Goodbyes in Kadugli

Yesterday, few friends and myself came around to say goodbye (again) to a friend who's leaving back home for Tehran. He spent about 3 months here. Perhaps a short time but it was still sad to see a friend leaving.

Tonight, we had dinner and said goodbye to another friend, who is returning to Mazar Al-Sharif after more than 4 years out here in Kadugli. It wasn't easy. He was my first friend out here and over the time I've been here, has been nothing less but exceptionally kind and warm. Certainly it made the goodbye a sad occasion not just for me but the many others around us as well.

Anyone working in the development world can attest to the fact that we all say goodbye to people we care about far too many times. No matter where and when, it's always hard. Especially when you live out in a small community with a handful of souls you count as dear friends. You can say it's part and parcel of the nature of what we do and where we are. Perhaps. But as I've written before, I have definitely developed a strong distaste for goodbyes. I don't know if one needs to make a ceremony of it. What I know is that goodbyes are never simple and never happy no matter what the future presumes to hold.

We say goodbye, wish each other luck and promised to stay in touch and many of us know that in the development industry, somehow, we may end up finding each other again. It's still a small world after all. But my point is, if we reflect on every goodbye we say, we know a part of our heart goes to the other. Those friends that you spent days at meetings with and nights laughing and merry making - they take a part of you away.

This time around, while it is sad, I feel a tinge of my heart hardening. I know I ought not to make a human tragedy about my friends leaving. They are all either leaving to be with their families or found something better. And in the next few weeks, more people will go, leaving me to wonder what my life will look like in the next few months or even weeks. I dread the quietness, the change and above all, the ominous loneliness that comes along with living in a small community as this. Each one of us here feels like a part of a family, a dysfunctional one no matter but a part of something close and we bonded in the time we are here. I always say it's a bunch of misfits put together. I learnt to care and look after my friends and they do the same for me. I would be rotten if I say I didn't. They've made my life here ever more pleasant and comfortable when I first stepped off the UN flight, all new and bright-eyed.

Which brings me to the fact that no matter how fulfilling this industry or job is, it'll never be the same without the very souls around it. The ones who helped you, who listened to your whining and complaints, and your heartbreaking stories. So many things we've shared - family photos, cooking dinner, hiking out in the mountains, roaming about town looking for what-nots and so on. Professionally and socially.

I envy people whose lives are normal in many parts of the world - finish work, meet friend, go to the cinemas and so forth. Lives I sometimes now think is foreign to me but secretly yearn. People like to say that our lives as development workers are exciting, seeing different things and doing our small part for humanity. Many people get into this for very different reasons. For me, after almost 4.5 years away from normality of what I used to have is perhaps taking its toll. Of course others in my industry might feel otherwise. I'm only speaking of my own experiences.

If this was anywhere else in a developed place, I might be less saddened tonight but I'm in Kadugli, almost in the middle of nowhere and every other day and week, someone is going out for good and I'll probably never see their faces again or for a very long time. That makes all the difference of why being out here is sometimes heart wrenching. Here, these friends of mine gave me a life and showed me what it means to truly care about the other. If I've learnt nothing else out here, that much I have.