The previous Fletcher summer researchers at UNMIS unanimously recommended: make sure you go on a field trip. And they were right. There is a huge difference between headquarters and the field, and unless you experience both your peacekeeping experience is incomplete. Headquarters is a big bureaucratic machine, where strategy is set and decisions are made. Field offices are much smaller and work at a slower place. It is where the peace that peacekeepers are supposed to keep or the war they are trying to end are directly visible and where contact with stakeholders and beneficiaries is immediate.

Finally, two weeks short of the end of our term at UNMIS, Michelle and I managed to convince our host department to send us on a six-day field trip to Nyala in South Darfur.

Somewhat surprisingly, Nyala was nice. Much greener and a bit cooler than Khartoum, Nyala has a friendly small-town feel; the only thing that reminds you that there is a war going on in Darfur are the many offices of NGOs and UN agencies all around town. It definitely didn’t feel like the Wild West of Sudan. But of course, appearances can be deceiving. Incidents do happen and the people in and around Nyala are very much affected by the conflict. There is not as much violence as during the height of the conflict in 2003/4, but the Sudanese army, the Janjaweed, and rebel groups continue to fight and they continue to target civilians. In addition, rebels increasingly fight amongst themselves, and in an environment of general lawlessness, intertribal violence and banditry are thriving.

A lucky co-incidence was that Jan Eliasson, a former Swedish foreign minister and now the UN Special Envoy for Darfur, visited Nyala at the same time we were there. Together with Salim Ahmed Salim of the African Union, Eliasson is tasked to re-launch the peace process in Darfur. The seats at the negotiating table are reserved for the government and the rebel movements, but in order to explain to Darfurians their peace plan and to get support from them, the mediators are traveling around Darfur holding consultations with different stakeholders.

We accompanied Eliasson on his meeting with the sheiks of Kalma camp, the biggest and most politicized IDP camp in Darfur. Frankly speaking, I found it a bit awkward to drive through an IDP camp in a convoy with 15 SUVs and military escort, but the camp residents didn’t seem to mind. After all, it wasn’t the first time they had high-level guests. Condi Rice, Kofi Annan, and many other VIPs have visited Kalma camp before.

It was impressive how well the IDPs articulated their concerns and demands, and how eloquent Eliasson was in his response. He repeatedly urged the IDPs to speak with one voice and to push the rebel groups to unify. That this won’t be easy was made clear by an incident during the meeting: when one of the speakers pledged his loyalty to one of the rebel factions, supporters of another faction interrupted him and a loud shouting contest ensued. For a moment it looked like the meeting had to be aborted; however, after a few minutes everybody calmed down. The highlight of the meeting was when a 12-year old boy presented a drawing depicting the destruction of his home village; Eliasson promised to show the drawing to the parties during the first round of negotiations.

Other than that tagging behind Mister Eliasson, Michelle and I held meetings with different NGOs, UN agencies, and local stakeholders. Most interesting for me was a meeting with tribal leaders from the Executive Committee of the Native Administration in South Darfur. The conflict has eroded the authority of traditional tribal leaders, many of whom were involved in the conflict on the side of the government. This is one example of the profound changes Darfurian society is going through at present. The effects of the conflict and the intervention of international humanitarian actors are transforming leadership structures, people’s livelihood strategies and their values. It remains to be seen what will be left of these new structures post-conflict. In any case, the tribal leaders’ wish that everything will go back to how it used to be is very unlikely to materialize.

One word about the Darfur advocacy campaigns, which have gained such impressive momentum in the U.S: I wrote a long personal e-mail about my thoughts on the subject — let me know if you are interested, I will send it to you. In nutshell, I think it is hopeful and useful that so many people care about Darfur. But in some ways advocates like Eric Reeves and Nicholas Kristof are part of the problem. Their simplistic description of the conflict as “Arab” vs. “African” and their insistence on Western military intervention are flawed and contribute to protracting the conflict in Darfur. Prof. Mamdani articulates my concerns best. Otherwise, I find Alex de Waal and Julie Flint the most informed Darfur experts. Their book “A Short History of a Long War” is the most sophisticated account of the conflict. John Prendergast’s Enough Project manages best to reconcile differentiated analysis and assertive advocacy.

My time in Sudan is winding down fast. On Friday I will fly to Cairo to meet my brother Simon, and after a two-day interlude in Khartoum to wrap up and say goodbye to people, I will be on my way back to grand Medford. Back to Fletcher, yeah!!

Any views expressed here are mine only; they do not in any way reflect official United Nations positions and opinions.

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There are no two ways about it, I have road rage. It is of the teeth gnashing, wild gesticulating, screaming expletives sort. It grabs me suddenly and with such force that I have no choice but to succumb to the rather embarrassing aforementioned tendencies. Fortunately for the rest of the world, my rage really only has the capacity to harm me (well OK perhaps I might squish a few toes, but nothing much more serious). This is because I am raging from atop a ten-year-old red bicycle complete with mismatching pedals (one rusted off while I was riding the other day and had to be replaced), a basket in the front and a child’s seat at the rear. Adding to the ignominy, I am sporting a black helmet with a blue lightning pattern on it and generally have a large sweat patch on my back and my behind from the thick Beijing heat. My fury is directed at the multitude of Audis, Jeeps, Chevys, Hyundais, and VW cabs that go rolling on by with their tinted windows rolled up and their air-conditioning blasting, so that I cannot even get a good look at the faces that have so wronged me. But even if they had their windows rolled down and even if they could understand my crass English, they probably couldn’t hear me over the blare of their horns. But, unlike me, they are not raging. This honking is done not out of impatience or anger as it is in the States. The honk is neither a command nor a request, but rather an announcement, “I am coming.” And I, biker, am in the way. It matters not that there is a nice green light in the shape of a bicycle telling me that I can go, and a big red light telling them that they cannot. They are in cars, they have money, they have somewhere to be, and I am in the way.

It’s not that there is no law of the road here, but it is something more akin to that law of Thermodynamics about entropy. Things have resorted to their most fundamental state of disorder, but in this fundamental state, there is a kind of order. Those who have nicer or faster vehicles get to pass whomever wherever however and are allowed to do such things as drive the wrong way down a highway in the bike lane. Indeed, not a few cars have installed police-style horns and lights which they turn on at red lights and go right on through to emphasize this very point. The second rule is that anything can happen at anytime, so be prepared. Everyone knows, for example, that when you are driving straight down the road, you will suddenly have to maneuver to the left to allow incoming traffic to merge despite the clearly marked rang (let) sign saying that you have the right of way. But, fortunately, you don’t need to check your mirrors before you swerve into the next lane (albeit at only about 35 miles per hour), because the driver in that lane has been likewise prescient and has also moved over to afford you space, as will the bus to his left, and so on. Like a flock of birds meeting some mid-flight disturbance, the entire highway moves in unison and then recovers all for the sake of one individual who just couldn’t wait. Now what could be more egalitarian (or dare I say communist) that that?

We bikers really are no better. (Well we are better in the sense that you can fit many more of us on the road and we are not contributing to the horrendous air quality). Nevertheless, we do our share of selfish lane shifting. To be fair, we would like to stay in the broad bike lanes, but find that every few hundred meters or so, there is a cabbie parked askew in our lane with his door open and his legs sticking out, reading the morning paper and smoking a cigarette, the red tip of which just grazes my arm. If it’s not a cab then it’s a cement truck, or a three-wheeled cart filled with nine-foot long metal poles, or a bus, packed to the brim, trying to pick up just one more passenger. So we too do our share of swerving and don’t often have time to look before we do. And indeed, there are times when we bikers are much worse, because the law is on our side you see. If we do get hit we are always in the right, even if we were crossing across four lanes of traffic going the wrong way on the Fourth Ring Road. And this is perhaps the only reason why these cars bother slowing at all while they lay on their horns.

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It is 5:30 in the morning and I am on my way to class. It has rained last night, so my brakes aren’t working properly for the first few minutes. My pedals squeak with every push, my tires are threadbare, and my front wheel bends to the right thanks to a battered bearing. But the rain means that the sky is clear and the air feels fresh. I can, for the first time, make out the fragrant hills (xiang shan) off in the distance. I merge into the rest of the bike traffic, which is already heavy despite the early hour. There are few automobiles, however, so that the only sound is the squeaking and breathing of my fellow commuters and the occasional wush as we cruise through muddy puddles, legs lifted high to avoid it splattering our pants. The woman to my right is wearing a face shield to protect herself from the still weak sun. The woman in front of her sports a floral print shirt and wide-brimmed white sun hat. She bikes with a small dog in her basket. A group of migrant workers passes quickly on my left, their safety helmets in their baskets, cigarettes glowing cheerily. We come to a stop in unison at a red light and stare straight ahead, close but not touching, somewhere I hear oil popping in a wok and can smell the long thin deep fried doughnuts.

This is the way rush hour is meant to be I think, and I just smile when the honking starts.

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