"Foreigners really like it," he said. "No one else buys it."
Though more than half his sales are now to foreigners, he said he's noticed an increase in buying power among locals as well. "It seems that everyone has more money," he said. "People have jobs."
As a result, he now sells items to locals that he never sold before, such as ceramic floor tiles.
Experts agreed that El Fasher's growth appears to be trickling down to many segments of the population. Small dairy farmers recently began selling fresh milk for the first time. A row of retail shacks hawking sunglasses and radios lines a downtown street. Even in the displacement camps on the edge of town, young men can't make mud bricks fast enough to meet the growing demand in El Fasher.
The most coveted jobs are those with the U.N. or international charities, where salaries are typically much higher than those with the Sudanese government. As a result, a driver or security guard at the U.N. can earn more than a university lecturer or technocrat with 20 years' experience.
Women, in particular, are finding new opportunities. When Muna Idriss, 27, graduated from college five years ago, she would have been lucky, she said, to find a job scrubbing floors. "The only jobs were with the government, and if you didn't agree with the government you'd never find a job," she said.
Now she's earning $750 a month as a U.N. security guard, five times what she might have hoped to earn before. Her salary supports her entire family, including siblings still in school and other family members living in displacement camps. And she said she's being exposed to new skills and ideas, such as improving her English and learning about gender equality in the workplace.
"Without all the international community coming to El Fasher, people like me wouldn't have a job at all," she said. "I may even have had to resort to stealing. . . . This is helping me to develop myself."
Fadul, the rural planning professor, remains concerned about long-term effects, including a strain on scarce resources such as water. Though aid groups tend to supply their own electricity with generators, they are sharing the limited local water source.
"Even before the conflict, El Fasher had a problem with water supply," Fadul said.
"I just wonder what will happen in 10 years," he said. "Once the crisis in Darfur ends, this boom will end. So what's the legacy of all this?"
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edmund.sanders@latimes.com
