Off to Kenya

alright, first things first... for the next two weeks please cc any emails you send me to my hotmail account. i'm supposed to leave tomorrow morning for my holiday in kenya and i won't have access to this account until the 28th. i say "supposed" to leave because it just happens to be up in the air at the moment. the helicopter that takes us from here to el geneina is on the fritz and gustavo, who has been trying to get out of habillah since monday morning, is still here. they have a policy of letting the people who have been waiting the longest get on first. i have already told carmenza to have a syringe full of diazepam with her at the airstrip tomorrow because if they don't let me on the helicopter i am going to have an actual nervous breakdown. if crying doesn't get me on, and duct-taping myself to the helicopter doesn't work, i'm buying a camel and hoofing it to el geneina. i'm going on holidays and NOTHING is going to stop me. i can't even express to you how much i need this holiday. monday morning, as we were seeing gustavo off at the airstrip, i fell to my knees in front of my entire team and started vomiting yellow stomach acid all over the sand. not sick. just stress. it was fab. the helicopter is taking off, everyone else has driven away, the sand is swirling all around us, they didn't let gustavo on, and there i am heaving in the sand with a dozen comforting hands on my back.
then there's the fact that my hair has started falling out (carmenza's too). and we aren't sleeping at night. and apparently i've become "quiet", which is worrysome to some, welcome to others :) i feel like i'm on the verge of tears almost every moment that i'm awake, so i try to sleep as much as i can. i was lying on the mat outside of the whc today and joyce felt my forehead to see if i was sick. she says "sudan isn't good for Amy". aicha replies "sudan isn't good for anyone".
we've heard that the local paramilitary have been getting visitors at night. those visitors tell them that the "hawagas" are coming to murder their children and steal their camels. they don't clarify the difference between u.n. troops and any other white people, they just tell them white people are coming. i find it interesting (and mildly amusing simply because it's so not true) that they are trying to get them riled up to fight the peacekeepers by scaring them with tales that have people doing back to them what they have spent the last 3 years doing to others.
and so we sit here, waiting for this all to explode. not far from here, the au is finding mass graves of the people killed in the government attacks. and the world still drags their feet.