Journal Entry #2 - Boston to Khartoum
BY LINDA MASON | January 29, 2005
Women selling tomatoes in Darfur IDP camp. Photo: Linda Mason for Mercy Corps
This is a long journey! An overnight flight from Boston to London; an eight-hour layover in London's Heathrow Airport; on to a nine-hour flight to Khartoum, with a stop in Jordan. We will land at 3:00 am. This week has been a flurry of preparation and briefings, continual warnings about security, the need for flexibility, possible confiscation of our laptops and cameras and the importance of being careful about what we say and do. Nonetheless, we're undaunted and excited about what is to come.
The Berklee College of Music team worked very hard over the last several weeks to arrange, perform and produce two original songs for us to take to the women of Darfur. Musicians toiled over the weekend to arrange and record the songs, "We Are All Connected" and "To the Sudanese Women." Dennis Montgomery, Chair of the Gospel Music Program, directed the production, and Jack Perricone, producer and Chair of the Song-Writing Department, worked until 2:00 am the night before our departure to finalize the CD and get us six copies to take to Darfur. The songs are incredible and moving.
Ray Thibodeaux, the Boston Globe reporter assigned to our trip, is based in Nairobi, Kenya and gets his visas from there. Suddenly last week, Ray was denied a visa from the Sudanese Embassy, something he has easily obtained numerous times from the Sudanese Embassy in the past. The government has apparently put a moratorium on visas for journalists. They are no longer allowing journalists into the country - at least for the time being. Ray emailed me that this is an important time to be in Darfur, that we were lucky to get in and to keep our ears and eyes open since he and others will not be in country to report.
At the Boston airport, we were met by the WBZ-TV CBS 4 News crew - Liz Walker's station. We said long goodbyes and gave hugs to our families, before Liz, Gloria, and I boarded the plane. In London, we met up with Susan Romanski, Emergency Operations Manager for Mercy Corps. Susan is the Mercy Corps emergency expert who had originally set up the program in Darfur. She joins our delegation as our host and guide.
Susan has just come off nearly a month of intense work in Sri Lanka, where she arrived on December 27 to lead Mercy Corps' emergency tsunami relief effort there. Gloria, Liz and I are worried about her having to turn around and go almost immediately to Darfur with us. But to Susan, this feels like a break - a chance to see the fruits of her earlier efforts in Sudan while having no operational responsibility. She and I will both be there to evaluate programs and listen to their beneficiaries to understand what they are now facing and what they need.
Once we arrive at Heathrow airport early Saturday morning, we go to an airport café and sit down for a cup of coffee and breakfast. We're excited about the journey ahead and excited to be together. We start talking and don't stop for seven full hours, sitting all the while in the same café.
At noon, we decide to move from one table to another to mark the transition from breakfast to lunch. We listen to the Berklee songs and become inspired. That launches us into a discussion of our commitment to try to really get something done - to make a difference somehow. We talk about what we want to accomplish in the refugee camps and how we want to spend our time there. We take out a pad of paper and start brainstorming what we want to try to do when we get back to the States to spread the word about what is happening to women and children in Darfur.
As the day goes on, our conversation turns from the political and humanitarian to the personal. The four of us are going to spend an intense 12 days together, and we want to get to know each other better. In turn, we open our hearts and recount our life stories, our trials and joys and where we are now in our lives.
This is the beauty of women together - getting personal and sharing what is important to each of us.
Over the last five years, more than 89% of resources allocated directly to programs.