Book Description

In Dust to Dust, an American physician takes us on an intensely narrated visual journey through the refugee camps of eastern Sudan, where the reality of medical work dissolved into the haunting experience of being part of the catastrophic Ethiopian famine of 1985. Through personal journal entries and alarming but compelling photographs, David Heiden reveals the horror of the camps, the inhumane morass of bureaucracy and political partisanship, and the fierce and noble fight for survival among people whose situation the rest of the world viewed as hopeless. In spare prose the author recounts a series of disasters--political, climactic, and medical--that culminate in near-total social and personal breakdown. Western doctors and nurses, Ethiopian health workers, and Sudanese camp administrators attempt to weave their own meanings, often at odds with each other, often recognizing that each is struggling to control what, in fact, cannot be controlled. The demoralizing frustrations, the small victories, and the shared perils of the environment are portrayed in parallel through words and photographs. As the reader relives the relief workers' battles against usually curable or preventable cases of measles, tuberculosis, malaria, meningitis, and malnutrition, images of African people suffering and dying, sometimes surviving, are juxtaposed to reveal their common humanity yet extreme cultural distance. Photographs of the skeletal bodies of starving children playing in streams that are infested with cholera, of the serene face of a new mother who has miraculously delivered a healthy infant in the squalor and chaos of a refugee camp, all eloquently portray the dogged hope of these victims. Unlikethe relentless news wire photos of Ethiopian refugees that shocked Western viewers into dazed immunity, Heiden's images are those of a sensitive participant-observer. He presents the relief agency volunteers as altruistic individuals working against impossible odds to do some simple good, while grappling with their own Western notions of justice, responsibility, privilege, and comfort. Despite language barriers and cultural differences, genuine connections arise between volunteers and refugees, yielding riches for both. David Heiden reveals the human face of disaster, the personal effect of wanting to make a difference, and the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit.