Reporter's Notebook: Inside Sudan

This reporter's notebook was written by CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.

Our flight from the capital into the north of troubled Darfur was with the African Union forces that have been sent to protect the people there and monitor violations to the ceasefire agreement that has slowed the killing, but not ended it. In spite of the unconventional way we checked in for our flight — through the living room of a house near the airport where we weighed our luggage on an ancient scale before throwing it all into the open back of a big flat bed truck that took it to the terminal — the system worked surprisingly well.

But the highlight was without a doubt going through security. I had images in my mind of the thousands of airport security checks I've endured across the Unites States where they demand everything from your jacket to your shoes to your belt and you're left wondering if they're going to ask for your underwear as well. Here there were no X-ray machines or metal detectors or officious, power-hungry security staff ordering you around. Instead all the passengers were called together in the front courtyard of the house, where a man who appeared to be in charge yelled out to the expectant crowd: "Security (pause for effect), That is your problem. OK, let's go".

And that was that.

We piled into several white African Union vehicles and finally, eventually, unbelievably we were on our way — to what? I had no real idea as this was my first visit to Sudan and Darfur existed only in my mind: images of desperately impoverished people who'd been forced out of their homes in the millions, burning villages and ruthless Arab militiamen armed with AK-47 assault rifles, bullets slung across their chests and big turbans on their heads as they stormed past on horseback after plundering village after village.

I knew the fighting in Darfur, which began when local rebels attacked Sudanese government forces and their Arab militia allies three years ago, was not as intense as it had been initially because of a ceasefire in 2004 and a signed peace agreement. However, all sides have consistently violated the ceasefire, and there was now the added complication that the rebels had split. Only one of the most important rebel factions had signed, with clashes breaking out between the two groups that had begun this fight side by side. No one really had any idea if the peace agreement was going to hold, and there had already been demonstrations against it in camps across Darfur where the local people who've fled their homes now live. Many believe it has been forced on them by the African Union, under pressure from foreign governments who are really only interested in Sudan's vast oil reserves. But that I would find out later.

For now, as we inched over the barren, red desert below, I marveled at how hot it was inside the plane where I sat cramped up against the small window, stewing in my own body fluids. It was desert all the way to El Fashir, the capital of North Darfur, and I did not think that was an encouraging sign.

It wasn't. Our arrival in Darfur was met by a blast of hot air that enveloped us from the moment we set foot on the runway and would stay with us until we left the country nearly two weeks later.

But the African Union machine was roaring along in fine form, and the loudly-efficient Major Bongani Majola from South Africa was on hand to order us into a waiting vehicle and take us to the information office at their base — where we were presented with yet another paperwork and permit dilemma that our best efforts and months of work had failed to protect us from.

After great patience, hours of waiting and much cajoling of Majola, we were relieved when he triumphantly declared the war over and our work ready to begin. The truth was, without Major Majola and the minor miracles he worked on our behalf, we would never have been able to do what we came to Darfur to do, and it struck me that he was a perfect candidate for the U.S. Marine Corps. This African soldier easily matched the most motivated Marine I'd ever encountered, and anyone who knows the marines will understand how much commitment that takes!

There's a point when you are working in places like Darfur and you know you have to surrender. Nothing will work the way it should, nothing will be easy and if you lower your expectations to non-existent, you may survive with your sanity. But to make television, you have to do all of that while still fighting tirelessly for everything you need — demanding the world and settling for nothing less. Once you learn to do all of those things at the same time, you're in with a chance of actually doing your job.

So it was with relief that we were ordered across the blistering, sandy parking lot to the office where we would interview the African Union Force Commander with an unpronounceable-name, General Ihakiyre. "God help you if you get it wrong." Majola told us, after teaching us to pronounce it exactly the opposite way to how the General himself made me repeat it to him later after our interview. "He doesn't like that."

The general, who hailed from Nigeria and has surrounded himself with a support staff made-up entirely of his fellow Nigerians from what we could see, declared my interview "most entertaining" as he threw us out of his office after strictly adhering to the 15 minutes we had been granted. I stole some extra time by drawing into chatter about his pen collection and digging in my bag for the only CBS pen I knew I had with me. But the truth was the general was ruthlessly succinct and actually answered my questions without rambling — a rare find in the television interview world. I'd grown far too accustomed to doing endless interviews in Arabic after many months reporting in Iraq and was reminded of how much more satisfying the whole process can be when you are able to do it in a language you understand.

Armed with what I had learnt from the general, which basically confirmed what I already knew — that the African Union troops were dramatically undermanned and badly outgunned — we set off for the offices of an international aid agency, the International Rescue Committee, which has been working tirelessly to help the people of Darfur since the crisis began in 2004.

They took us to one of the camps where they work that is now home to some 40,000 people, many of them women and children. I use the term "home" very loosely — it is hard to imagine a collection of sticks wrapped around some torn cardboard boxes as home, but that is what awaited us.

There in the red desert, with little or no protection from the sand blowing around us in a violent storm, were thousands of people the IRC referred to as "new arrivals" — only that doesn't really mean what you think it does. "New" arrivals, as I discovered when I talked to some of them, can mean you've been living here for as long as nine months, waiting for help that might never come if new funds are not found.

So these people who have fled their homes, running in terror as their villages were burned to the ground and their loved ones murdered, these people who come here with nothing but the clothes on their back, still have nothing.

One woman, Fatima Hamid, impressed me with the gentle way she handled her children, holding her young baby's hand up to her mouth and pressing it gently to her lips as she listened to my questions. She told me she was nine months pregnant when she fled her village in terror with her five young children. They walked for 10 days to reach this camp and she gave birth almost immediately, but was so ill from the journey that she needed blood transfusions to save her life.

Sitting with Fatima in front of the pathetic, tattered shelter where she sleeps with her six children, I asked her how could they get money or food in this place? The only way is to send your children to town to beg, she told me, but all they can get is enough for one small meal. I knew that could not be an easy decision for a mother who so clearly adored her children. "They eat that meal and go out again to beg the next day," she said. I wanted to give them everything I had.

Instead, I left the camp and moved on to another aspect of the story. Such is the way things are in this business. You intrude on people's lives and live their pain for a moment — but it is just a moment.

The only comfort you have is hoping your stories live on, in someone's memory or someone's heart. And you make sure that you, at least, never forget.