When the earth whispers with women's voice

Part 3

Bali city of Celebrities

In the midst of daily work pressure, I received an email I did not expect.

It was a tiring day in the newsroom. I was working as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, reviewing pages and designing my own section dedicated to women’s stories, between tight deadlines and heavy details.

I returned home late, exhausted, as if the entire day had drained me.

The email arrived in the middle of that exhaustion… many files, questions, and an exam.

I looked at it for a moment, then decided to postpone it.

It was approaching 1 a.m.—the time I was used to beginning my real work, when the world finally quiets down.

I opened the email.

It was from the Earth Journalism Network and Internews.

An opportunity for an international media partnership on climate change, linked to covering the United Nations Climate Conference in Bali.

But before that… an exam.

An assessment requiring me to answer questions and analyze journalistic material. If I passed, I would join more than 400 journalists from around the world to cover the climate conference.

I sat in silence.

Between exhaustion, surprise, and opportunity.

I did not know that this night would change anything.

I took the exam.

Then I waited.

And in the moment the acceptance result appeared…

I did not feel joy alone.

I felt that all previous journeys were gathering into one point: Ethiopia… rain… Kordofan… drought… Khartoum…

All of it was leading me here.

To a story that was no longer local… but part of the world.

And so my other journey began.

My journey to Bali.

My trip to **Bali, Indonesia—often called the island of celebrities and Hollywood figures, a magical island surrounded by the ocean—**was one of the most important opportunities of my professional life and my relationship with the climate issue.

From the very first moment, I felt this island was unlike anywhere I had ever been.

The air itself felt different… warm, humid, and filled with the scent of the ocean, tropical trees, and incense rising from small temples scattered along the roads.

The Indonesian people amazed me every day.

People there smiled easily, as if kindness was part of their daily culture. Even hotel workers or small street vendors treated us with genuine warmth that was not just politeness.

I watched life around me with curiosity: women in colorful traditional clothes, flowers placed in front of houses and temples, motorbikes filling narrow streets, and families sitting by the sea in the evening as if trying to befriend life itself, no matter how difficult it might be.

In the mornings, the island woke up gently.

Small shops opened early, and the smell of seafood and spices filled the air.

As for me, I struggled to adapt to seafood, which I could not fully get used to despite my respect for the culture and the place.

What affected me most was the spiritual relationship people had with nature.

Trees were not just trees. Water was not just water.

There was a sense of sacredness in life itself, as if people understood that humans are not greater than the earth… but only a small part of it.

But behind this beauty, the world was gathered under one roof.

In the large conference halls, journalists and organizations from all over the world came together.

Different voices, different languages, but one goal.

The pressure was clear: the need to oblige major countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because women in poorer countries are paying the highest price despite contributing the least to pollution.

Increasing funding for climate adaptation projects in rural areas, so that women farmers can protect their crops, livestock, and livelihoods.

The discussion was about real lives behind these decisions: women farmers in Ethiopia trying to cope with unpredictable rains, women in Kordofan – Bara facing drought that destroys agriculture and makes pregnancy and survival more dangerous, and families moving to cities like Khartoum, searching for stability that never comes, fleeing desertification and land degradation.

There, I began to see the full picture.

What I had witnessed in villages was not separate events… but connected links of one crisis stretching across continents.

Every decision made in those halls… could mean something there.

It could mean a woman does not lose her crops to flooding. Or another does not lose her child due to malnutrition. Or a family is not forced to leave land that no longer exists.

I listened, I wrote, I reflected.

And in that moment, I no longer saw climate change as an environmental issue alone… but as an issue of human justice.

Every decision taken in those great halls in Bali “meant life or death for a woman I had met in a flooded field… or on land being swallowed by drought

Khartoum… Burning Between War and Climate Change

When I returned to Khartoum, the city no longer resembled itself.

The war had changed everything. The streets I once knew were filled with silence and fear, and the smell of smoke had become part of the air. Burned buildings, shattered windows, and schools turned into displacement centers… everything was telling a story of a city struggling beyond its limits.

But in the middle of war, another danger was growing silently: the environmental crisis.

In overcrowded neighborhoods filled with displaced families, waste accumulated, water and electricity were cut off, and stagnant water filled the roads. With rising temperatures and the spread of mosquitoes, diseases began to spread rapidly: dengue fever, malaria, and blood infections.

I saw how war can transform into both a climate and humanitarian disaster at the same time. When services collapse, the environment itself becomes a threat to life.

In some areas, the smell of death reached people before they even arrived. Bodies remained for days inside homes, schools, and streets because people were afraid to go out under shelling. With rising heat, death itself became a source of pollution and disease.

Here… I was no longer just a journalist writing what I see.

Through the “Nora Initiative for Combating Violence Against Women,” we began working with volunteers and community initiatives to try to save what could be saved. We moved between destroyed neighborhoods, coordinating the transfer of bodies to cemeteries with dignity, so they would not turn into a public health disaster threatening the living.

The scenes were more painful than any description. Mothers crying in silence, children walking past destroyed homes as if war had become normal, and women trying to cook over firewood in a city where gas and electricity had disappeared.

In some areas, landmines and remnants of war appeared near homes and schools. I saw children running after footballs in places that could hide death beneath the soil. That is why we worked with specialized teams on awareness campaigns and demining efforts, so the ground itself would not become a trap for children still trying to hold on to life.

But amid this destruction, we tried to create something that resembled hope.

We began supporting small solar energy initiatives in some areas, so families could access light, charge phones, and run essential devices away from fuel shortages and polluted energy sources.

They were not large solutions… but they carried an important message: that women, even in the midst of war, do not only wait for survival… they create it.

And here I understood the deep connection between war and climate. When the state collapses, the environment collapses with it. When water and air are polluted and cities are filled with displacement, women become the first to carry the burden: carrying water, caring for the sick, protecting children, and trying to keep life possible amid all this destruction.

After Ethiopia… then Bara… then Khartoum…

I realized that women do not face climate change as a distant idea. They live it every day: in rain, in drought, in displacement, and in war.