Everyone inside the car was FINE, Stanley.

Mark was worried that this photo looks like
something inappropriate is happening, but
I promise that Djibrine wasn't trying to grab
my boob. I was just trying to get the hook into
the thing to lower the spare tire, which
was more difficult since I'd previously
bashed the back of the truck in with a tree.

After Uganda, we slowly made our way over to Chad. Our flight left Entebbe at 3am on Sunday morning, so naturally, I couldn’t sleep at all on Saturday night. I had very elaborate, time-sensitive schedules for our time in Chad, involving me driving 4.5 hours Sunday afternoon, so it would have been a good idea to do a bit of sleeping, but sleeping is not one of my greater skills. Also, I had a problem on my mind: Hervé was supposed to be arriving back in Chad on the same flight as we were, meeting up with us in Addis on the way back from his trip to Kenya where he had been doing a training about sand dams with UNICEF. I’d told Leif (who was buying his ticket) that we needed him to fly back on 17 September to arrive in time for our trip south to Koudalwa and beyond. If you are a regular reader of this online cathartic journal of mine (Hi MOM!), you will recall that this is the location of the 16 hours in the mud and 9 hours of night-time motorcycling. I wanted Hervé with me to drive one car full of Americans and their luggage, while I drove the other car full of Americans and their luggage. On 16 September, having just arrived back in Entebbe where we would spend a few hours before our trip to Chad, I received a frantic message from Hervé, telling me that he had just noticed that his return trip was for December 17 and not, in fact, September 17, as we had requested. Leif was informed (“Oops,” he said), but there was nothing we could do to change the ticket, so I had resigned myself to making the trip alone, with Djibrine as the other driver.

Market photo that did not get me arrested.

17 September ended up being a day of crumbling chaos, that started off well with a 2am peanut butter milkshake in Entebbe (see previous post). Our flight in Addis was delayed for various reasons given to irate passengers that no one really believed (I've never seen customers get as passionately upset with flight delays as I do whenever I'm in the Addis Airport, but then again, I do spend a disproportional amount of time there compared with other airports).

We arrived 2 hours late to our office where the immigration guy, who came in on a Sunday to help us out, had been waiting for us. You know how people give Africans a hard time about punctuality? I’m just going to admit that in my experience, it all evens out to where I’m late as often as they are, but occasionally at inconvenient times for the other person, we may show up on time.  The immigration guy showed up on time, and likely he regretted it, like that one time I showed up punctually for church (never happened again). 

We left N’djamena around 5pm with a 4.5 hour drive ahead of us, mostly in the dark. I didn’t realize that Djibrine is an anti-speeder who kept to 60kmph (less than 40mph), a ridiculously slow speed that forced me to pass him and then call him multiple times, asking him to speed up because I realized that I shouldn’t leave him in the car with my boss, who he can’t communicate with, while I’m way up ahead, in case anything happens. Something did happen: I exploded a pigeon. It was not on purpose. And I honked at the dumb thing, which was sitting in the road like an idiot. It then proceeded to fly up into the windshield with a juicy thump.

Around 11pm we made it to the hotel. They’d given away our reservations and taken down mosquito nets that had been there when I’d visited previously. The boss’s face was super not happy with me. I made a big deal about reservations and honoring commitments and they found a few rooms for us, but two had to double up. Not Kiden, the Lone Woman, of course. I got to my room, caught the frog that was jumping around in the bathroom, threw it out the door, brushed the dead bug carcasses off the bed, and slept for almost 4 hours.

I picked up my frog prince and threw him out the door.
What was I thinking?!

The only outlet in the room was up high.
I needed to charge my battery.
So I plugged it in and tied it up there with my bikini top.
As they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention."

We left bright and early the next day. Backing out of the hotel driveway, I was hit by a giant evil-minded tree right in the middle of Nathan’s speech to me about trusting my driving. Then the first leg of this trip I’d timed (twice!) at 40 minutes until we got off the paved road to the dirt road took us 2 hours. Mostly, I blame Djibrine’s slow driving, but also, a dog committed suicide on my car bumper and I got a flat tire. Already mourning the death of yet another creature on my watch, I was starting to get concerned about my driving, assuming the flat was from my decision not to let the presence of the jagged pot holes keep me from maintaining maximum speed. In fact, it wasn’t. The guys fixing the tire called me over to show me the sharp piece of cow bone (I verified that it wasn’t dog bone) that had punctured the inner tube, causing a flat. I never would have noticed that little piece of bone in the road, but I do still have it and I plan to make it into a talisman to hang on my rearview mirror to warn off other animals.

Marching up to the police with my permits.
Do not mess with me when I have paperwork.

While we were fixing the tire, Djibrine told me that I could let the guys film in the market—after all I had all the permits. Nathan was quickly grabbed up by bored police who did not appreciate my self-righteous defense of his cameras. Djibrine had to go off and sort that out. We finally arrived in Koudalwa around 2pm with 40k to go to get to the village. We piled into one car for the trip in, which our faithful guide Ramadan assured us to be dry enough to get through. It was dry enough, but it also went through a forest. And eventually there were too many trees for us to pass through. A motorcycle would have made it and Ramadan has a motorcycle. But we called it around 4pm. Mark said, “This is the first time in the history of Neverthirst that we have not made it to a village.” So-Infamy achieved. Thanks a lot, Chad.

I sat on the floor in the back of the car as penance for all
my bad ideas on this trip.

I also made peanut-butter stuffed brownies
to try to encourage everyone.
They were well received.
Even "I'll Just Have a Power Bar" Mark liked them.

We embarked on the long, slow, dark trip back to Bongor and the hotel, which was promised to have mosquito nets, dinner, and enough rooms for all this time. At 12am, Djibrine’s car refused to go any further, having already been subjected to the abuse of the forest trip. Mark, John, and I pushed it off the road to a nearby village and we all got in the other car to drive the last 15k. We arrived at 1am, ate a hasty dinner of meat and bread, and slept for a few more hours under brand new mosquito nets. They kindly gave me the pink one, to remind me of my gender probably.

This might have been when we called it.
Hard to know the exact moment.
Djibrine sitting in the dirt, does help you get
a sense of the level of Discouragement.

The next day, we left Djibrine behind to deal with the car, and Amanda became the sole driver back to N’Djamena. Yes, there was much gasping and clutching at door handles as she drove, but she also made it there in 4.5 hours, thank you very much, without any other deaths or injuries. Americans can be so dramatic, especially the men.

Fortunately, the rest of the trip went well, gaining some good footage for videos and encouraging the Neverthirst team to keep Chad on our list of places where we work (and Amanda as an employee). I spent lots of time driving and translating and enlisting the help of generous friends to arrange for the last day to be spent at the Hilton (thanks, Rhyan-I hereby donate my new name “Itoru” to you, Savior of the Americans and my possibly my job!) to help delicate Americans recover before their long trip home. In the end, it was a good visit, full of adequate unavoidable adventures, and no one asked to be put on the list of “People Who Will Never Travel with Amanda Again,” and two of the 4 guys said that Chad is one of their favorite places they’ve traveled and one of those guys has actually travelled to many places so his opinion was quite valid even. I get a lot of haters out here in Chad, so I’m always happy to have people who will laugh with me through the disasters and find the beauty in a harsh environment.

Mark took this photo of me taking a goat selfie.

Filming mommies is fun because I can hold their babies while I'm translating.

You can't tell, but I was super happy to be riding and not driving.
I was pretty bruised up after this though, thanks to Hervé's driving.

Hervé and Djibrine chilling while we do the interviews.
If one of them would just learn English already, I wouldn't have to be the only translator!

Absa liked pulling my hair. I loved Absa for being the best little 360 video actress ever.
And gorgeous.

Here is one of her actually smiling.
Too late to delete the other one now.

Absa's father and brother busting out the bow and arrows.

We were allowed into the cattle market with strict instructions not to photograph anyone.
Naturally, I took quite a few photos. You can't tell ME what to do.

Cattle Market day made Dourbali super cool.
The guys thought it was like the Old West, with everyone riding in on their horses.
Probably this day redeemed the whole trip for everyone and saved my job.
Good thing this was the last day of filming.

See the very different quality of this photo (and the following one)?
I didn't take them. But maybe you already noticed since I'm actually in the photo.

Supervising the filming.
(This filter really shows off the dirt on my skirt. Thanks a lot, Kyle.)

Rhyan is the best. The Hilton is a little Oasis in the middle of N'djamena.
It's not real life, of course, but it was a nice recovery time for the guys.

Leaving the Hilton, someone thought it was hilarious that they
were all walking around me like they were my body guards.
Let me just take a moment to point out that I was always
going to be the one taking care of them in the event of anything happening.
But they wanted to pose for this photo, which I found slightly humiliating,
and I kept telling them that I actually have to live here!
But I guess I owed them this moment for all of the pain...
Enjoy, guys. Enjoy.


And finally, I know the title is from the Office, but I'll leave you with a classic reference from The Wind in the Willows, as Mr Toad has long been my alter-ego, especially when it comes to driving and adventures (and this drawing is amazingly close to depicting what happened  to the pigeon incident):



"Sit still, and you shall know what driving really is, for you are in the hands of the famous, the skilful, the entirely fearless Toad!"