Night Running

I'm starting to freak out a little bit and I'll tell you why: I noticed this morning that I'm developing a slight 'arm rash' in the folds of my elbows. This might not worry you, but after reading what follows you will discover why it worries me.

A little over five years ago I arrived in Accra, Ghana, for my first international volunteering experience. I was with my friend Andrew (the local population called him "Andrews" because this name appeared in the locally published Christian Bible). The two of us would go on to Kumasi after our first week in Accra, but for the first week we were based in Accra with six other volunteers and one organization representative for orientation and training.

Ghana is one of many countries where malaria is present and prophylaxis is required. At one point, Andrews actually purchased a digital thermometer so he and I could monitor our temperatures periodically throughout the day to discern the slightest elevation as indication of fever and the onset of malaria (there were always slight changes but we were comfortable with the range within which the changes took place). This purchase was not made until some weeks after that first week in Accra, after we had relocated to Kumasi (and had, by that time, heard many of our new acquaintances had succumbed to malaria).

While still in Accra, we dubbed one of the other volunteers 'arm rash' because she developed rashes in the folds of her elbows and later the folds of her knees; anywhere skin folded I believe (though my memory is not as sharp now that it is five years later). It turned out this girl did not start taking her malaria prophylaxis until the day she arrived in Ghana, rather than taking it in advance of arrival (as is prescribed). She developed malaria within a week. On this present trip, I did not start taking my malaria prophylaxis until two days before arriving in Djibouti (36 hours, really), rather than a week prior (as is prescribed). I can't recall if the arm rash is a sign of the onset of malaria or not.

So I'm freaking out a little bit.

Things are progressing a little faster in the camp than I'd anticipated. My supervisor had explained to me that, before I would be able to start interviewing refugees from the Somali sections, I would need to sit through a series of repetitive introductions with leaders and elders. This hasn't been the case at all. First thing yesterday morning a meeting with the Somali Youth Committee was arranged for me and I sat with an audience of about 100 youth, explaining to them who I am, what I'm doing here, and my interest in learning about their culture and their ways of 'solving problems' in the camp. Everyone wanted to be the first one to tell me everything there is to know about their culture and their ways of 'solving problems' in the camp. I actually had to end the meeting after an hour and explain that I would be coming back many times and would hopefully be able to meet with everyone individually or in small groups.

Shortly thereafter I was taken to a meeting location within the office compound inside the camp where I met with nearly all of the Somali section leaders - even representatives from the Ethiopian executive committee arrived shortly after we began, presumably not wanting to be left out. Again, I explained who I was, what I was doing, and my desire to learn all about their culture and their methods for 'solving problems' within the camp. After I said my piece, each leader took a turn thanking me for attending at the camp, telling me a little bit about dispute resolution systems (incredibly well-organized, and quite different from what I had been told from outside sources), and providing real life examples of situations that had arisen in the camp.

One situation that has struck a chord with me is one which arose several years ago, relating to the Danish cartoonist who expressed himself by drawing and publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. At the time of it's publication I can recall there being a significant public backlash - one experienced all over the world in relation to this publication, with the cartoonist himself receiving a number of death threats (for the life of me I can't recall what eventually happened to him).

In the Ali-Addeh camp, in response to the cartoon, I was told that a number of Somali boys destroyed the Ethiopian church. This problem has since been resolved, and my sense in the meeting room yesterday (among both Somali and Ethiopian section leaders), was that it was resolved amicably; however, I'm hoping to gather more information relating to this incident as it should shed a great deal of light on the level of satisfaction and confidence the refugees have in the dispute resolution systems currently in place.

At the end of the day, after returning from the refugee camp to the hotel in Ali-Sabieh, I had an interesting conversation on the terrace with one of my colleagues who is here on a resettlement mission from Nairobi. I'd asked her whether she'd encountered any instances of 'witchcraft' in the Ali-Addeh camp or other camps to which she'd visited in the past. Indeed, she had, and in the village in Kenya in which she grew up there were cases of both witches and 'night runners'. I'd never heard of 'night runners' before so she explained that they are people who run about the village at night - completely naked - knocking on doors and windows and 'creating a disturbance'. She also explained that they are not dangerous like witches, but they are treated like witches just the same.

We continued sharing stories until there was no sun left, about our travels and previous encounters with witches - mine from Ghana and hers from all over Africa - and wished each other to be free of encounters with 'night runners' before retiring to our rooms for the evening.