Hola companeros -
Greetings from the Sahara!
To give you an update about the recent transitions in my life:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=175241&l=23089&id=690080320
…After nearly 3 years of what felt like being embedded in hypocrisy, due to the disconnect from and esoteric representation of people living in poverty - facing hardships quite different than what is faced in the west where I was bred - I left one plush ivory tower in Colombo to pursue a more challenging mission.
This mission takes place among a people who have been surviving a ‘forgotten’ crisis, for 33 years, with the Western Saharan people, the Saharawis, also considered as part of the bedoin collectivity of Northern Africa. The first discussion I properly had - with Ali, director of the central pharmacy in Dakla - advised me not to write, document or project the experiences of the Saharawis, because as forever external, I can never know the torment of being illegally occupied by Morocco, perpetual fighting with arms and diplomacy, and forced into exile into one of the most desolate, barren, inhospitable places on our planet. But rather I should film, photograph, or try to reach people who have not heard about this immense struggle - for liberation, recognition by the international community and enjoyment of autonomy - through my emotions. Thus, as I write to you about my first experiences, I shall largely omit some of the political, social and historical details, quantification, bloody human development indices, and other norms that enraptured social scientists use – instead I refer you to Toby Shelley’s overview, Endgame in the Western Sahara.
This omission is my limitation to expanding maybe your own interest in this cause, but I have had to forget everything that I have read, heard about or learned through the Western Sahara liberation campaigns – because this reality is often so inexplicable, contradictory and challenging to the previous representations of the Saharawis.
I am supposing what would help get you up to speed are the following:
- illegal occupation by Morocco in Western Sahara Occidental since colonial Spain pulled out in 1975, leading to broken promises for resolving the plight and self-determination of the Saharawis, and to Mauritania and Morocco battling for the territory; later Mauritania withdrew from claims for the mineral, fish and natural resource-rich territory
- subsequent violent exile of the Saharawis to near Tindouf, Southwestern Algeria, as well as unknown numbers of Saharawis still residing in the W.S. territory occupied by Morocco
- numbers are political, which comes out later in the difficulties in knowing how to provide medicines to everyone (UN estimates are around 125.000 persons, but looking across each wilaya, or township, they could easily be over 200.000 persons in SW Algeria alone).
- there exists a sliver of ‘free zone’ between occupied Western Sahara and Algeria, lined by minefields on Morocco side
- still political tensions between Morocco and Algeria on this issue (not helping their war in 1980s and 1990s)
- Polisario are the political party in government ‘representing’ the Saharawis
- failed referendum (Baker Plan) by UN in 2003, so stagnation since then
- deadlock and stagnation over their self-determination by the international community – so put pressure on your government representative to push for a referendum!
- there is already loads of information, speculation, propaganda etc on the web and in media, so you can supplement my writing
- I am here because it is a humanitarian crisis – on many levels – and because I am capable, passionate, curious and hopefully convincing you to keep this cause in mind.
…I guess I don’t know where to begin on why I have been absent and impossible to reach – but let’s face it, I’m in the middle of the desert. The best advice on what I was told to prepare is to bring a sense of humour and that there are a lot of liquor shops in Algiers – whenever I pass through there…But with this medical NGO mission I have not had time to breathe. I am coordinating a mission to provide 80% of the pharmaceutical provisions to the long-term refugee population, as well as help construct a standardized health system and manage medical waste in all the health facilities for this nation – mostly in the 4 main camps (Dakla – the farthest, Smara, El Ayoun and Aousserd, named after the cities left behind in the occupied territories). So in some ways, I have been dropped in the desert, with limited support and financial security from headquarters in Athens, expected to swim and find my way through this quicksand.
Luckily, I have an amazing, close-knit team of 3 Algerian guys and an Italian chiquita – oddly no Greeks - who have made me feel immediately welcomed and shown me the ropes, especially with the language barriers. I am improving my French and Spanish, comprehending more than I can speak, and trying to pick up some Hassini Arabic.
Hamdu ‘lillah!
I live in the NGO Protocol, in Rabouni with about 25 permanent expats, and mucho ‘solidarity tourists’ who come for a few days or a week here and there, as part of official delegations, medical commissions or presumptuous researchers. We each have our objectives, which makes for a coordination debacle, and raises questions of impact and dependency creation - for everything - on the NGO industry…
It is like living in a rudimentary hostel, with a lot of cockroaches, flies and begging semi-domesticated cats, squalid squat latrines, cold bucket bathing (we have some underground water sources), creative uses for water conservation and recycling (we are even trying to sprout onions in our kitchen courtyard), disconnect from the world due to dodgy internet and mobile connections, and testing of one’s tolerance to megalomaniac, Spanish dominance in the field, and cartoonish neighbours. My narrow room that I share with our medical coordinator has very thin walls, which does little to muffle our large Italian elephant neighbour who consumes 30 eggs a day and snores/shags his girlfriend loudly. But there are some of the most beautiful, expansive starlit skies here – extremely dry, sometimes with scorching dry heat days, and chilly, windy evenings. Right now I am freezing in my poorly insulated room, waiting for massive sandstorm to pass…
Comme ca…
I try to keep tranquil and balanced with attempts at sunrise yoga and meditation and long sunset runs through the desert. It is amazing running through the Sahara, like flying, as the terrain is sometimes bouncy, sometimes rocky – like running on the moon! It can be quite shocking though as the first time I tried to find a good path I ended up running through what I learned was a camel abattoir – still fresh corpses rotting away. This makes it sometimes dangerous as there are also packs of famished, wild dogs that could easily hunt me down. The other sad thing is that I must pass by the camel ‘waiting room’, so the few camels I see each week, slowly wait their death and dwindle in numbers – thus I have fewer curious gazers as I run by.
Food is basic, unmentionable – a lot of lentils, pasta, potatoes with onions, and Friday lunch of couscous and camel – I have largely abandoned vegetarianism, especially if I am offered food from a family in their haima (tents attached to their adobe domiciles). I really do not feel comfortable discussing in detail about the private homelife among these families, except that they are some of the most hospitable, warmest, affectionate people I have met. In general though, I learned that Saharawis are largely matriarchal, with women largely participating in high professional jobs as well as in municipal governments and having considerable influence in the private sphere in some ways. I learned that when women marry, the husband comes to live in the wife’s family compound – and the land, assets, wealth are passed down to the brother-in-law to be kept for their daughters. Sons go to their wives’ families and there are some practices of bigamy, not to mention extramarital affairs. Perhaps this can be seen as attaining more wealth, status, etc through reliance on women as an economic medium.
I cannot write too much, in my naivete, about the complications within the gendered social structure – only that there are clear existing gendered inequalities and inequities: even though women do largely participate in public offices and decision-making bodies, often holding highly skilled jobs, they still carry double burdens of carrying the household responsibilities – preparing enormous servings of too-sweet tea, procreating in a context without contraception and family planning (government policy), and basically married in order to gratify the needs of the husband and parents.
Of course, economically, socially, politically, things have been changing dramatically this last decade and half, since permanent NGO interventions, increased migration (securing remittances from abroad) and the very odd Spanish vacation time given for every child each year…People are fairly progressive and liberal, and largely influenced by communist and socialist ideas; Che, Fidel and their own Polisario martyrs adorn the walls of schools, public institutions. Interestingly, as part of international aid schemes, the younger generation mostly have gone abroad to study, mostly in Cuba (termed ‘cubarawis’) and Spain, so there are a lot of doctors, pharmacists, psychiatrists, IT specialists, lawyers, judges, politicians, teachers (one of our drivers is a Spanish teacher who studied 14 years in Cuba – hopefully inclined enough to help me with courses) etc – but they often cannot find jobs in the countries of study, so must return to the camps for a life of interminable waiting. They are savvier about NGO work and our donor relations than perhaps we are. Hence, there is pervasive frustration and even a feeling of ‘what-to-do?’ among folks, which comes up later in terms of how we can carry out our work.
I guess this is a lot to digest for now…I hope to find more time to put thoughts down regarding the actual complications with implementing our project; badly constructed NGO approaches; the role of branding and consumerism as a manifestation of status among Saharawis (they mostly drive Mercedes, wear designer sunglasses…); projections of what folks like you can do – despite, I know, the current overbearing problems we all face; underlying and persistent new form of colonialism by Spain (e.g. sex tourism); lackadaisical UN structure here; etc.
For now just know that I am safe, energetic, dedicated, reawakened. I’ll try to keep things shorter in the next rambling I pass along…hopefully, these photos can also give you some food for thought!
Welcome to this (often forgotten) world –
Big hugs, enduring love and beauty in your lives,
Paz, paix, salaam!
