'I Was Transformed'

In the camp?
No, in the airport. We didn't even realize we were on the same flight. We landed at like midnight and got up at like 5 in the morning to catch the WFP [World Food Program] plane [to a town near the camp].

When you got there, what were the people saying about their situation? There are several photographs with this boy tied to a tent pole, and there's also another photograph of a group of women near some tents, and one of them has her ankles chained.
The first time I saw that in the camp [it was] obviously really shocking. They are people who are traumatized by the bombing [by Sudanese government forces attacking villages in Darfur] and by war. The old woman may have had some dementia before. The reality is there are one or two aid workers for every 2,000 refugees. The same with the doctors, the therapists. The basic need there [is] to just try to keep these people safe. To keep the tents up in all the sand storms, try to get the food distributed and basic health-care needs. The [chained] woman started to beat her daughter with anything she could find. She kept hearing voices of the people yelling at her. So she feels constantly under attack. I'm no therapist, so I don't understand all the details. But when I did try to talk to her, she seemed pretty rational. But then she started aggressively telling me that I had to stop them from putting snakes on her. And for the people to stop yelling at her and for the bombs to stop dropping.

And the little boy?
The little boy was a normal 3-year-old [now 7] who disappeared for 48 hours after [his village was bombed]. I can only imagine what he saw. Sure he saw death. And when found, he was found in a state

As a first reaction you want to remove [the rope]. But the mother, she has four other kids, she's by herself. Therapists visit him, but if [he's] left alone he will disappear or bang himself. I talked to him for like half an hour and just kind of looked at him for a long time before he touched me and there was a little boy in there who was open to a kind sound.… There's a normal little kid right there, but he's got a look of fear. He's nervous to touch. And you can feel that need for safety. The mother unfortunately can't not go work for the other children and can't sit with him all day long and hold him, which is probably what would do some good. But what he needs is probably some serious therapy. [There are] lots of children like him there. Lots of victims of war. [It's a] whole other thing that you usually don't get to address because they have to be so focused on the basic needs of survival. These are the many other casualties of the kind of war that is happening in Darfur.

Do you despair?
Certainly, at times. The first two years I just cried constantly like a woman does.

Oh, like anybody does.
Yes, like anybody does, thank you. I couldn't really talk about the situation without being emotional. And I went through a period of just complete lack of hope. Just feeling like it was way too overwhelming and feeling like I wouldn't be able to make a dent. And then I went through a period of anger that smart, articulate people in power have not been able to answer these issues quickly and clearly and define ways of intervention. And that it just keeps going on. About a year ago, I got a lot of books on internat—onal law and I tried to study what was going on-just out of a curiosity about what was this bigger picture. I don't want to have to keep going back to camps, five different times, over the next 30 years of my life, [for situations] that there are no solutions for.