The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur

You have to find a way to laugh a little bit each day despite everything, or your heart will simply run out of the joy that makes it go.

They are among the three hundred million Africans who earn less than a dollar a day, and who are often pushed out of the way or killed for such things as oil, water, metal ore, and diamonds.

If the world allows the people of Darfur to be removed forever from their land and their way of life, then genocide will happen elsewhere because it will be seen as something that works. It must not be allowed to work. The people of Darfur need to go home now. I write this for them, and for that day, ... and for those still living who might yet have beautiful lives on the earth.

What is more important for the world right now than preserving ways of living in balance with the earth?

Chad has oil wells, so there are a few grand hotels for rich, who come to quickly take the money away before it ruins the charm of our mud and straw cities.

Often, then, the stories came pouring out, and often they were set before us slowly and quietly like tea. These slow stories were told with understatement that made my eyes and voice fill as I translated; for when people seem to have no emotion remaining for such stories, your own heart must supply it.

I did not see where the bullets were going, but little songbirds flew down from the trees, confused and worried. They perched on my shoulders and then hid in the folds of my robes and shawl. But then I saw they were falling dead from me, their hearts broken by this noise.

(Husbands and wives have separate huts, which makes for long marriages.)