one saturday night, in dadaab, we stood in a puddle around stacked soda crates, a goat sizzling over coals beside us, when the three, buzzed-out speakers in the canteen started to play this song and the same dozen cast of characters that i share my hospital days and compound nights with drifted to the tent, and danced, grinning, mud between their bare toes.

soon, it was only me and one of the departing three for whom the party was held leaning on the red cubes of coca-cola, and we agreed that there was no club in new york city that was better than this one, none where you could dance so sincerely, freed completely from the fear that there might be another, better way to spend your time.

i returned yesterday, after two days of driving. as we drew closer, i saw green fade to brown, women’s faces framed behind bright beautiful scarves and soon, we were swerving on sloping sand, fishtailing in the dust. camels loped behind burnt trees, and between these, miles from each other, houses of rounded sticks. an impala stepped from the brush, sleek as glass. a young boy, six, waved an empty plastic bottle at us, and we stopped to give him all the full ones he could carry. they fell from underneath his arms as he tried to juggle more, and landed in the dust at his feet. he grinned, his tongue bright between missing front teeth.

i’m posting actively on the msf website, on mission again, this time in dagahaley, the world’s largest refugee camp.  hit me there if you’re interested. **** so little water.  it hasn’t rained here for two years.  we get ours from boreholes dug deep in the dirt, metres down where hidden lakes hover between layers of [...]