woman who said she had been driving manual her whole life. “You push the clutch in then downshift and then break.” She instructed as we hopped back on our bikes to line up for the last exercise of the day.

 It seemed easy enough but I found myself wondering why anyone would choose a manual over an automatic…I mean really people!

 As my turn came to break on command, I rolled down the pavement and chanted my mantra: clutch, downshift, break, clutch, downshift, break, clutch, downshift...but then my trainer gave me the signal and I panicked: was that the break near my right foot or was that the shift pedal and was first gear up or was it down? I couldn’t get it straight so I decide to do nothing and flew passed my trainer forcing him to leap to the side for safety.    

 "YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BREAK ON MY SIGNAL!” Mr. Nazi  shouted vehemenantly in my direction when I finally came to a stop. “WEREN”T YOU LISTENING TO THE INSTRUCTIONS?”

 “I COULDN”T STOP!” I yelled back, feeling mad that he had to be so rude. 

 “THAT IS NO EXCUSE! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STOP ON MY COMMAND!” He screamed and in wanting to defend myself I decided to blame it on the bike.

 “IT WOULDN”T STOP!” I said pointing to my innocent sparkling Suzuki and then the daggers in Nazi man’s eyes let me know how ridiculous I had just sounded. 

 When class time ended, I left the parking lot feeling exhausted from the intensity I had just endured but realized that over the course of the day I had fallen in love with the feel and sound of the motorcycle.  It was so much different than my scooter, which felt very much like a toy to me now and so when I got home that night I searched the internet for a way to trade it in for a bike with a low riding seat, a Harley Davidson plate and a manual transmission.

   

 

 

I was wet with bubbles when Animal Planet super star, Steve Irwin’s bubbly smile lit up my TV screen.  I figured the tub was in no hurry for a scrub, so I threw down my sponge and plopped in front of the TV excited to watch what looked like a random program highlighting the contributions of my favorite animal rights activist.

 “I love this guy!” I exclaimed to mom in the kitchen who was busy kneading dough.

 “He died!” She said over the buzz of the mixer.

 “What?!?!?!” I shouted back over the buzz, absolutely positive I had not only heard her wrong but that Steve Iriwn was not dead because this untouchable man could not die. 

 When her second response came as hard to hear as the first, I turned my attention to the TV and realized the tribute I was watching wasn’t random at all, rather it was timed to mourn the loss of Steve’s untimely death, which resulted in a sting by a sting ray early that morning.

 I stared at the screen deeply disturbed by what was unfolding before me: flashes of Steve tackling a fierce looking crocodile with his boyish grin bouncing off his carefree golden locks, another flash of him with his kids and trusty sidekick and wife, Terry.  Though I’d never known him personally, he was one of my greatest inspirations. He kept me encouraged and lighthearted during many a lonely night in the harsh Sudan desert when I had very little social life and limited television channels. He was memorizing to watch, his personality was dynamic, his love for life and all things living was captivating, he wore his passion on his sleeve and he gave all that he had to the things that he believed in.  It was his way of living that I wanted to model my own by…and now he was gone.

 I stared at the screen and when the news of his death didn’t register I did circles around the den, kitchen and bathroom sayin to my mom more than a handful of times, “I can’t believe he’s dead.  I just can’t believe this.”  It shook me to the core because his death seemed like such an insult to humanity.  I mean, what did Steve do to deserve this? He had more love in one of his Australian pinkies than most of us have in our whole bodies---and he was dead.  Our world was full of gangsters, murderers, pedophiles—and they were all living their corrupted and filthy little lives and Steve, a man who had dedicated his life to making a difference in the world, was dead?

 I was pissed. I was damn pissed. I was so gosh darn pissed I wanted to scream.   

 Our world was in such a desperate need of heroes these days, and I’m not talking about the kind that wear red capes and leap from tall buildings, I’m talking about the real kind.  The kind that get off their butts and devote their time and energy into the things which they believe in; the kind that still believe in things worth believing in.

 Steve was a real hero.  He was my hero.  He had a light and he held it high. His light said, “This is my passion, this is the thing which I believe in with all my heart and I want to share it with the world.” He was exactly as I wanted to be and knowing that he was rocking in the same world as me gave my life inspiration, hope, joy and direction.

 Surely the Universe knew that men like Steve were few and far between? Surely the Universe knew how badly we needed him? And don’t give me that crap that his example will continue to make a difference even after his death, because you know what? Steve was a good man.  He would have done much more good alive than he will six feet under and he deserved to live.  And for some stupid and naive reason I thought that people like him were protected, that karma/God/Universe...whatever...would recognize his good, that he would be rewarded for it and preserved so that he could continue on sharing his light with the world. 

 I was so hurt, just so bitter and angry and confused...but mostly I was heartbroken.  Hopelessly heartbroken.

 On the way to work that afternoon, I sat next to my dad in the car and wondered if he was at all aware that the world was now short of its Crocodile Hunter and said, “Steve Irwin died today.” My dad’s response was to chuckle in his sarcastic way and then he said, in reference to the animal that finally did him in, “kind of ironic isn’t it?”

 My dad’s response reminded me of a time when I was younger and my cat had been taken to the pound and upon hearing the news I had cried.  “Why are you crying? It’s not a big deal, Shannon,” my dad had said.  I’m an adult now and I know better to respect the things that are a big deal to me, even if they are not to anyone else, so I just kept my mouth shut and looked out at the clear blue sky and marveled at how wrong it felt for the sun to still be shining over the world on the same day that a man as wonderful and good as my hero, Steve Irwin, left it.

 For more information on Steve and his contributions visit his website:  www.crocodilehunter.com

 

Going to Africa was kind of like getting a life threatening illness and living through it.

As Lance Armstrong put it in his book, Every Second Counts, "Cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me."

My experiences in Sudan gave me a whole new perspective on how I looked at myself, others, the world around me and more importantly how I viewed my past, present and future. I saw my past for what it was: the life of a broken person. But I was broken no more and it was time to pick up the pieces of that which I wished to keep and move on.

Just move on.

The aftermath of Sudan was that I was much calmer and more secure than I had ever been and pickier in how I chose to spend my time and whom I chose to spend it with. I wasn’t afraid to be alone anymore, quit the contrary; I preferred to be alone than to be in the company of people who wanted to hurt me.

But it had been scary coming home. The first time I drove around the streets of my home town I was reminded of who I had been when I left: a scared little girl trapped in a world of self inflicted pain and all at once the horror of that world came back and for a brief moment I was back in that world, terrified that its shadows would twist their dark over my eyes and I’d be lost forever.

It made me realize that even though I had walked thousands of grueling miles and suffered an ocean of blood, sweat and tears just to get to this point of sobriety, that it could all be gone with one mistake.

One party. One glass. One sip. One second.

The fight to get here had taken 10 years! TEN YEARS of passion and rage and it had all been so painful, so brutal, so cruel and Sudan—in spite of all the good it gave me---has left me dried and drained.

I will never again have the energy it took to walk those same miles, to bleed those same tears, to die a second time and be reborn. Of course, maybe I am over dramatizing the situation…who knows? I’m amazed at the things I have overcome, the things I have accomplished and many times before I have said to myself, "I cannot go on."

But I have.

Fortunately, these days the need to torture myself is no longer there. I have learned that it was only me, myself and I that kept me bound to that horrific cage and it was the understanding of this which has set me free…

Nevertheless, I am here now, different in so many ways and it is time! Time to move on! A new chapter has begun and in many ways it feels more like a whole new book. I need to shelve the old, embrace the new and face the questions that seem to be pinned to my forehead these days because every time I look in the mirror I see them:

Who will you be? What will you become? What will you do with your life?

And I wonder…who will I be? What will I become and for crying out loud what do I want to do with my life?

It is hard to know at this point because a large portion of my life had been viewed from the side of a thousand foot drop off, where I peered over the edge from the closest possible point while flailing my arms in my own amusement. I had always been so extreme in everything that I did, but being back now, I could feel that the cliff had lost its glamour, its appeal. Instead, stretched out before me is a new landscape, with a flat surface and a few hills and because I’d been dangling from cliffs my whole life, these small hills hardly even phase me…yet it's nice to be here. Nice to feel safe and not always be hanging on for dear life…

But I’ve only ever known how to hang, how to flail, how to dangle. I’ve only ever known how to live in extremes. This flat new landscape was a whole new ball game and I have no clue how to navigate around it.

All I know is the things that I have seen in Africa, all that poverty, war and destruction would never leave me. Sure, some days I will forget about what I experienced there, just like I might forget where I put my keys—but when you witness that degree of suffering, it becomes a part of you and I don’t think it can leave you, at least I hope it can’t.

I hope.

I also brought back with me the things that I found while over there: my self worth, my talent to write, my love for life, my love for exercise and my ability to make a difference. These things would be the very things with which I would use to build the soles of my new shoes, the ones designed to navigate a flat terrain. In the words of an old song I use to sing, these things would "lead me, guide me, walk beside me. Help me find the way."

Nothing will hold me back from my dreams ever again. I will live a life according to the things that bring me joy. I will write books, I will travel the world. I will indulge in sports of all sorts: maybe triathlons, maybe martial arts, maybe dance. I will start my own business, whether that be real estate or clothing design. I will dedicate my life to service and in turn serve myself. I will eat healthy so that I can have a healthy body and in turn a healthy mind. I will go to school to learn things that make me wonder instead of things which make me money. I will learn about the lives of people in other countries so that when I travel to them I can know them, appreciate them and love them. I will seek for ways to share my story with the world so that I can bring laughter, inspiration and hope to those who are seeking it.

I will start today. I will start now. I will start this second… because we all know that ever second counts.

[Ends]

I didn’t know if it was the 16 different flavors of coffee-- offered in the vending machine where I just purchased a cup of hot cocoa---or the tattooed and toothless rednecks that scared me more.

I’d just gotten back from Africa for crying out loud! All this free enterprise (20 different brands of ketchup?!?!?) made me uneasy and America gave breed to an evil that was different than genocide and civil war: pedophiles and coke whores.

The riders on this particular bus to Twin Falls, Idaho, where I was going to pick up my four year old nephew, seemed to me like they belonged in one category or the other and I wondered…which was the lesser evil: genocide or child molestation? Self destruction by drugs or civil war?

At least in crimes such as genocide and civil war people were fighting for something that they believed in---whether that was rights, land or power. But what of child molestation and drug addiction? It seemed that these two crimes were built on a foundation of selfishness: self destruction, self desire, self loathing, self pity…self, self,self…

I was an addict---not to drugs, but alcohol---which was one of the main reasons I went to Sudan two years ago: to get sober. I thought running away from everything was the key…but no matter how far I ran---I couldn't run away from myself and Sudan taught me that it was within myself where the real problem stemmed and not that bottle of Southern Comfort. 

You see, because the basic things in Sudan-- like lack of clean water, food, air conditioning and electricity made every day existance difficult---I had to focus on surviving and  that meant a focus on living which in turn helped me to realize how very badly I wanted to live.

Is it any wonder, as I sit here now with my face plastered against the glass of the Greyhound with sidewalks and manicured lawns rolling past---that I’m terrified of this proactively selfish nation?

Maybe in a month or more I’ll be less thoughtful. And maybe in a year from now I’ll own more than I’d ever need and be thousands of dollars in debt because of it. Or maybe I’ll be so sick with self obsession by that time that I’ll end up in another poverty stricken country just so I could get back to the basics---just so I could remember that the basics were all any of us ever needed to survive.  

{ends}

Going Home

It would be an understatement to say that it was difficult trying to get a visa into Sudan. It would be even more of an understatement to say that it was difficult trying to get a visa out of Sudan.

 

I’m sure you remember my little, ‘I have diabetes--must have shot or I’m going to die!,’ story, which I had to tell those kind tea sippin', tope wearing ladies in order to get out of Sudan that summer of '05. It all boiled down to taxes--according to "them" I owed money--- yet according to my contract I owed none.

 

Well it was the summer of '06 now and the tax problem was still…a problem and the thought of having to pay the $3,500 dollars that was being demanded was unsettling but what was even more unsettling was that I’d waited until the very last moment to try and resolve the issue.

 

So there I was--two weeks before I had to be in Cairo---sitting in the top floor of the tax department, with the same sweet tea sippin, tope wearing ladies that had helped me free me exactly one year ago. But when I found that my file had been placed in the care of a old burly man with huge rimmed glasses-my instincts told me that tears and stories of bull were not going to get me out of this one.

 

Frankly, I was glad. Because I wasn’t in the mood to flash my, "I’m a cute innocent girl, please help me out of this mess,’ smile. Or my, 'I have diabetes and my death will be on your head," tears. No, I was in the mood for blood. Must have been that 120 degree heat that had been boiling my insides and frying my brain for the past two years because blood was all I saw.

 

"I NEED TO LEAVE THIS COUNTRY and I NEED TO LEAVE IT NOW!! If you don’t sign that tax form I will go DIRECTLY TO THE EMBASSY and file a complaint. And not only you but the school will have a MASSIVE problem on your hands with the American consulate!" I threatened, foam dripping from the four inch fangs I imagined were hanging from my mouth.

 

But Mr. Burly Man just smiled and told me in very clear Arabic that there was nothing he could do.

 

I left the tax department in a sick rage and headed straight for the school where I told Mr. Roby, the Sudanese man in charge of Unity, the same thing. "I NEED TO LEAVE THIS COUNTRY RIGHT NOW AND IF YOU DON"T HELP ME I WILL LODGE A COMPLAINT WITH THE AMERICAN EMBASSY!" I shouted, feeling very much like a caged animal that had been taunted by the idea of freedom for far too long.

 

Roby sensed very surely that I’d gone mad and whatever it was, the foam or the shouting, he understood that I was in no mood for Sudanese INSHALLAH games and that very same day, he came back with a slip of paper from the tax department saying that I was free to leave the country. But the story does not end there…oh no. And this part of the story is quit embarrassing because instead of putting that blessed slip in a safe place…I lost it.

 

Yes, folks. That’s right. I lost my ticket to freedom. Now, I could go off here…with excuse after excuse, (which I gave to Brooks as defiantly as I could): "It’s the Khartoum haze. The sun has fried my brain. I’ve lost my mind. " All these excuses seemed totally accurate …but the point was THAT I WAS ONCE AGAIN stuck in Sudan.

 

So the next few days were spent chasing yet again, another slip of freedom. After a few mind numbing cartwheels and back flips--the kind that must be done to get anywhere through the Sudanese system-- I had another slip in my hand and this time, make no mistake, I headed straight to the visa department.

 

Of course, the story doesn’t end there either. Four days I waited in lines and filled out more paper work, trying with all my heart to get a visa so I could leave the country in time to salvage whatever was left of my overland trip to Cairo. But each day followed with an Inshallah, a bookra and a malesh (someday,tomorrow and sorry).

 

The officer at the desk told me two weeks, another told me seven days. I told them NO WAY and stayed in my chair, sipping on mint tea, waiting as patiently as I could for time to pass. My presence on that chair told the men that I wasn’t giving up and on the fourth day a man called me over to the desk and handed me back my passport. There it was, an exit visa in the shades of soft tan and cream…it was the most beautiful exit visa I had ever seen.

 

I shook the mans hand, feeling a very strange urge to kiss and strangle him at the same time and then made my way down a long windy staircase when a surge of emotions hit me all at once: fear, sadness, happiness, joy, sorrow, desperation, pain, uncertainty. It was obvious that over these past two years I had developed a very real fear that I was never going to get out of this place and somehow I’d become accustomed to the idea that I was going to continue to evolve into this lizard that I had become, one without the need for water or beauty and one that didn’t really care about not needing these things.

 

The beautiful tan and cream visa was a wake up call. A very overwhelming wake up call that shouted from its cozy little spot in my passport, ‘YOU ARE FREE!’

 

And as I descended down the windy staircase to the dizzying streets of Khartoum, I cried... finally able to embrace the fact that I was going home.

[Ends]

 

Tuesday was the Islamic New Year, which meant I could sleep in.  But when Mercy pounded on the door in the early morning hours to clean the house, I was annoyed because I knew I could no longer sleep with him mopping the floors and fluffing my pillows.  So feeling grumpy, I plopped myself on the couch to catch up on some work.  

 “When you go to America, if you don’t take me with you I will scream very loudly!” Mercy said to me in his broken English as he was sweeping the bathroom floor.  Mercy and I had been down this road several times before.  He was a refugee from Ethiopia, living in Sudan for more than 20 years and he was determined to make it to the states--- even if it meant pestering me day after day. Because I was already annoyed from having been dragged from blissful sleep, his comment only agitated my mood.  “Mercy, America is not what you think it is.  Money is difficult, life is difficult.  You do not just go to American, and poof!  You have it all!” I explained sounding more than exasperated.  

“Yes, but here I cannot afford to buy a house even though I work all day, everyday!” he said.  “I want to be like you!”

“Mercy! I cannot even afford to buy a house!  You may think that everyone has all this money because of what you see in the movies, but that is not the case. You get paid more in the states, yes, this is true---but the cost of living is much higher!  It is not as easy as you think!”  I said, angry at his ignorance. But my persistence only caused Mercy to change his argument from money matters to how kind and wonderful our President and the American people were in comparison to the leaders in Africa and the Sudanese.

“Mercy!  In Sudan, I can leave my house open and never be robbed!  The people are very hospital here, sometimes too hospital!  And President Bush is not a saint just because he prays to God! He is bombing people in Iraq…not for the sake of terrorism but for oil---for money!” I nearly shouted, having lost my marbles from the fumes of the bathroom cleanser.

 “The people in America are killing one another in schools!" I continued. "Little children with guns! The streets in certain areas are very dangerous!” I went on in my stubborn rage until Mercy interrupted me, his voice even louder than my own, proving that he too had become intoxicated by the cleanser.

“Yes! Your right! This is a problem in America because anyone can buy a gun if they want to.  But at least you can choose to buy a gun if you want to!” he shouted, his words hitting me hard, despite the fumes, because I knew I could never win the argument when I was fighting to prove a point and he was fighting for freedom.  

[Ends]

 

Houses shaped like Voltz wagon bugs littered the golden glitter of the Darfur desert.

"We’re going into a war zone. Please make sure you prepare yourself for anything to happen." a man warned at the security briefing a few hours before.

Jitterbugs did their jitter dance throughout my intestines...

We’re going into a war zone! We’re going into a war zone!

Our convoy of UN vehicles made its way slowly, slowly through the glitter...creeping, crawling, cruising...AMIS peacekeepers in dirty green trucks at the front, the back.

"Their not allowed to carry guns." Ruth from UNIFEM informed.

"But aren’t they here to protect us? " A journalist from Lebanon asked and then was greeted with an uneasy silence.

Out the window, camels a pretty brown made moving hills on the insanely flat landscape, making me dizzy. I thought they looked like dinosaurs and wondered if there was a T-Rex close by and if he was hungry.

"They beat us when we go to collect firewood." the little girls I had met at a school in Nyala had told me earlier. "We go a route that takes 3 hours longer, but it is the only safe route. " These girls were so small, in the third grade.

"There! There!" someone shouted bringing me back to the camels, the jitter bugs.

Our convoy stopped to let out the hoard of international and national journalists that it was carrying.

Digital...check.

Video...check.

Battery...um...where is my battery?

By the time I made my way to where the crowd had gathered microphones were out, interviews had already started. I turned my camera on and focused it on the old woman with leathery skin and face full of scars. A collection of branches were at her feet, a slab of rocks on a string around her neck. She was sitting beneath a tree that offered no shade from that great fireball in the sky.

"Did you ask her about the gender based violence?" I asked from behind my camera, repositioning myself to get a better view.

"Shannon...a few more steps and you’ll be in our way." a man with UN TV warned from behind his own. I backed up and searched for a new angle.

"Can’t you read her face? She doesn’t want to talk about this. Look at her body language. She’s completely frozen up." Ruth was saying. From the lens of my camera, I could see that the woman was close to crying.

"We should go."

"Someone should give her an apron." a UNFPA staff suggested, running to the car and bringing back a white apron that read: UNFPA in bright orange print. Then we got in our cars and drove off.

Next to the window once again, I sat feeling disturbed.

What had just happened?

"We shouldn’t have done that. We had no right." the girl sitting next to me was saying and again our car was filled with uneasy silence.

"Did you ask her about the gender based violence?" my own voice echoed in my mind.

I thought back to yesterday...when journalists had snuck into camps of the displaced people and shoved microphones in the faces of the children—"I got the story! I got the story!"they’d come back, their eyes twinkling.

"Don’t use names. Don’t use individual photos. If the government finds these people have given us any information, horrible things will happen to them." The UN had warned.

Although I had no intentions of using her name or face for a story, I felt awful. I had violated this woman... I had betrayed her.

"The janjaweed. They beat us, they molest us when we go out." the women and children of Darfur complained about the men dressed in turbans that rode on camel back with guns in their hands. But despite the eight hour trek and dangerous terrain, firewood was essential for the cooking of food. Firewood was life.

And here we were....shoving microphones in their faces and dressing them in aprons.

[Ends]

  

 

There’s a stranger on their turf with hair the color of bark and skin as white as snow...

She’s walking amongst the children who get only one new shirt to wear per year.

They watch her, they pinch her, they wonder...from which planet has she come?

"Take my picture miss! Take my picture miss!"

And she tries...1,2,3 ...and as she takes their picture she reaches to touch their faces, in attempt to give them a small piece of whatever it is they think she has and they do not.

But there are too many...or she chooses to believe there is because she thinks of her work and her assignments and how much she has to do.

With a busy mind, the stranger walks on.

"I want food! I eat only one small meal a day miss!" A girl with large eyes shouts from behind a navy blue tope.

The stranger looks to the girl with the navy blue tope...and sees her in a way that chills her to the bone.

There they stand–together amongst the houses made of mud and children thick with stench until the stranger is overcome by the recognition of a reality that can only be seen when looking into the eyes of the children that get only one new shirt to wear per year.

And she wonders...to which planet have I come?

"Help us miss... why can’t you help us?" they plead, they beg, they cry as the stranger gets back in her air conditioned car, hurried to meet her deadline.

As she goes, they wave to her , shout to her, they wonder...will this girl with hair the color of bark and skin as white as snow remember that she has seen us? And what will she do now that she has?

The car is going, from the review mirror the stranger is watching them wave and remembering the haunting way in which their eyes reflect a truth...

That does not shout.

That does not whisper.

That only is.

And the stranger knows now that it is not a matter of planets, because she has seen for herself that they are on the same one....

But yet a question of what does that mean? And how are we all connected? 

 

 

 When word got out that Sudan’s newly elected First Vice President, Dr. John Garang, was killed in a plane accident Sunday morning, the emails started flying. The announcement of Garang’s death was the first shocking news, Noel’s the second:

Our neighborhood is under seize. Guns, bombs. Barricaded self into building with old man. Not allowed to move. Got sound footage of explosions.

Currently chomping on a hazelnut croissant in Greece, I was a little skeptical:

Are you sure man? Noooo! No! And I’m stuck here in this crap hole! Are you in serious danger or are you okay? Come on now, be serious!

Too impatient to wait for a reply I logged into the Sudan news feed and found a spine chilling warning from the US Embassy in Khartoum:

The US Embassy in Sudan reminds American citizens of the Department of State’s Travel Warning for Sudan. American citizens are urged to avoid all non-essential travel to Sudan at this time and those within Sudan are advised to stay indoors in a safe area due to disturbances in Khartoum and the Suburbs.

Hmmmm...sounds pretty serious...time to email Mom:

Ma! Garang is dead! My boss just sent me an email...’URGENT! WHEN CAN WE EXPECT THE GARANG STORY?’, Noel says the neighborhood is under seize and I’m stuck in Greece! I’ve got to get back there! It’s time to fly!

You have NO IDEA how freakin’ annoyed I was at not being able to provide a hands on news story for IRIN and not being able to be apart of the excitement of a rare experience like this. Anxious, I turned a razor sharp focus on preparing to fly into Sudan the following day. I contacted the embassy to see if a car could pick me up at the airport, then Barry, my boss at Unity, for help arranging access to my flat and then I let Erich with IRIN know that I would attempt to cover the story from my perch at Mocafe’s internet shop in Athens.

The story started something like this:

Bombings and shootouts have broken out amongst the streets of Khartoum due to the death of First Vice President and leader of the SPLM/A, John Garang...

But then an email came from Noel providing more disturbing news:

Shopkeepers sweeping up glass, smoke and light flashes from presidential palace, armed solders and police stopping cars, pedestrians. I saw a man in the street being beaten and there were bombs just up the street, gunshots all over.

Choaking on the hard to swallow update, I continued with my story:

Noel, an American teaching for a local school in Khartoum, told IRIN today, "I saw a man being beaten and there were bombs just up the street, gunshots all over."

Noel and other foreigners are currently being held in the Merridien hotel by UN authorities and local police officers in order to protect them from the violence in the streets.

Then Mom decided to join the email game:

Shannon, please tell me this is not really happening?!?!?! What are you going to do now?

Well mom, what I really wanted to do was mutate into Caption Spok of the Next Generation so that I could teleport myself from Athens to Khartoum without the headache of an airplane. But after receiving Barry’s email, it looked like I would have the option of the headache but not the airplane:

I shall be coming to pick you up at the airport. No problem.

And then not even two minutes later:

Ignore my last email! The airport is closed and the advice from everyone is do not get on a flight to Khartoum–they probably won’t fly anyway!

Stubborn as all get out, I wrote Noel, Mom, Barry and Erich something similar to this:

I’m getting on that plane and I’m going to Khartoum.

Mom sent a , ‘Please be careful’, Barry wrote, ‘good luck, Erich was off getting an interview and Noel cautioned:

‘Get ready for a storm.’

 

 

 

 

 For Butters:

My cat, Butterscotch, died that day that Nasif brought the Uzi for Show & Tell, pointed it at my head and said, " Teacher, you want me to show you how it shoots?" with wobbly arms and sweaty seven year old fingers.  Butterscotch, the cat that I’d spent the past sixteen years of my life teasing and tormenting, cuddling and combing.   A cat that liked to bathe in spilt oil beneath our old van and tan his candy colored fur in the hot July sun—always walking, always looking ---with sleepy eyes and a lazy stroll. 

 That day, I found it hard to digest the finalization that comes with the death of a companion you have shared your life with for so long.  I couldn’t quite stomach the fact that there would never be another family visit where I would find him running sideways down our driveway to greet me, no more moments freeing dust clots from his spoiled fur on a yellow blanket in our front yard, and I would never again hear the threat in my dad’s voice as he found out ‘I’d snuck the cat in the basement once again’---or my apologies: I just wanted to keep him warm dad, I just wanted to keep him warm. 

  It was harder, still, because I was in Sudan and I couldn’t be there for him as he said goodbye and I lost him forever. Because, you see, I had always planned on being there for that, being there to comfort him in his ill and broken state, to look into his eyes and let him know how much he meant to me, how much I appreciated him.

 That afternoon, I sat on the porch of my dusty Sudanese flat and cried for the sadness that I felt from loosing Butterscotch. But no matter how hard I tried I couldn't find tears to shed for the memory of that slick black barrel, a perfect O at my heart, threatening my sanity, bullying my life. I couldn't cry even when I remembered my little students, shivering in their fragile frames; pancakes on the floor with wide trusting eyes, calling me: 'teacher! teacher!' 

 No I could cry only for the cat… because the cat I understood. Even the death of him, I could wrap my mind around; the death of him I could understand.  But Uzi’s in the hands of children…that was something I couldn't, something I would not ever understand.

 

 

 Africa was #1 on my MUST SEE, MUST Do list for many reasons: the wildlife, the culture...the simplicity of the African lifestyle. I was in awe of the land that hadn't been touched by Hollywood, big macs and corporate big dogs. I wanted to go there...to broaden my perceptions and expand my horizons.

When I turned 25, I said to ma and pa...'hey, guys, I got a teaching job in Sudan, I leave in one month.'--Ya, that went over REAL well. After the drool began dripping from their gaping mouths, the questions began:

"Why would you want to go to Sudan? Do you know of the situation in Darfur? Do you know of the civil war taking place in the south? Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind? Do you want to die? Get raped? Kidnapped? KILLED?!?!?!"

Ya. I know about Darfur. I haven't been there yet but I will be.  I also know about the civil war, which ended in January (congrats Sudan!)...can't be ignorant to situations like this because I have a weekly column for a local Sudanese newspaper called the Khartoum Monitor(KM).

Just recently I signed a contract with a local school, to teach 3rd grade for another year.  I've decided that ya, my family is pretty much dead on...one has to be crazy to want to live amongst Sudan's malaria tottin' mosquitos and you know you've really lost it when you find it fun that your rommate is being held hostage in the bathroom by a mango sized SPIDER, or when bin Laden's rickshaw gang attempts to kidnap you during a coup attempt--or better still, when your student is actually the son of the family behind the coup attempts!!!!

Ahhhh....adventurous living. This is what its all about.

No, but really. I keep myself pretty busy working as a journalist for IRIN, which is the news agency of the UN. Writing is what I've always wanted to do...and now, I'm getting paid for it.  BRING IT ON SUDAN! BRING IT ON!

 The purpose of this site is to let you know what it's like to live inside Khartoum (translated it means 'elephant's trunk').  You will know what its like to teach abroad, try to establish a writing career abroad (wish me luck!).  And you will get to hear what its like to battle the intense desert heat, Sudan's pestersome goats, malaria...and  7 year old students who bring Uzi's to school (you think I'm joking? I know you think I'm joking...)

ENJOY!!!