Six Months in Sudan: A Young Doctor in a War-torn Village

by James Maskalyk

“People are hungry to be brought closer to the world, even its hard parts. I went to Sudan, and am writing about it again, because I believe that which separates action from inaction is the same thing that separates my friends from Sudan. It is not indifference. It is distance. May it fall away.”

In 2007 James Maskalyk set out for the contested border town of Abyei, Sudan, as a doctor newly recruited by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). Equipped with his experience as an emergency physician in a downtown hospital and drawn to the hardest parts of the world, Maskalyk spent his days treating malnourished children, coping with a measles epidemic and watching for war. Worn thin by the struggle to meet overwhelming needs with few resources, he returned home six months later more affected by the experience, the people and the place than he had anticipated.

Six Months in Sudan began as a blog that Maskalyk wrote from his hut in Sudan in an attempt to bring his family and friends closer to his hot, hot days. It is the story of the doctors, nurses and countless volunteers who leave their homes behind to ease the suffering of others, and it is the story of the people of Abyei who suffer its hardship because it is the only home they have. With great hope and insight, Maskalyk illuminates a distant place and chronicles the toll of war on one community, one man, and the cost of it to all of us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Africa, Medicine, Memoir, Medical, Sudan, Biography

352 pages, Hardcover

First published April 14, 2009

About the author

James is a physician and author, both of the international bestseller “Six Months in Sudan” and more recently, “Life on the Ground Floor“. He practices emergency medicine and trauma at St. Michael’s, Toronto’s inner-city hospital and is an award winning teacher at the University of Toronto.

He directs a program that works with Ethiopian partners at Addis Ababa University to train East Africa’s first emergency physicians and is a member of Medecins Sans Frontieres, an organization for which he has worked as both a journalist and a physician. In 2007, he was MSF’s first official blogger, He practices and teaches mindfulness at the Consciousness Explorers Club in Toronto, and is passionate about it’s potential to encourage personal and social change.

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Reviews

[Josephine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the main reason I’m drawn to books like these is because I want to be reminded that, in spite of whatever it is you’re going through, there’s a reality out there that’s much more harsh and difficult to swallow.

When I was in journalism school, we had this one exercise where the prof showed us a picture of a baby with obvious physical abnormalities born in the aftermath of Chernobyl.

“Is this the sort of thing that we should be putting on the front page?”

This girl who used to sit next to me, a prim and proper little Mary Poppins (who has since graduated and gone on to continue leading her charmed existence), pushed the picture away from her and closed her eyes.

She said it was wrong and that she didn’t want to have to look at stuff like that because it was “too painful.”

In that moment, I looked at her and I sort of hated her a little — partly because I often had to listen to her bitch and moan about petty little things and occasionally talk down to me in her holier-than-thou attitude because she was a Christian and I wasn’t sure if I really believed in God.

Her attitude sort of reminded me of the time Barbara Bush said, “Why should I waste my beautiful mind on that?” when asked if she watched the coverage on the war in Iraq.

Nice, huh?

I don’t know…I just think a book like this helps to remind you about how the other half lives…that it’s so easy to bitch and moan about how “rough” things are for you, when in reality, it’s not — not by any measure.

[Idiosyncratic · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's interesting how many reviewers comment on how hopeless and repetitive Maskalyk's experiences were. That is the nature of grinding poverty (it's not called "grinding" for nothing). That is the brutality of war. The terrible difficulty people face when they work in this situation, perhaps hoping to "solve" something, is that they discover they are so busy dealing with the alligators that they have no time to drain the swamp. I often think that those who create or enable this level of chaos specifically keep it that way, so that no one will be able to address the larger issues - we're too busy trying to keep people from dying or starving to death, one person at a time. It's the one-person-at-a-time thing that enables us to keep going, however; sometimes we actually do help. Sometimes someone, in the midst of their pain, helps US. And occasionally, a really big, heroic figure arises who actually manages to take on the system.

I personally find the Oscar Romero prayer relevant.

[Shana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will warn you that although the subject matter is fascinating and meaningful, the writing itself was not quite there. The book began as a blog, and perhaps Maskalyk’s story transmits better in that format.

The author ends up in a village called Abyei in Sudan through the organization Doctors Without Borders. His six month stint is full of dust (as he mentions quite frequently), as well as a frustrating inability to save everyone who ends up at the clinic. Some of his descriptions of dying infants are absolutely heart-wrenching, yet he ends up writing about it in a detached manner as he learns to deal with the inevitability of death.

On my part, I would have liked to learn more about the cultural differences in treating illness and injury in Abyei. He only mentioned the local healer once, but beyond that there is little mention of local beliefs as they relate to medicine and healing. I guess Maskalyk wasn’t really trying to educate the reader on the Sudanese so much as he wanted to give an account of what it’s like to be thrown into a situation that is vastly different from what you are accustomed to, and in that sense he succeeded. There was no sugarcoating of the place, and I appreciated his frank discussion of the misery and boredom. He could have easily glorified the situation to make himself seem like a “better,” and more compassionate person, but he ended up teaching me that sometimes you can feel too much, and that gets in the way of accomplishing the mission.

[Taariq Hassim · Rating 5 out of 5]

'I believe that which separates action from inaction is the same thing that separates my friends from Sudan. It is not indifference. It is distance. May it fall away.'
Heart Breaking and deeply personal.

[Anett Jamecna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very empowering

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

A moving account of an individual humanitarian experience. This doctor’s account includes his day to day life as a physician in a rural and isolated town in Sudan, his struggles to treat his patients given the infrastructural limitations and cultural differences, and includes his experiences seeing emergency cases and what would be outpatient cases. The book also describes his life outside of the hospital, his living conditions, and his interactions with the town and its residents. Maskalyk’s book was very interesting and his story honest and not at all misguided by white savior complex. However, I feel that the writing could have been better. Perhaps the writing style was the result of the book being converted from his real-time blog. Overall a good book.

[Lana Del Slay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you know how to fall in love with someone you've never met?

You read his book. This book.

I came to Maskalyk's writing from his blog, which is itself a thing of beauty and you can find it if you Google "suddenly sudan". Don't let it redirect you! You want the man from MSF, not the sitcom. So I read his blog, and I read his other blog (Dial 'D' for Dadaab, if I remember correctly). (I must be the only person left online who writes out "if I remember correctly".)

And just like that, I regretted my ill health because it meant MSF would never let me do these things in these places, be even one-hundredth the person he was. All the same it is making me want to go forward in all the things I can do -- write, photograph, give counsel, seek wisdom, love.

If there are ever cures for the things that are wrong with me, I will take them and take my chances. Reading this, I want to scoop up places like Abyei and hold them close. Say "We are watching and we love you." Because we are watching, and I hope I am not the only one whose heart is overflowing.

-- Which is not to say that this is a portrait of perfection, but perfection is tiresome. Trust me. You don't want a sanitized version of "a young doctor in a war-torn village". You want more than the cover copy. You want the man who drops an F-bomb on page 5 and makes girlfriend jokes with his best friend in the compound. You want the man who is just as petrified as I am of planes (for different reasons). You want the man who rolls up his sleeves and mucks in. The one in this book, anyway, seems to live by my motto: "do what comes next." Isn't that all any of us can do?

So my personal canon grows by one and will sit between the Ibbotsons and the Grants, in front of the McKays, perhaps cheek-by-jowl with that first Streatfeild. Maybe I'll review "Intern" next, for kicks. It's been awhile.

If I could give a book more than five stars, this one would get them all.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

When doctor James Maskalyk decided it was time to “put something back” and take a break from his work in the Emergency Room of a Canadian hospital, he chose to apply to be a volunteer with Medecins Sans Frontiers and told them he’d go ‘anywhere’. The organisation sent him to Sudan in 2007 to work in a hospital in small town called Abyei. During the six months that he was in Abyei, he kept a diary and wrote a blog about his experiences. MSF didn’t always appreciate the blog and worried that what he wrote might upset the authorities in Khartoum. Returning home, profoundly moved by the experience, those diaries and his blog entries formed the basis of this book ‘Six Months in Sudan’ in which he is determined to tell the things that he couldn’t say in his blog whilst he was there. I guess he’s probably burned his bridges with MSF who possibly would have preferred him to keep quiet about how things were in his little part of Sudan.

I think many of us probably suppose that MSF only jumps into action when there’s a major crisis or conflict but this book shows us that a lot of their work is going on in the background whilst war rages elsewhere in the same country. For most of Dr James’ time (not surprisingly his colleagues and patients don’t even attempt his surname) in Sudan he’s in a relatively quiet part of the country, despite it being on the border between the north and south with the potential for conflict to break out at a moment’s notice. Most of the time he’s tucked away from too much direct evidence of what’s happening elsewhere. At times it seems the greater danger is one of boredom and frustration rather than dodging bullets. He deals with an epidemic of measles that would be considered a pretty minor issue if it were in Europe but is life-threatening in Sudan and treats severely malnourished children as well as all the accidents and diseases great and small that befall the residents of the town. From gun shot wounds to the aftermath of badly-delivered babies, the field doctor has no choice other than to roll up his sleeves and get on with it despite inadequate equipment, poor medicine supplies and local politics all conspiring to get in the way. Not all the volunteers can cope and several leave early because they can’t deal with the way the hospital is run and this seems to be more of a problem than dealing with death and disease.

I love a good medical drama – whether on TV or in written form – but it’s all too easy to get the impression that doctors see death and disaster as just part of the job. Reading Maskalyk’s book reminded me that that’s sometimes just the outer impression that medical professionals like to give. Every death, every disfigurement, every orphaned child touches his heart and not one of them ever seems to be treated as just another statistic. Despite this sense of connection with his patients, Maskalyk never steps over the line into the “Look at me, what a hero, doing a noble job in a mud hut in searing heat” that could so easily be the result. He’s as modest and self-effacing a writer as I’ve ever come across – just as willing to admit to the mind-numbing moments of dullness as he is to recounting the adrenaline highs of life in the hospital. As he expresses it beautifully “If you keep looking over your shoulder, waiting for a pat on the back, you’ve missed the point. It’s not about you.”

Despite the location of Abyei, straddling the border between north and south Sudan, I learned very little about the conflict in Sudan from reading this and actually I didn’t mind that at all. I was shocked by events at the end of the book but in general this was not a book about civil war; it’s about life (and death) in a small ill-equipped hospital where no matter how hard the staff try, there’s no way they’ll ever be able to treat everyone and where the rules of their organisation tie their hands and prevent them from sometimes doing as much as they want to. To be honest, they could have been anywhere, in any understaffed and under-equipped hospital and the same stories of beautiful little orphaned children, widowed men and women left with no way to take the body of their loved one for burial, parents weeping over sick children, would all be very similar. You don’t need to care about or be interested in Sudan to find this book fascinating – it’s about six months in the heart of darkness, six months in your worst nightmare of medical neglect or six months in a place so hot your brain would fry just to think about it.

If I have one niggle with the book, it’s around the blog entries. These are all written entirely in lower case and I found that irritating. It’s only very near the end that you learn why that’s the case and the reason seemed pretty tenuous to me. Social media and the internet are not an excuse for what basically just reads as bad punctuation. I didn’t need lower case to tell me when it was a blog extract and I found that affectation a bit irritating. Maybe someone stole the shift key off his keyboard – who cares – it could have been fixed on return to Canada.

Many such ‘worthy’ books have been written and many fail because the writing is just too dull, too detailed or too self-obsessed. Maskalyk hits none of these buttons. He writes clearly, unemotionally, with humour and great observational skills. He shows the reality behind the image of the field doctor – the obsession with small mundane routines like counting the steps from his hut to the hospital, the small celebrations when someone in the team cooks a great meal or one of the patients makes an unexpected recovery. You will feel like you’re there with him when you read about his six months in Abyei – you might even feel like you’d love to invite him round for a beer and a chat about his experience, and you’ll probably feel no fear that he’ll get boring or preachy.

[Lucy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had the potential to be a very good book, but the author just comes across as though he left med school with a God complex- he faces the stark reality of medical care in a war torn country; poverty, a lack of supplies and the cultural oppression of women and the shame and fear which prevents them seeking medical care but he seems to lack the maturity and humility to properly acknowledge or explore those issues in this book. He's in Sudan calling colleagues 'bro' and coming across as a bit of a lad makes the whole book feel ingenuine and awkward.

[Cara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings about this one. Mainly I didn't connect with the author's writing style.

[Purbandini · Rating 4 out of 5]

" Jika kau merasa hidupmu terasa singkat, datanglah ke Abyei"

Dr. James Maskalyk, seorang dokter relawan berkebangsaan Kanada menjalankan misi kemanusiaan di Abyei, Sudan. Beliau dikirim oleh sebuah LSM Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) atau Doctors without Borders, sebuah LSM pemberi bantuan kesehatan yang memerangi penyakit-penyakit endemik di negara-negara berkembang atau negara yang mengalami konflik. Dr. James melewati hari-harinya dengan merawat dan mengelola sebuah rumah sakit yang berada ditengah daerah konflik. Abyei terletak antara Sudan Utara dan Sudan Selatan, daerah yang kaya minyak. Konflik perebutan wilayah yang terjadi bertahun-tahun membuat penduduk yang tinggal di daerah tersebut sengsara, jauh dari yang namanya hidup nyaman. Jangankan untuk memikirkan kesehatan, makanan pun sulit untuk didapatkan. Dr. James menuliskan setiap detik hidupnya dalam sebuah blog yang kemudian mengantarkannya untuk membuat buku.

Buku ini menyentil tepat sisi kemanusiaan kita. Bercerita tentang hidup dr. James selama enam bulan bertugas di Abyei, menangani setiap pasiennya tanpa melihat suku, agama, ataupun dari pihak mana, semuanya dirawat secara profesional. Kasus-kasus pasiennya beragam, namun yang sngat mencolok adalah wabah campak yang menyerang bayi-bayi dan wabah TB. Konflik yang terjadi turut memperburuk keadaan. Kerasnya alam dan situsi perang membuat dr. James mau tidak mau mengalami tekanan hidup yang luar biasa, dari kehidupan normal dinegaranya, kemudian terjebak didaerah tanpa kepastian, membuat dr. James ditarik antara rasa jenuh dan empati. Rasa jenuh berasal dari dasar kemanusiaanya yang menginginkan kenyamanan hidup, sedang empati tertumpah dari profesinya sebagai seorang dokter.

Setelah membaca buku ini, maka penghargaan kita terhadap makanan akan meningkat berkali-kali lipat. Disaat perut kita dimanjakan oleh berbagai makanan, dibagian dunia lain, Abyei, banyak orang yang kelaparan. Tubuh seperti tulang yang dibungkus rapat oleh kulit, terlihat jelas bentuknya. Bayi-bayi yang meninggal karena wabah campak atau TB, akibat sanitasi dan pengetahuan kebersihan yang sangat kurang. Wanita-wanita yang meregang nyawa setelah melahirkan karena kekurangan darah atau komplikasi infeksi yang tidak tertolong. Dimana kita saat itu? kehidupan seperti ini hanya ada dilayar-layar televisi kita dan rasanya berjarak ratusan tahun cahaya. Tidak, tempat itu ada dibumi. Arahkan mata kesana, dan bertanya pada diri sendiri, apa yang telah kita berikan untuk dunia ini.

[Mohammed Ghoul · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars.
5 stars, not because the writing is brilliant, but because it's Raw. 5 stars, not because the book is a master piece, but because it is reality. 5 stars, not because the characters are deep and complex and the story is intriguing, but because of the it is REAL, it happened, rather it is happening as we speak again and again.
This book hit me hard, I have always been more for the academic and research side of my medical carrier. My main priority was and still is for the most part, is contributing to the march of scientific discoveries in my field. While the relief of suffering is off course a central part of being a doctor, you soon come to realize how limited your potential to do so even if the patient are within your reach let alone else where, this book has taught me an invaluable lesson regarding this, that can be best summarized in a quote from the book itself:
"I wonder, in cases like this, if the battle is worth fighting. The war is a long one, and the odds are stacked so heavily that perhaps energy is best conserved. Maybe it's best to use likely defeats to increase our resolve to work towards a day when they will be easier to win. But then there is the other tack. Battle, every time, with everything you have. Do the best you can for the person in front of you. Persuade the family of every malnourished kid to get into the truck, to come to the hospital, to be fed until they're better. Track down each TB patient who left, frustrated, halfway through his long treatment and try to get him to come back even though the countryside is littered with tuberculosis patients we will never see and one case will not tip the balance sheet noticeably towards a TB-free future. To the world it doesn't matter that much. Until you remember that it means the world to the patient. One exact world, bright and full of sounds, per person. That's what is lost."

The last sentence "To the world it doesn't matter that much. Until you remember that it means the world to the patient. One exact world, bright and full of sounds, per person. That's what is lost." this right here, this was it, though am sure it was said or written before, and I have most probably heard something along its lines before, but never the less this, right there, it have truly and profoundly changed who I am as a person.

[Raveena · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a memoir recalling James Maskalyk's experiences as a MSF doctor working as a physician for six months in Sudan. The account is well written and provokes a sense of emotion as Maskalyk talks about the dire conditions of war, disease and poverty in Sudan. He describes his situation in Sudan as a kind of lingo, where at one moment he wants to escape and go back home, and the next, he wants to stay to help the patients. I can compare this book to so many I have read where volunteers or doctors go to third-world countries and change from the experiences. They develop emotional attachments to the children, establish a sense of home where they are and become a part of the place.

Although a terrific read, I wish Maskalyk had expanded more on the detail of his leave from Sudan. I felt that part was very rushed as he kept jumping from one moment to the next and also one feeling to the next. At one point he would stop and admire Sudan and reminisce his six months at the hospital, and the next he would be clicking pictures and rushing to get out of Sudan.

One of the many things that I did like about this book was that he always pondered over one question. What is his responsibility for the lives of others? I feel that whenever we watch TV or read a book, we always see Africa or other countries infested with poverty or war. We instantly want to reach out and help them, but we don't know how. We want to save everyone there with our mundane abilities but can't do it for everyone. Maskalyk couldn't save everyone and often his hard work went to waste; but through the blood, dust and sweat, Maskalyk was changed emotionally and mentally from his experiences in Sudan.

[Lester · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just finished this yesterday.

It is curious to be critical of a current event book about tragedy this way, but here goes.

Unlike many books of a similar subject matter, Maskalyk keeps to understanding the situations happening in Sudan to what he sees and does firsthand. There is less omniscient voice used than is perhaps usual for a book of this genre. In a way, the technique (whether he knew it or not) lends a real sense of both credibility and humanity to the writing. Not that the work isn't believable, but the gravity of what he writes about becomes increasingly pronounced and weighted, when viewed from innocent eyes.

All in all, a good read, and a worthwhile purchase for someone who is doing activism work, but I suspect it won't be converting anyone if they are already disbelieving of Darfur or have already closed their hearts to the genocide there.

[Shaeley Santiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story about MSF (Doctors without Borders) in Sudan. The story fills in the details between blog posts written by Dr. James Maskalyk. While his experience was primarily focused on the hospital where he worked fighting malnutrition in children, a measles outbreak, and many other issues heightened by the lack of access to medical treatment and extreme poverty (not to mention the ever-present threat of the outbreak of war), he does provide some interesting insight to the culture of Sudan.

[Nick Marsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially I was irritated by this book; the author seemed self-righteous and self-absorbed. However, I quickly warmed to his style, and realised that his writing was very honest, and very raw. An unflinching look at the toll on both the mind and the heart of working for an NGO in extremely difficult circumstances. No, he didn't integrate with the natives, and no, he didn't change things like he wanted to, but Maskalyk has my respect as an honest writer and a far, far better human being than I am.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author has achieved a lot without coming off as racist, condescending or overly privileged as some of the other MSF memoirs do. I was sitting on giving this book 4/5 stars until I read the final few pages about the author trying to adjust to life back in the privileged world. The ending and revealed fate of the mission was devastating and while I dislike the idea of created drama or getting off on tragedy, the writing was probably at its best in the final few pages.

[Sharon Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much swearing at the beginning. I would have liked to read more detail on the patients in Sudan.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book about ten years ago, shortly after it was published. I can't remember how I came across it, but I remember how it affected me. It stayed with me for years. This year, I coincidentally got to know the author after I found the CEC (Consciousness Explorers Club). It was only after meeting him that I realized he had written this book that I had read ten years ago.

After finishing this book a second time, I was again struck by its poignancy and its immediacy. I was not fortunate enough to read the author's blog, but I like the way he integrated his blog posts into a novel.

This book is difficult to read, but it's important. The author's depictions of his time in Sudan and the people he met there are heart wrenching. He is a talented writer, and he manages to bring the reader into his experiences so that they are truly shared.

This book remains one of my favourites, and I'm sure I will be going back to it again and again. Especially now that I've been fortunate enough to have met James - he's an incredibly human and inspiring person.

[Alejandro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a masterpiece but a good glimpse of what the life of a volunteer doctor is like in a third world country. Dr. James came off as genuinely concerned for his patients and the city. My issue with the book is the message, to me it seems that he wants to either convince people to not participate in these types of missions or be ready to have PTSD. I don't feel that he turned his experience into a positive by appreciating the luxuries he has in Canada compared to Sudan. He didn't learn new ways to treat and diagnose patients with limited resources or talk about new/rare illnesses that he got first hand experience with that only read about in books. Experiences like his are really what you make of them, either you learn and grow or you dont. I don't feel like Dr. James grew much as a physician or a person from his experience.

[Harumichi Mizuki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Berat sekali kondisi yang dihadapi James dan rekan-rekan MSF-nya di Abyei, Sudan. Udara panas nyaris 50 derajat, wilayah yang tak steril, fasilitas dan obat-obatannya tak lengkap. Ini jelas fatal karena bisa menimbulkan kematian para pasiennya. Minimnya pendidikan orang-orang di sana yang membuat keluarga para pasien sering melakukan P3K yang sungguh ngawur sehingga memperparah kondisi para pasien sebelum membawanya ke rumah sakit. Kematian demi kematian karena campak, infeksi, tembakan dan ledakan akibat perang antara milisi Sudan bagian selatan dan utara seolah membuat dr. James jadi mati rasa. Dia menjabarkan peristiwa itu dengan datar, nyaris tanpa emosi, tapi kuyakin hatinya sebenarnya bergejolak dan harus terus dia tenangkan untuk menghadapi kasus-kasus pasien yang berikutnya.

[Laura McNab-Coombs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A uniquely humane and honest telling on the authors' experience of working as a MSF doctor in Abyei, Sudan.

Dr. Maskalyks' honesty and ability to self-reflect/his sense of self-awareness was refreshing and aided in this books ability to avoid falling into the trap of simply becoming a story of white-saviourism or a young, privileged, male doctors adventure story in "rugged Africa". He carried us (readers) along his journey, and although it was not the focus of the book, his change and growth was tangible, and at times my heart broke for him.

[Bennett Moody · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible read. I found I was able to connect with this book in a unique way having lived in West Africa as a teenager. There are aspects of Dr. James story that remain unfathomable, especially regarding the medical cases he encountered—though I have heard similar stories from my mother from when she nursed in rural Cameroon. Above all I take away a greater connectedness with the town of Abyei and its people, and a greater sense of hope for the future.

[Sue Roselle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Six-month blog and memoir of author, an emergency physician. Following other overseas assignments, he volunteered with Doctors Without Borders. Story focuses on fellow volunteers and the residents of that area of Sudan. Despite sponsorship of Doctors Without Board, resources were extremely limited for staff and almost nonexistent for residents. Well written and interesting. Published in 2009, the year of the author's assignment.

[Travis Lupick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review was originally published in the Georgia Straight newspaper.
Abyei is a small town in a disputed border region between north and south Sudan. There, stuck between two opposing military compounds, is an underfunded Doctors Without Borders outpost where Toronto-based emergency physician James Maskalyk spent half a year in 2007. Emotional and beautifully written, Maskalyk’s account of life in Abyei humanizes one of the most terrible places on Earth. His memoir describes tragedy in a way that helps people happy with their lives in the West understand why volunteers leave behind comfort for the harshest of places.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hats off to Dr James, trying to do an impossible job in the most difficult circumstances. This story is darker than I could have predicted and tells stories of violence and abuse that could shock even the most wordly of minds. Sudan sounds like a place that has been forgotten by God, a hell on earth, that after 6 months for one man unbelievably became a kind of normal.

[Giulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book captures many of the emotions one can experience during her/his first mission with MSF. I read it while I was on my first mission, in a town near Abyei, going through similar experiences, intense, challenging, and at times traumatic. I finished it after returning from the project, and it was comforting to feel that someone truly understood what I had felt.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to stop reading this on the plane ride to my next work assignment because every time I opened it I felt like crying. Not necessarily tears of sadness but tears of understanding and hope that I might be able to do something like this in the future with my nursing degree.

[Cath · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast, thought provoking read about how our world is one and we should care what happens in a land faraway. Can we leave our cushy life to make a difference? The author did, and was better for it.

[Nicole C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning about Maskalyk's experience as a doctor across borders. He writes in a down-to-earth tone without a lot of medical jargon. The book is more focused on his experience living in Sudan, and the people he interacts with. I found it easy to read and engaging.