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I thought of the trips I had made back in the States, on planes, trains, or buses, where I would sit alone and rarely connect with anyone around me. That was no longer an option, and I was forced to communicate with people I would have tried to ignore under other circumstances. Desperation, it turns out, is a great icebreaker. A man on the train, for example, had taught me a few Arabic phrases in exchange for my teaching him a few in English. He introduced me to other men, who showed me how to order food at the trackside stands and how to drink hot tea loaded with sugar and mint instead of my nasty, iodinated water. By the time we reached Khartoum, we were an inarticulate posse, talking animatedly around and above one another, comprehending only a fraction of what was said. But connections had been made, and their friendship, however improvised, was a blessing.

With their help, I found the office of the man with whom I had been corresponding about working in Khartoum. The office was in a one-story building off a main street, opposite the sprawling United Nations compound. On a front porch, wooden stools strung with hemp sat around a low wooden table, a place to share tea with colleagues and visitors. The back garden, just visible from the path to the front door, held a latrine and a faucet, which dripped rust-colored water. Sudanese women swept the dirt along the path outside and worked as clerical staff in the office, too, alongside the expatriate Europeans and the development and diplomatic staff. The Westerners wore khaki bush clothes with lots of pockets and dusty boots. The Sudanese women wore colorful fabrics tied around their bodies and draped modestly over their heads. They were warm but indirect, rarely looking you right in the eye.

I was greeted by bad news. The man I had been writing to had left the week before to spend two years in Long Beach, California, and had said nothing to his colleagues about my coming or his plans for me. I sat there, stunned, while the ex-pat staff apologized briskly for the confusion and returned to their work. The Sudanese staff, however, were embarrassed because I was a guest. They beckoned me to sit at the little table on the front porch, served me tea, and inquired with real interest about my travels. They told me where I could rest and wash up. One young man met me after evening prayers and walked me to the souk for a simple meal of beans, cheese, and bread.

After several days of trying to recover from the trip and considering what to do next, the Sudanese staff helped me talk my way onto a project. It turned out that there was a youth training initiative intended to provide construction skills to secondary school dropouts in the Darfur region west of Khartoum, near the Chadi frontier. The project was failing, and senior U.N. officials wanted to know why. I was assigned to travel with Kamal Tayfour, another new employee who had just graduated from the University of Khartoum and whose command of English was only a little better than mine of Arabic. Kamal had been hired as part of the U.N. commitment to bring indigenous talent onto the professional staff. Our job was to do field research in the little villages of El Fasher and Nyala. I believed it was essential work. The more likely truth was that the ex-pat staff was just trying to get both of us out of the way.

Kamal and I didn’t take to each other initially. The language barrier was only part of the problem. We were about the same age, but he was the son of a senior government official, while I appeared to have few credentials. He wore Western clothes on his thin frame, plastic sandals, and a big fake Rolex. His skin was dark brown and smooth, with no signs of hardship, and he had bright brown eyes and the whitest smile. Kamal was quite formal and polite with me, as with other Westerners and educated Sudanese, but he could be condescending and abrupt with the workers and beggars. When we were together, he did not pray according to strict ritual, but he otherwise deferred