Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Elephant Rock



He really wanted a "Make America Great Again" hat,
but I couldn't find a free one and I can't/won't buy one,
so he had to settle for a USA t-shirt bought at Wal-Mart (bien sûr)
and he loves it. Apparently it doesn't stop him from
making disparaging remarks about my height.
“Good morning, Amanda—wait, whoa! Did you get shorter?”

This is how my colleagues greet me when they arrive at the office.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think I’m quite old enough to start shrinking.” I mean, so far I haven’t noticed any part of my body shrinking, but I am dedicated to my high-sugar diet, which is keeping me from malnutrition. It could also be the reason why Urbain piped up with a  “Yeah. She does change a lot. One day I think she is skinny and another day I think she is fat. I think maybe it depends on her clothes.”

Don’t come to work for IAS Tchad if you don’t like people making comments about your appearance. In one day (wearing the same clothes, I might add), I’ve been told I look fatter and skinnier by two different people. I have been ganged-up on by my colleagues about not always wearing t-shirts. But when I do make the effort to wear work-appropriate clothing (i.e. not jeans and t-shirts that don’t look like t-shirts), they are appreciative.  

This is what I look like now. After I went to Sweden,
I decided to start wearing the Viking horn-hats all the time.
I think I'm really pulling them off.


So anyway, this doesn’t have much to do with this post, except that it would have been way easier to climb Elephant Rock if my legs were longer, but as I’m shrinking and getting fatter, apparently, I did let our Chadian ex-army guy driver give me a hand on the way down.


See the elephant?


The Elephant Rock Adventure was a joint effort by Amanda and Rhyan to tourist in Chad. It’s not always easy to do that here. There aren’t a lot of options. Most weekend fun activities involve swimming in the pool at the Hilton (Rhyan’s home/work/gilded cage). I also enjoy spending weekends sleeping on my bed since night-time sleeping hasn’t been so easy these days with weird electricity issues that I’m having. It cuts in and out loudly and randomly, so I’m either woken up when the fan stops because it’s humid and sticky rainy season weather now or if I chose to AC it, then I’m woken up by a loud popping sound when it comes on and off. Worse—my fridge won’t work and my food is dying.  I only keep food in there that I actually want to eat (so: chocolate because otherwise it melts in this desert world and diet soda because I’m healthy like that), thus it is important to have a functioning fridge. Forget the fact that I lived 2 years without one in Mundri. Now it is a necessity for my life and general well-being.

We are great at taking selfies together.

And now that I’ve finishing complaining, Rhyan and I decided to visit Elephant Rock based on a whim and time constraints. Because if we hadn’t had any (time constraints, that is, not whims), we would have gone to Tibesti (her choice) or Fada (mine) or Samarkand (also mine).  I also would have accepted Timbuktu, Kabul, and/or Tehran. But again—time constraints. So we went to Elephant Rock, a little over an hour away (depending on who is driving--I could have made it in an hour)  in an area called Dandi. It’s a good thing we went, too, because it seems that Chadians are intent on turning all their rocky outcroppings in the area into gravel for building projects.

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Anyway, enjoy some photos of our touristing, courtesy of la belle Rhyan, as I was low on funds due to an unfortunate banking card situation, which will probably never be resolved because life is not fair. So she paid for the car and I brought along protection in the form of Herve (to placate her colleagues who are sure she is going to be shot/stabbed/kidnapped at any moment as soon as she sets foot outside the protected halls of the Hilton).

I know, I know--culturally-inappropriate clothing,
but the sweater I was wearing (aka jumper bc I was with a Brit)
kept getting in my way, and I had to climb.
I also had to get rid of the shoes. Fortunately the weather was ok for barefoot rock climbing,
unlike the time I tried that in South Sudan.



I took this photo from the top while Rhyan screamed at me--
she was mad (angry) because she wore a skirt and climbing was difficult.
I told her that I was going to wear pants (trousers).

A more experienced climber could probably have crawled up this
(I saw a monkey climb up it), but it is distracting when people are yelling at you to come back.

In the interest of full disclosure, moments before I climbed up here,
I'd told Rhyan and Herve that I wouldn't, but then I HAD to.

This photo shows a bit more the distance.
Herve wouldn't climb up because he said, "I'm a river man, not a mountain man."
But he told me later that he was really worried about me climbing because
he couldn't get up there to protect me if something happened.
I appreciate his protective instincts, but I also like to help him live on the wild side a bit too.

Herve with the ladies. Notice we are carrying a bunch of rocks.
Apparently it's an acceptable souvenir here. I was asked to bring some back to Urbain
who couldn't come as he was doing prep for a UNICEF eval that still hasn't
happened yet because they last-minute postponed it 3 times. Bless their hearts. Or something.

Herve really wanted to bring us to see this giant gravel pit.
Note that Rhyan is LOVING it. But then we got kicked out for
"security" reasons. We do look suspicious, I guess.


Plotting our next trip.


And this is how Herve's protective instinct really benefits me:
I have a drippy, hacky cold. I wanted ginger juice from our local lady
who always comes by whenever I don't want it, but she didn't have any made this time
when I NEED it for my health and well-being. So Herve went out and got me some ginger juice from someone else,
plus the "sirop" to make more myself (concentrated ginger and melted sugar) plus a small container of Koumra honey,
which is the best honey I've ever tasted in my life (delicately sweet and smells faintly of flowers) plus sweet potato chips.
It's ok if he can't save me if I fall off a rock while barefoot climbing. He can save the entire office from having to listen
to me whine (whinge) about not having ginger juice. He's a true hero.


2 comments:

  1. So thankful for Herve. Glad you go Rhyan out of her cell too! Thx for telling me about your new post.

    ReplyDelete