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A Learned Man Searches for Relevance While Languishing in a Chadian Camp
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Ali soon learned that Sudanese security forces were after him and several colleagues as the government began targeting intellectuals. He quickly packed what was most essential to him: a trunk full of books.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]He and two teachers set out in a pickup truck, zigzagging across the region toward Chad. At the border, Ali hired a donkey to haul his trunk across, and he came on foot, carefully blending into the traffic of a market day.
He first registered as a refugee at Farchana camp, north of here. He came to this camp about two years ago, along with 17,000 others transferred from various camps that had grown too large.
The ramshackle tents and tarps that form the familiar image of refugee camps are not prevalent here.
People have built mud-walled, twig-roofed huts that are typical of village life, and many have small vegetable gardens and sorghum plots. Donkeys wander the sandy paths.
Inside Ali's hut, he has covered the mud walls with rose-patterned sheets. He has his trunk in there, a big bag of books, and a table scattered with bug spray, a toothbrush, a small bottle of cologne, a radio and two batteries.
"Thank God for batteries," Ali said, explaining that he tunes in to BBC twice a day.
He gets along pretty well when he's focused on the mission he's given himself here in the camp: to teach people about their legal rights and problems such as tribalism.
He has also learned what he describes as "many mysterious things" from neighbors who came from different regions in Darfur with different traditions and beliefs.
At the same time, Ali said, his old life and aspirations seem more and more distant.
He has had no news in years from his wife, three sisters, five brothers, mother or father. He does not know where they are. He wonders about his old friends, who may not realize why he has lost touch with them.
"I had a close friend from New York," Ali said brightly. "Maryann. She visited in India a few times."
Mostly, Ali passes the time reading and rereading. A month-old Nigerian newspaper recently found its way into the camp, and an instructional book on Swahili, which he is studying.
"Do you think when I finish I'll still be in Chad?" he asked. Then he laughed.
