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My final week in the Sudan flew by. I conducted another three-day training with the Community Development Association, a Darfur-based organization that is well-networked into the Darfurian community in Khartoum. Several Darfurian activists and Members of Parliament attended the training. All in all it was quite a successful training. In addition, I was fitting in last meetings, finishing all of my work at Salmmah, and saying goodbye to friends. I left with a list of several remaining topics to be researched, a handful of meetings I didn’t have time to schedule, and feeling like an additional two weeks would have enabled me to accomplish everything. But in reality, whenever I left the Sudan, be it earlier this week or next month, I would have felt that an additional two weeks would have been a sufficient amount of time to complete everything. I think this is all a part of the process of leaving a place as rich and complex as the Sudan.

I arrived back in the States earlier this week following a long, eventful 33 hour trip home. The young woman sitting next to me on the flight from Amsterdam to Detroit was a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda who was being sent home for medical treatment for an unidentified stomach bug. It was obvious between her frequent trips to the bathroom and the fact that she had not kept food down or in for several days that she was very ill. About two-thirds of the way through the flight, she began seizing, and we had to call a doctor for help. Three doctors offered assistance, and they inserted an IV immediately. Initially, they thought we would have to divert to Canada for her to get treatment, but fortunately, the doctors stabilized her and the flight landed as scheduled. The last time I saw her, an emergency team was wheeling her away from the gate to a Detroit hospital. Hopefully they were able to get her the treatment she needed.

I’ve begun to reflect more upon my summer experience, listing my “highlights” and “lowlights”, as we used to say on backpacking trips. I firmly believe that much of what one takes away from experiences such as these isn’t fully realized for some time, so what follows is a preliminary list.

This summer was incredibly fulfilling for me personally. It reaffirmed my love for Africa and my interest in doing further research and work there. It also reminded me of how much I enjoy instructing, designing a curriculum, and doing research. Additionally, it felt great to be back in the field and challenging myself culturally, physically, and intellectually after a very draining and difficult experience with evasive abdominal surgery in the spring. My “lowlights” included being ill several times and finding myself frustrated beyond words and lacking any patience at times with “the Sudanese way” of doing things.

Sudan is a challenging place. I used to think that Haiti was the most challenging place I had ever visited due to the lack of infrastructure, economic and national security, and severe poverty, that when combined, prevent any sustainable economic development. However, the ongoing conflicts, government manipulation and corruption, and poverty of the Sudan make this country without a doubt the most challenging country I’ve ever visited and tried to understand.

The GoS has mastered the art of creating civil conflict in order to avoid investing in and sharing resources with any part of the country outside of Khartoum. They arm militias and tribes to fight against each other in every region of the country. Our eyes and ears are currently attuned to Darfur, however, the Janjaweed and are only one of hundreds of examples of how the Sudanese government has manipulated and fueled conflict within its own borders.

My time in Sudan made me very critical of the many U.S. based advocacy organizations with tunnel vision on Darfur. Darfur is only one piece of a much larger pie, and without ensuring the complete implementation of the CPA, peace will never be sustained in Sudan or the entire region. U.S. foreign policy never addresses the south or the east, as if once a peace agreement is signed, the job is done. Did you know that there was a conflict in East Sudan, for which the East Sudan Peace Agreement was signed in October 2006? Or that the Eastern agreement has barely been implemented? Or that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 is dangerously close to falling apart? I welcome one of our umpteen Presidential candidates to articulate how they plan to pursue a peace agenda in Darfur which includes a plan for maintaining and implementing the fragile peace that exists in the rest of the country.

One thing is very clear to me: Sudan’s greatest asset is its people. I have never worked with more generous, open, and resilient people in my life. Friends and colleagues in the north and in the south welcomed me with open arms, women and men whom I interviewed were very candid and trusting in their responses, and I found people in general to be extremely helpful. These people and this set of qualities represents the majority in the Sudan, which is why I did not leave the country feeling completely overwhelmed by the enormity of its problems. I am confident that one day, a truly comprehensive, sustainable peace will be found in this country. It’s a matter of time and timing.