Rachel Hermes is the CRS education program manager in northern Sudan. She filed this story from Darfur.

A student helps to plant the trees in Al Zaharan school in El Geneina. He is inside of the protective structure built to protect the trees. Photo by Rachel Hermes/CRS

CRS uses hired vehicles and drivers in West Darfur. But while the drivers are not CRS employees, most of them become attached to the staff and loyal to the program work.

The education program driver, Haroun*, is the young father of a little boy and a brand new baby. He drives a well-used double-cab pick-up truck: ideal for porting not only education staff, but also moveable chalkboards, bags of cement, zinc sheets and all other materials needed for the support we provide to schools in West Darfur which ranges from supporting training of teachers and parents, to construction of school classrooms.

Haroun delivers the cement to school construction sites within the capital city of West Darfur, where CRS is based He also delivers to surrounding villages and has become quite an expert on monitoring the quality of the blocks made of compressed soil, sand and cement and used in classroom construction. Compressed blocks reduce consumption of firewood used in baked bricks and thus protect the scarce wood resources in the arid region of West Darfur.
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Come rain or shine—and by donkey or horse—CRS’ Darfur staff get the job done. Photo by Rasheeda Ahmed Hassan/CRS

Rachel Hermes, Education Program Manager in West Darfur, sends in a field story. She is based in El Geneina, Darfur.

CRS works in a number of project sites in the northern corridor of West Darfur. To get to these remote villages, all humanitarian aid workers travel by U.N. helicopter. Logistical plans are made by radio before arrival, but things don’t always go as planned.
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Neal Deles, area coordinator for CRS’ new activities in the southern corridor of West Darfur, shares a story from the field.

Many times I leave the office exhausted, dragging myself down the three blocks to the World Food Program compound where I’m currently staying until our guesthouse is finished. Each time I inevitably perk up when I hear children’s excited shouts of “khawaji” (foreigner) or “Sini” (Chinese).

It seems like one of the first words toddlers learn in Darfur is “khawaji,” as they are the ones who repeatedly shout this phrase at me over and over almost every time I pass by. Sometimes I think I actually provide some form of entertainment for them (other times, I hope that the novelty of my presence is dissipating so they see me as part of their community).
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Neal Deles, area coordinator for CRS’ new activities in the southern corridor of West Darfur, shares a story from the field.

In September this year, we marked five years of Catholic Relief Services’ presence in Darfur. We have come a long way from the days when staff had to sleep under the stars when we first started food distributions in the northern corridor of West Darfur.

It is comforting to note that 38 of the 43 Sudanese staff who first began working with CRS in Darfur back in 2004 are still with us five years later. During the visit of Sean Callahan, CRS’ executive vice president for overseas operations, we took time out to honor these 38 Sudanese staff members who continue to serve those in need.
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Rachel Hermes, CRS Sudan’s education program manager for West Darfur, shares a story from the field.

Girls in West Darfur learn how to play basketball in a walled compound of a women’s university in El Geneina. Photo by Rachel Hermes/CRS

I arrive with two basketballs a little after 8:30 in the morning. As I cross the long lawn in the boarding compound of a women’s university in the capital of West Darfur, I see streams of color already zipping up and down the basketball court. I’m late, but the girls have begun their warm-up running routine.

The streams of color are the high school girls’ head scarves; most keep them tied on even while playing sports. They also wear long pants. In fact, the most visible body part on the basketball court is the girls’ bare feet. Fortunately, it’s a relatively smooth surface as the court was constructed recently.

The court is an ideal place for females to play sports; it’s a spacious compound with walls well over 10 feet high. The sights and sounds of the town might as well be miles away, which is perfect. Females—even young girls—are rarely, if ever, seen playing sports in a public space.
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The CRS family deeply mourns the loss of our dear friend and colleague Mark Snyder, who led our Sudan program for the last four years. His steady hand guided staff and partners alike through a critical and tumultuous period in Sudan, enabling CRS to provide services to hundreds of thousands of Sudanese in Darfur, the Khartoum area and throughout the south.

Below, Neal Deles, area coordinator for CRS’ new activities in the Southern Corridor of West Darfur, shares a story from Darfur.

During the last two months, Catholic Relief Services has started to work in the Southern Corridor of West Darfur while continuing our activities in El Geneina and the Northern Corridor. Photo by Debbie DeVoe/CRS

Exhausted after helping to repack sugar into 55-pound bags for distribution, I sat down on a sandbag in the shade of the “rubbhall,” a large tent structure we use to store food. Our food team had been working all day to provide 5,000 people with their monthly food rations. Now I was beat.

A voice called out: “Thank you for giving us food.” I looked over and saw a young man sitting on the ground nearby, wearing a shirt with tattered sleeves and pants much too short for him. Surprised to be hearing English instead of Arabic, I managed to mutter “Welcome!” Then the teenager asked me where I was from. I soon learned that his name was Mohammed, he was 15 years old and his mother had collected their food ration earlier that afternoon.
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It was an honor to have Rasheeda Ahmed share Sudanese customs with us. Photo by Debbie DeVoe/CRS

Due to some canceled flights, I ended up arriving in Darfur on a Thursday. This meant I would be spending the next two days not doing too much, as the weekend in Sudan falls on Friday and Saturday. I wasn’t too thrilled, especially with temperatures regularly soaring over 100 degrees.

Thankfully, a new American staff member, Rachel Hermes, arranged for me to visit a school in a camp for displaced students on Saturday. Two other Sudanese staff members, Rasheeda Ahmed and Aziza Ahmed, agreed to join us on their day off. And after our meeting, Rasheeda invited us back to her home.

Eight and a half months pregnant and recently married, Rasheeda wanted to show us the traditional products Sudanese women prepare for marriage and birth. First she brought out two bottles of perfume, one a lemony yellow, the other a deep brown. Even though they are really only for married women, Rachel and I made good use of them, following instructions to splash the oils generously under our armpits.
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The metal hoe, ax and rake Hawa Bara selected at the tool fair in Habila will let her grow some crops to supplement her emergency food rations. Photo by Debbie DeVoe/CRS

In addition to working with the World Food Program to distribute emergency rations, CRS is bringing its seed and tool fairs to communities in Habila and Mukjar in the southern part of West Darfur. This work furthers the seed and tool distributions previously supported by other agencies that were recently expelled, but with a twist: Farmers can now select tools and seeds of their choice, brought in by local traders.

“This is exactly the time for planting,” shares a local sheik in Habila town, which received its first rain two days before the distribution. The sheiks, who serve as community leaders, are hoping that residents will reap larger harvests by planting proven local seeds instead of seeds coming from outside that often fail to produce well in Darfur.

One farmer, Hawa Bara, picked out a rake, hoe and ax at a tool fair held this week and plans to select millet, peanut, sesame and okra seeds at the upcoming seed fair.
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I’m not the only one trying to weave a way through the crowded food distribution site in Habila town. Photo by Debbie DeVoe/CRS

As I dart away from a donkey’s hoofs, I almost catch my hip on another cart jockeying for position. I slip to the side to make way for a man carrying a 100-pound bag of sorghum, the most common local grain. Then I realize I’m just getting in the way. These families are picking up their monthly food distributions, and they don’t need a casual observer blocking transport of their heavy loads.

During the last two months, Catholic Relief Services has started to work in the Southern Corridor of West Darfur while continuing our activities in El Geneina and the Northern Corridor. Our aim is to help fill gaps around Habila and Mukjar resulting from the recent expulsion of aid agencies from Sudan. Our primary activities are the ones we excel at in the north: emergency food distributions, distributions of non-food items, seed and tool fairs, and sanitation and hygiene initiatives.
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The impact of this water access is enormous, particularly for displaced women and children who used to spend hours each day waiting in line to collect water for drinking, cooking and washing. Photo by CRS staff

It’s always hard to return to Darfur. You wish that there will finally be peace and that families will have been able to go home.

But last week I returned to a camp I had visited a year before, located right in the center of El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state where CRS operates. At that time, 850 families had just begun moving out of an extremely crowded school they were living in where cooking fires were causing regular scares and injuries. CRS was helping these families build temporary shelters using poles and mats made by community members.

Now the families live in line after line of grass-thatch huts, with each separated by a grass-thatch wall and each with a simple pit latrine. The garbage that used to swirl among the shelters has been cleaned up, with CRS training camp residents to dispose of garbage in pits dug every few yards. Residents have also been trained in clean water storage, healthy food preparation, and sanitary use of latrines.
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