It was around 3 p.m. on one of those rare cloudy Saturdays in 2023, just before the conflict between  the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).  broke out in North Darfur, Sudan. Our guesthouse was right opposite a busy road where many locals claimed that if you go further down that road, you’ll reach Chad. But whatever the case was, that day I was thinking about walking up to the local bakery to get some flatbread. If you go to that bakery around 3 p.m., you can get steaming hot flatbread, perfect for stuffing with Ta’mia, the delicious Sudanese falafel.

So, I was walking across the sandy area at the backside of our guesthouse, moving opposite that long road. Our guesthouse was a relatively big two-story building painted in a dark pink color. It reminded me of a Sri Lankan Hindu temple that I once visited in Munneshvaram, which is dedicated to Lord Shiva. Okay, let me get back to the story…

I estimated that it would take me 10 to 15 minutes to reach the bakery, as I walked really slowly and carefully. And even though Al-Fashir is a relatively busy city, Saturdays at that time in that area are very quiet… well, if you’re lucky, you might spot some random goats strolling in the area and munching on some leftover garbage. Or then again, if you’re really, really lucky, you might see three or four kids playing football with their neighbors.

That day I was not lucky enough to see any of them.

Suddenly, I spotted a man in a crisp white jellabiya about 100 meters away from me. He was closer to the main road and started walking quickly toward me. He literally screamed, “Hear that… hear that…” Then I heard a single round of gunfire, which was indeed from an AK-47. Even though I couldn’t figure out how far or from which direction it came, I was sure it wasn’t nearby.

The man in the jellabiya came to me, held my hand, and gently pulled me, saying, “Come… come.” We started walking quickly through the sandy area to avoid the open space, and he guided me to the gate of the UNICEF compound, which is a well-established guesthouse with a strong perimeter wall. There were usually security guards at the gate, but that day, nobody was there. We stood leaning against the wall and smiled at each other.

I said to him, “Kayf… tamām?” in my poor Arabic. He said, “Shooting… ya..?” I replied, “I heard…” We both knew that random gunfire is somehow normalized in that context, but we also knew that the sound of a gun does not bring good news. I was trying to convince myself it might be a warning shot or something not related to an attack.

The man still held my hand. In Sudan, it’s normal for two men to hold hands. And that wasn’t unusual to me because back in Sri Lanka, we held hands with our male friends. The man was about 50 to 60 years old. His dark, muscular face was decorated with big white eyes. He asked, “You going… cut… hair?” I used to go to a small barbershop beside the bakery to get a haircut— a tiny shop with a big colorful banner that said “Saloon.” I replied, “No…Bakery…” and he said, “Ahhh…” and smiled.

We spent an awkward couple of silent minutes. Then we both realized that the danger was over. Suddenly, he said, “Bye,” and left. I walked back to the guesthouse instead of going to the bakery.

I went to the guesthouse kitchen, made a cup of tea, and tried to make sense of what had just happened, I played it over in my mind in a slightly hilarious way: if John Paul Lederach had faced that incident, how would he define it? Would it be part of the webs of relationships, or the moral fabric of Sudanese community life? Or perhaps situational solidarity?

I kept thinking…maybe this was part of everything. But what I can say for sure is that the man in the jellabiya knew me, and maybe that’s why he asked if I was going to the barbershop.

The local population is much more aware of us than we are of them, isn’t it? They know where we are going, they know what we are doing as peacebuilders and humanitarian workers. This can be helpful for peacebuilding practitioners, but in a crisis situation, such a drastically imbalanced relationship may not be good. As community protection workers and humanitarian staff, we often fall into the illusion that we understand the community better than we actually do. We can easily get trapped in that illusion, one side assumptions. I believe there is a significant imbalance or gap between outside humanitarian workers and the host community, which we must not overlook. Don’t you think so?

I’ll keep writing about that gap….

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