As my plane was about to touchdown in Al-Fashir, North Darfur, I had many scenarios playing in my mind, but none of them involved me evading a bullet.
It was nearly 2 P.M. From the sky, all I could see were mountains & villages; miles apart from each other. I wasn’t able to tell if there were any inhabitants left there, but the only thing that was going through my mind at the time was which one had Angelina Jolie visited. I asked the attendant if they have a city guide to see who's visiting while I'm there, you know like one of those people we see on E! TV, not people with big guns, but she ignored me and kept smiling at the rest of the passengers. I guess there's no special treatment in the business class on that flight (I’m not trying to show off, it was only 100 SDG more expensive than coach, with today’s exchange rate that’s $30)
I didn't expect Al-Fashir international airport to be that shabby; the runway was 6 feet long, the captain had to pull the brakes in mid-air. It was basically a hut in a shape of a control tower, a leaning one; there was a commercial planes yard, which had only one plane, a military yard, which had Mikyon MiGs in abundance, and......let's just say it reminded me of "Apocalypse Now", and on one side was the UN's territory, which made me confuse the airport for their HQ, their choppers and planes almost numerically exceeded those of the military.
Thankfully the Janjaweed weren’t waiting to ambush us as we were preparing to leave the plane, so I thanked the attendant for letting me hide behind her, and climbed down the airstairs. What really surprised me was the weather; it was almost 50 degrees cooler than Khartoum and windier.
Although the roads were confined, they were well paved, with dips and climbs just like the roads you see in car commercials. The whole city, which covers an area of 114,000 sq. miles, had only two traffic lights.
Our residence was in the local market area, I was astonished to see the masses at the market, so full of life, people purchasing goods, waiting in queues to enter a bank, or even just sitting under a tree reading newspapers and discussing last night’s game. The scene was similar to what one usually sees in Omdurman’s market; which was surprising given what I normally read on the news about Darfur, they surely missed this part.
Post the 2003 conflict, Al-Fashir has seen a significant augmentation in its economy. With the newly deployed UN staff and aid workers, many have seen business opportunities that they could benefit from, some restaurants added new items to their menu, some just opened new chains of pizza restaurants to make these aliens feel at home. I tried one; definitely won’t make them feel like home, but will bring them closer. Also the classy restaurant/coffee shop/hotel “Crimson Lights” was established. Located near the airport, it became the number one hangout venue for the foreign workers after a hectic day at work. As new buildings started to appear, old ones were renovated, raising rent prices almost to the triple, and the closer to the market the higher the rent. All those new organizations also provided jobs for the locals, mainly as drivers and translators. With that, telecommunication devices became widely used, telecommunication companies built new cell sites and opened a new line for the distribution of their phone cards. This resulted in the opening of shops and kiosks focused on phone cards, cell phones, accessories, and maintenance. Hookah is also quite popular there, usually provided by the tea lady, which is also the only place you can find open after midnight.
This sudden growth even led to a Boiler Room incident (couldn’t find a better economical term) that I will be discussing with more detail on the next post.
This post makes Al-Fashir sound like a vacation spot, it’s not really. Let’s not forget the fact that it was one of the first places to be attacked in the beginning of the conflict in 2003, known as “Al-Fashir Raid”. I never had the chance to leave Al-Fashir, and look around Darfur, but there was a hint of unrest. All the displaced from the nearby villages, who suffered the belligerent atrocities, are panhandling in the local market and sleeping on the streets; most were women and children. The villages included: Saraf Omra, Altowaisha, Maleet, Alkooma, Alteena, Almalha, Kutum, Kabkabya, Umm Kaddada, Tawila and many more, which are only less than 125 miles from Al-Fashir, where hundreds of thousands innocent souls paid the price of a dirty war of power and dominance. You can still see the UN and armed forces patrolling the area, but that just made the situation worse.
It was nearly 2 P.M. From the sky, all I could see were mountains & villages; miles apart from each other. I wasn’t able to tell if there were any inhabitants left there, but the only thing that was going through my mind at the time was which one had Angelina Jolie visited. I asked the attendant if they have a city guide to see who's visiting while I'm there, you know like one of those people we see on E! TV, not people with big guns, but she ignored me and kept smiling at the rest of the passengers. I guess there's no special treatment in the business class on that flight (I’m not trying to show off, it was only 100 SDG more expensive than coach, with today’s exchange rate that’s $30)
I didn't expect Al-Fashir international airport to be that shabby; the runway was 6 feet long, the captain had to pull the brakes in mid-air. It was basically a hut in a shape of a control tower, a leaning one; there was a commercial planes yard, which had only one plane, a military yard, which had Mikyon MiGs in abundance, and......let's just say it reminded me of "Apocalypse Now", and on one side was the UN's territory, which made me confuse the airport for their HQ, their choppers and planes almost numerically exceeded those of the military.
Thankfully the Janjaweed weren’t waiting to ambush us as we were preparing to leave the plane, so I thanked the attendant for letting me hide behind her, and climbed down the airstairs. What really surprised me was the weather; it was almost 50 degrees cooler than Khartoum and windier.
Although the roads were confined, they were well paved, with dips and climbs just like the roads you see in car commercials. The whole city, which covers an area of 114,000 sq. miles, had only two traffic lights.
Our residence was in the local market area, I was astonished to see the masses at the market, so full of life, people purchasing goods, waiting in queues to enter a bank, or even just sitting under a tree reading newspapers and discussing last night’s game. The scene was similar to what one usually sees in Omdurman’s market; which was surprising given what I normally read on the news about Darfur, they surely missed this part.
Post the 2003 conflict, Al-Fashir has seen a significant augmentation in its economy. With the newly deployed UN staff and aid workers, many have seen business opportunities that they could benefit from, some restaurants added new items to their menu, some just opened new chains of pizza restaurants to make these aliens feel at home. I tried one; definitely won’t make them feel like home, but will bring them closer. Also the classy restaurant/coffee shop/hotel “Crimson Lights” was established. Located near the airport, it became the number one hangout venue for the foreign workers after a hectic day at work. As new buildings started to appear, old ones were renovated, raising rent prices almost to the triple, and the closer to the market the higher the rent. All those new organizations also provided jobs for the locals, mainly as drivers and translators. With that, telecommunication devices became widely used, telecommunication companies built new cell sites and opened a new line for the distribution of their phone cards. This resulted in the opening of shops and kiosks focused on phone cards, cell phones, accessories, and maintenance. Hookah is also quite popular there, usually provided by the tea lady, which is also the only place you can find open after midnight.
This sudden growth even led to a Boiler Room incident (couldn’t find a better economical term) that I will be discussing with more detail on the next post.
This post makes Al-Fashir sound like a vacation spot, it’s not really. Let’s not forget the fact that it was one of the first places to be attacked in the beginning of the conflict in 2003, known as “Al-Fashir Raid”. I never had the chance to leave Al-Fashir, and look around Darfur, but there was a hint of unrest. All the displaced from the nearby villages, who suffered the belligerent atrocities, are panhandling in the local market and sleeping on the streets; most were women and children. The villages included: Saraf Omra, Altowaisha, Maleet, Alkooma, Alteena, Almalha, Kutum, Kabkabya, Umm Kaddada, Tawila and many more, which are only less than 125 miles from Al-Fashir, where hundreds of thousands innocent souls paid the price of a dirty war of power and dominance. You can still see the UN and armed forces patrolling the area, but that just made the situation worse.
