She is working for the United Nations children's agency, Unicef, in Nyala, southern Darfur and is writing a diary for BBC News Online about her experiences.

I'm very excited about going to two new places: Manawashi and Mershing, which are situated about 80 km north of Nyala.

I travel together with colleagues from Education, Water and Environmental Sanitation (WES) and Nutrition to monitor the Unicef supported projects in this area.

We are lucky that it did not rain yesterday, so we can drive fairly quickly to our destination. On the way, we see two trucks with goods from humanitarian aid agencies that got stuck in the Wadi (river).

Rain and roads

This road, like so many others in Darfur, is serious trouble in the rainy season.

One of the reasons that it has not been possible for me to travel to these towns before is basically because of the rain. You can imagine that it is very frustrating for my colleagues that they support projects in these areas, but most of the time they are not accessible.

The rain is making travel more and more difficult

Then add on top of it, the areas that are inaccessible due to the prevailing insecurity. It's amazing we ever get out at all.

We drive by Duma, a small village. I remember the name as recently two of our WES counterparts were kidnapped here. One managed to escape and the other one is still missing. I'm sure that nothing will happen, but still check if I locked the car door when passing through.

We arrive in Mershing, a settlement that consists of eight IDP camps, hosting a total of about 27,000 IDPs. The situation is dire as access to this area is problematic. I'm told that since last June about 19,000 people have not received food. I ask how they survive. They don't.

I visit an old school building that has been transferred into a clinic, a stabilisation centre to be precise. The clinic is run by Save the Children - UK (SC-UK) with support from DFID, WFP and Unicef. We provide the milk, some medication and the "hardware" such as scales, measuring boards etc.

Khadija

Inside the stabilisation centre, a centre that deals with complicated severely malnourished children, I meet Khadija and her son Ahmed. She is from Manawashi, the next town over, and was brought here by the SC-UK outreach team.

I hope to return for a photo when Ahmed is in better shape

Khadija looks very young, but is already a mother of five. Ahmed is the youngest and severely malnourished. Although in the centre, he is still losing weight and the diarrhoea and vomiting are not yet under control.

She has to stay here to be with her sick child for at least another week. In the meantime her husband is looking after the other children.

Khadija looks worriedly at her baby. He is indeed in bad shape. By the time I ask if I can take a photo she had covered the child. She apologises that he doesn't look good in the photo in his condition. I promise her that I'll come back to take a nice picture when her child is better. Allah and SC-UK will take care of him.

I am taking a journalist to Kalma camp today. The road is long and tedious. Although the camp is only 14 km away from Nyala the roads are becoming a serious nightmare.

Q&A: Darfur conflict

Mud, sand, enormous potholes and water are all around us.

Sometimes we have to divert from our regular path and drive on the railway track. This does not make me happy at all and anxiously I watch if the train is approaching. I know that the chances are slim, as it only comes to Nyala a couple of times per week, but still, I do not want to end up in a movie scene being chased by a Sudanese train.

On the way to the camp we pass many people with household goods on donkey carts. I'm curious. Where are these new people coming from? I ask the driver to stop the vehicle and jump straight into a huge mud puddle. It has happened before and will definitively happen again as I tend to be very enthusiastic about jumping out of cars.

Flight

I approach one of the donkey carts and we ask - I am now with a translator so it is much easier - where they are coming from. Khamisa Abdulaih is sitting with her baby on her lap and tells me that she is from Yassin, a village about 50 km east of Nyala.

Khamisa and her family are recent arrivals

They left about two weeks ago; they were afraid because of the fighting that took place near their village. She witnessed how armed men came to the surroundings of her village by horse and vehicle.

The vehicles did not get very close, she said, but her family was in fear of what might happen and they decided to leave their home.

About eight days ago the family reached Nyala by truck and in the course of the week they managed to organise this donkey cart to transport their goods. Her husband is already in Kalma to secure a place and has begun construction of their new "home", which they will share with their three children, her aunt, sister-in-law and other extended family members.

Rains

When we finally reach Kalma the rain begins. We pay a visit to the local authorities and learn that following their calculation there are now 83,450 people in the camp.

Every single day there are hundreds of new arrivals registering in the camps. The influx of IDPs just does not stop. Yesterday, gunshots were heard in a village near Kalma and the authorities are waiting for news. It is expected that the number of IDPs will continue to increase.

The rain makes driving and walking almost impossible. We stop quickly at the MSF clinic but are told to evacuate the camp as soon as possible as not to get stuck in the mud. A night in the camp does not sound very attractive and we leave. This was Kalma camp in 30 minutes. At least the journalist has seen what the rains do to Unicef and other humanitarian organisations and the implementation of our projects and activities. It is not easy to accept, but some things we cannot control - and one of them is the rain.

By now, I know the IDP camps in Kass and Kalma better than Nyala, the town where I live. My colleagues from the education section have plenty of work to do, especially in this IDP camp which hosts up to 40,000 IDPs. Unicef is providing classrooms, teaching and learning materials and uniforms to the children in Kass.

The girls have so many questions

Not only to the IDP children but also to the children of the host community; in Kass this is a very hot issue as many IDPs are occupying the school buildings in town. Many children like Mahot had to stay home because there were no classrooms available for them. Mohot is a very bright 14 years old girl and is attending the Al Safar Secondary School in Kass.

She is happy that she can return to school, as she likes being a student. "I was very unhappy when I had to stay home for three months when our school was occupied by the IDPs, but now Unicef has built seven new classrooms for us and we can go back to school".

Donkey fodder

"I like to learn English: What is your name?" When she starts talking with me all her friends surround us. They all want to be in the photo, they ask me my name and I shake at least 150 hands, which makes me feel like a princess or pop star.

All these young girls are so eager to learn English, to learn about the rest of the world, about what Unicef is doing and what the UN stands for. I've never had the desire to become a teacher but talking with these girls makes me wish I could stay with them for a while to teach them the things they want to know.

Unicef has built 24 temporary classrooms in Kass for the secondary school students and 105 temporary classrooms for the primary school students. The temporary classrooms do have their problems though.

The haboobs (sand storms) and rainstorms can easily blow away and destroy these structures that are made out of grass and twigs. Also the donkeys and goats like to nibble at them, which makes big holes in the walls. I try to imagine the excuses the children make when they skip classes: "Sorry, I cannot go to school today because the donkey ate my classroom".

In order to prevent this kind of thing, Unicef is in the process of locally constructing 50 classes made out of plastic and steel poles. No more donkey excuses for not attending school.