It could have been you.

The other day I read something that made me think quite a bit.

‘What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?’

Initially, I misread the question. I read it as ‘What if you woke up today without the things you thanked God for yesterday?’

And it made me think. How would I feel if I had nothing? If everything I knew was stripped away from me.

My understanding of what it means to have nothing has changed very drastically since coming to Sudan.  What you see is very different from what you hear…

What if I was one of those Syrians? What if I suddenly went from having a home, a loving family and being part of a community to becoming a displaced refugee forced out of my own country with nothing but the clothes on my back with no prospect of ever returning or succeeding… what if I were one of those girls you find outside the mosques whose families are so desperate for them to be taken care of that they allow any man coming to the mosque to marry them.

I remember very specifically before the worst part of this war conducting a meeting with a Syrian businessman where he stated that Sudan was a very ugly plant-less country…  He was of course comparing it to Syria… and just like that, 2.5 years later Syria is nothing like it used to be and 200,000 people fewer…He was very wealthy, influential and powerful … and yet he had absolutely no power to do anything to stop this.

I thought about the crisis in Darfur… the way it all began because of greed that lead to hunger… what if I were one of those women who had the unthinkable done to them. What if I had seen so many monstrosities that I no longer hoped for life, I instead worried about how it would be robbed of me.

It is impossible to answer these questions because they are too deep and profound for someone who has not experienced them. But I know I would want help. I would hope that people would remember me, help me escape, protect me and I them. It wouldn't matter what they believed in, looked like or even were like in the past. In order for me to survive, I will need to become part of a group, as being alone doesn’t get you anywhere in the real world.

The privileged often seek subtle differences in order to segregate people – yet the poor look for just one characteristic to unite.

My entire life I’ve been fed a complete lie about hard work and perseverance. In reality there are people born into this world to suffer, and others to enjoy. Yet those who suffer complain much less and give much more than those who have all the means in the world to enjoy themselves. And what separates the two?

Luck.

There is nothing you can do to prevent forces from growing stronger than you, you cannot prevent the fall of your civilization when it is no longer your turn to be the most civilized, and there is nothing any of us can do or achieve as individuals when the society breaks down. We are taught to work hard and that our paths will be paved – but how can hard work grow you back crops when desertification occurs? How do you create cows when they are all dead? How is it fair for one people to claim land so fertile and expect others to survive on dead and dry land with little resources? Why is it that we divide ourselves so that war is the only option to enjoy resources - why don't we share?

Whether I wake up with only the things or none of the things I thanked God for tomorrow – I hope I remember that at any point, the tables could turn and just as my luck has been sweet, it can also turn sour.

What I find most intriguing however is the ability of those with nothing, to give; and the resistance of those with much to even lend.