Nathaniel Parker's Chad diary: day four
Concern blog Wednesday, 1 August 2007
Ethiopia: staring into the abyss - 25 Aug 2008
Overseas director discusses Horn of Africa food crisis - 8 Aug 2008
Ethiopia: "our worst year yet" - 5 Aug 2008
Resorting to desperate measures - 1 Aug 2008
Starvation darkens every door of stricken community - 31 Jul 2008
View All Posts
Actor Nathaniel Parker, together with documentary maker Paul Welsh, recently visited Chad with Concern Worldwide. Having helped to front the Disaster Emergencies Committee’s Darfur and Chad Crisis Appeal, Nathaniel went to Chad to see the conditions there for himself. Over the coming week, Nathaniel will be a guest contributor to the editor’s blog. His diary, opinions and experiences will provide a valuable glimpse into what life is like for many thousands of displaced people in Chad.
Diary entry: day four
This is where it all begins. I woke at 4am, and lay there in the heat listening to my iPod till six when I had to get up. A quick breakfast of tea with honey and a banana butty went down a treat. At the very small airport we received the first of many rubber stamps that would be coming our way that day. There isn’t a desk or check-in here just a guy shouting out the names on the manifold. I was advised to wear full-length trousers despite the heat to show respect for the local culture.
I did my first piece to camera on the plane. I had rehearsed the words over and over in my head, and had got quite nervous, but as it turned out I needn’t have bothered. I just had to look out of the window in our familiar DeHavilland. We were met by Jo Mason, who is one of the Concern staff helping to develop the plan for the programme and was to act as another “fixer” for us but this time of the more general variety.
A quick visit to the Concern house and we went out into the field, at last.
It proves to be everything I expected, but without the overt pain and suffering. How come this is one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world? It doesn’t look so bad to the naked eye. However, I needn’t have doubted it for a moment. I was about to see the pain and suffering that is silently raging here on an individual level, but relevant to all.
I was introduced to Hadija. She has seven children. The eldest is 14 and the youngest, an adorable six-week-old boy, Salime, was with us all day either on Hadija’s back, sleeping, or feeding. I can’t pretend to be Hadija’s friend, but over the next few hours we got to know each other well through our interpreter Gido.
To read about Hadija’s life in the camp in full please click here
As we left her late on in the day to do her cooking, we went to look round the rest of the site, and examined the need for plastic sheets. How can they cost £25? Well, they are strong, as they need to be, and they have to get here. This is not easy. We began to discover the need for these sheets ourselves as the wind suddenly picked up and the sky darkened. It approached with a silent ferocity and then a roar. A sand storm was upon us. I had never witnessed one before and behaved a bit like a wimp, if truth be known. I thought it was going to last all night. There seemed to be no light at the end of the tunnel, but in fact it lasted only about half an hour. We went back to Hadija’s house. She has only flimsy sheet to protect her straw roof. The sand easily penetrated it and came through the walls.
That night was spent at the compound of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which sounds quite grand, but was about as crude as can be. Our room was exactly what I would imagine a prison to look like from the inside: two very basic beds in a room, and no air-con with huge great big spiders. I woke at 2am too damn hot to sleep. I listened to music again and looked at pictures of my family, thinking how incredible my life is. I said I wouldn’t write this kind of sentimental comparison, but you have to say we are blessed in our country. I think the spirit I witnessed in Hadija is a reflection of the kind of spirit that must have governed our country nearly 70 years ago during the war. Put your head down and get on with it. Don’t grumble, it doesn’t make things any better; find the best way to get your kids through this, and at all costs, keep your dignity. These people are just like us.
Click here to donate to Concern’s Darfur and Chad Appeal
