Tim Scott arrived to Sudan in the leadup to the historic 2011 South Sudan Referendum — a choice given to ethnic Southerners of if to split Africa’s largest country — with confidence in his abilities and eager to contribute to the understanding of the circumstances of this historic divorce. But the realities in the field were dramatically different from what he expected. It was confusing, opaque and contradictory — the most difficult thing he had ever attempted — and he reveled in it.
Recruited by President Jimmy Carter’s organization The Carter Center, Tim Scott was stationed in the contested border town of Abyei. An experienced election observer drawn to challenging himself, Tim spent six months documenting the process of several referenda established at the signing of the peace agreement that ended Sudan’s bloody 25-year civil war. A chaotic story of one observer’s struggles in a war-torn village, Crisis in Sudan began as a journal written from his tent in Sudan in an attempt to make sense of his experiences on the front line of a potential return to fighting in one of the poorest places on earth.
Crisis in Sudan gives a glimpse into the mysterious daily life of an election observer, an occupation few will experience. The reader is guided along in daily blocks through the sleuthing and piecing together of information in order to sort out the inconsistent information presented by opposing and potentially deadly sides in a conflict that predates the creation of the nation, extending back before British colonial rule. In the process, Tim and his partner must overcome many obstacles and confront national security, disease and boredom, a common problem for expats working in the developing world. Crisis in Sudan is written with honesty, conviction, humor, and self-exploration. It introduces us to a world most of us will only read about in the news. This is a story of a search for identity of not just the people who call Sudan home, but of
Full color with 95 photographs