The Milk of Birds (39 page)

I began in the dark, writing in the early mornings, unsure of where I was headed. I appreciate the dear people who helped Nawra and K. C.'s story come to light. At a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference critique, Steve Watson gave me early and much-needed encouragement. He also introduced me to his (and now my) agent, Kelly Sonnack, a warm source of support and sound advice. Sharon Cameron helped me tame an unruly draft, as did an old friend, Beth Judy. I also benefited from several drafts' worth of suggestions and insights from Laska Hurley and Melissa Mahle, founding members of our 3rd Street Writers Group. Heading toward publication, I counted myself lucky to work with my worldly editor, Namrata Tripathi, and the folks at Atheneum. On the home front, Mohamed Ben Jemaa has taught me much about the beauty of Islam and the power of proverbs. Finally, hugs to Majida and Munir Ben Jemaa: Although I occasionally refer to them as “the forces of chaos,” they make me glad to get up in the morning.

People have asked, “What inspired you to write this story? You've never been to Sudan!” In the dinosaur age, as my children imagine it, I took a year off from college and spent seven months traveling solo in India, Nepal, and China. I volunteered
in Mother Teresa's clinics in Kolkata for two months and then just explored, staying in hostels, striking up conversations on trains, seeing how people lived. Since then, I've rambled a bit around America and around Tunisia with my husband, but never again did I really journey abroad. Yet that long-ago adventure changed my sense of citizenship; I felt I had a stake in the world as well as in the United States.

Several streams merged as I began writing this novel. After earning a master's degree in Arab studies, I worked on the
International Journal of Middle East Studies
. I was reading good scholarship about the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa, the region known as MENA that includes Sudan. I also published a research guide,
World Poverty
, for which I had to write case studies of several countries. Gathering primary sources about the Democratic Republic of Congo, where rape is a particularly vicious weapon of war, I came across testimony that Amnesty International had recorded. Ill and ostracized, a young mother recounts her prolonged gang rape and struggles afterward: “I am asking you to support us morally, to give us courage, to help us have hope once more in life.”
*
Her words still haunt me.

About this time I discovered Women for Women International (WfWI), a nonprofit organization that offers financial and emotional support to women in war-torn countries. Founded by Iraqi American Zainab Salbi, WfWI enlists sponsors to send monthly letters and donations to sustain
survivors through a year of job training. I volunteered there only briefly, but it didn't take long to appreciate that the correspondence on whisper-thin paper carried far more than words.

In this IM and e-mail age, letters may seem headed for extinction, but they remain an essential link to the estimated four billion people around the globe without Internet access. In 2008, the year of Nawra and K.C.'s correspondence, less than 10 percent of Sudanese citizens used the Internet and less than a quarter had access to a phone. Yet even in an increasingly wired world, letters connect people in a different way. Slow food, not fast food, they invite reflection and revisiting. During my trip across Asia in 1982, I carried no cell phone or laptop. I wrote long letters home, and my parents in turn sent me envelopes I picked up at American embassies and consulates along the way. I savored the news. With five kids, my parents didn't wax sentimental about their children's papers, but I was touched after they died to discover a stash of my travel letters. Letters are something to hold on to.

This story is fiction; Darfur's genocidal civil war is not. While researching the setting, I delved into a number of documents available online, from news stories to UN reports to aid worker blogs. Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Physicians for Human Rights, Refugees International, Save the Children, UNICEF, and other humanitarian groups often post Darfur updates. Smith College professor and longtime Darfur activist Eric Reeves created a weighty website (sudanreeves.org). Information about Sudanese culture is harder to find, but thanks to Salwa
Ahmed's dissertation for the Technischen Universität Berlin—“Educational and Social Values Expressed by Proverbs in Two Culturs: Knowledge and Use of Proverbs in Sudan and England,” I discovered Nawra's voice. Through friend and master networker Kelley Coyner, I made the acquaintance of Farah Council of the Institute for Inclusive Security, who sharpened my thinking about some of the development issues. Helen Young of the Darfur Livelihoods Program at Tufts University's Feinstein International Center kindly put me in touch with Food and Agriculture Organization officer El Mardi Ibrahim, who answered a question about livestock. And thanks to Sudanese reader Rasha Hamid for her critique. Nonetheless, any errors in the text are my own.

How can you help young women like Nawra? Support one of the nonprofits partnering with the people of Sudan to heal wounds and restore livelihoods. I invented Save the Girls, but you can find real groups doing amazing work. In addition to the organizations mentioned above, look into the Save Darfur Coalition (savedarfur.org), Darfur Peace & Development (darfurpeace.org), Oxfam (oxfamamerica.org/emergencies/conflict-in-darfur), and the Darfur Stoves Project (darfurstoves.org).

Writing this book, I hoped that it would turn out to be
historical
fiction, that by 2013, security would have returned to Darfur. In July 2011, the Sudanese government and some (but not all) of the rebel groups signed a peace agreement, and the
New York Times
reported that one hundred thousand displaced people began to return home. Since then, upstaged by conflict between Sudan and the new nation of South Sudan,
the western province of Darfur has largely dropped from the news. But some Sudan experts, such as Eric Reeves, warn that much of what happens in Darfur goes unreported. Millions remain in IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps—and newcomers have arrived fleeing fighting around their villages. Since the Khartoum government expelled many humanitarian workers, others keep silent in order to be able to continue delivering aid. So, speak up. By asking questions and keeping the pressure on public officials, you can make sure that the world doesn't forget Darfur's Nawras.

*
Amnesty International, “Democratic Republic of Congo Surviving Rape: Voices from the East,” October 25, 2004. (
amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR62/019/2004/en/2ebe0294-d57f-11dd-bb24-1fb85fe8fa05/afr620192004en.html
.)

ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Sylvia Whitman

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The text for this book is set in Miller.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Whitman, Sylvia, 1961–

The milk of birds / Sylvia Whitman. — 1st ed.

p.   cm.

Summary: When a nonprofit organization called Save the Girls pairs a fourteen-year-old Sudanese refugee with an American teenager from Richmond, Virginia, the pen pals teach each other compassion and share a bond that bridges two continents.

ISBN 978-1-4424-4682-3

ISBN 978-1-4424-4684-7 (eBook)

[1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Pen pals—Fiction. 3. Darfur (Sudan)—Fiction. 4. Sudan—Fiction. 5. Refugees—Fiction. 6. Genocide—Fiction. 7. Letters—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.W5928Mi 2013

[Fic]—dc23   2012005594