Lately

Camel Selfie!

"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in its petty pace to the last syllable of recorded time"—the quote is from Shakespeare but the accuracy of the words and punctuation are all that is left in my brain from high school days. You know what else has mostly left my brain since high school? German language. This is inconvenient since I’m going to Germany in a few hours.

At any rate, life is creeping in a petty pace sometimes, but then you blink and October is over. This October has been fairly normal for me-I did some last minute traveling, I had some last minute visitors, I had some visitors I knew were coming, but found out nothing about their plans until the last minute, and I agreed to watch a puppy for Sarah while she was in the States.

Puppy time has been super fun, and also I performed amateur mouth surgery and saved her life. Sarah asked me to watch her because she thought that she wasn’t doing well after her spaying surgery, which Sarah had forced a visiting (people) surgeon to do. Sarah, a classic dog person, believes it is completely normal to ask someone to bring her a puppy from the US or to perform surgery on a dog, and I agree. We bond over discussing tick removal and dog food recipes. Her house is on a large farm with many dogs and puppies everywhere (she breeds and sells German Shepherd puppies) and it is Joe’s favorite place in the world. She lets him crash there when I’m traveling, and I watch her puppies sometimes when she is traveling and feels they are too delicate to leave under the possibly not watchful at all care of her husband who is a people surgeon who isn’t usually the one she asks to chop up her dogs. Maybe he is too close to the situation. Or she is.  At any rate, we have a mutually beneficial relationship, Sarah and I do. Though the first puppy she asked me to watch died under my care. To be fair, he was sick when I got him, but I did cry for two days about it. The neighbor kids were with me when I went up to check on him and found he was dead, and burst into hysterical tears while they grabbed me and yelled, “Tantine, arretez de pleurer!” So this time I was determined to keep the puppy alive.

When I got her, she was listless and very drooly and her breath smelled really bad. I know that some dogs are slobbery and smelly so I tried to love her anyway. But then I worried that she might not be ok, so when my sister told me she was taking her dog to the vet in the states, I convinced her to ask the vet there if this was normal. Against her genteel, delicate sense of propriety, she agreed to ask. She was sure that the vet would be mortally offended by this breach of etiquette, asking about another dog when you’re there with your dog, but I was banking on the fact that most vets tend to like animals and want them to be better. The vet suggested looking at the teeth, saying that the drool and bad smell were not normal.

Before I fixed the puppy.

So I grasped the puppy firmly and gently pried open her jaws to look at her teeth. This was gross and slimy, and initially it yielded nothing. Then I thought I should look for cavities or see if there were any decaying bits in the teeth. The bottom teeth looked fine, so I tipped up her head to see if there were any issues in the upper teeth, which is when I found the stick lodged across the roof of her mouth. I knew the stick came from Sarah’s yard because it is the sticks used for fences around the farm, but I do not have that kind of stick in my house. Conclusion: that stick had been there for a while, hurting poor Princess Fluffy Face, who I will now call PFF (pronounced ‘Puff’).

I didn't get a photo of the stick, so please enjoy this
recreation of the problem.

After the removal of the stick (that’s basically surgery), Puff improved rapidly. She trotted around the house after me everywhere I went, and barely squeaked when I inevitably stepped on her multiple times or kicked her across the room. She did survive her stay at my house and everyone loved her, including Leif and Antani. Everyone gave her a different name in a different language (Djakobi, Ilally, Jeb in Ngambaye, Moukoulu and Amharic to name a few), since she had none when I got her. She was fair-minded though, and responded to none of them. I had just gotten her to stop crapping in the house when Sarah took her back. I miss her and Joe who is with Sarah too until I get back from Germany.

Sad to say goodbye.

Just chilling in the office with Marthe

With Antani who gave her the name Illaly

They loved each other! (sometimes)

Puff trying to copy Joe.

Joe giving me a defiant look during a family conference about
not tracking sand into the house.

Brief intermission for you to look at some photos of Joe:

He's still my best good boy.

I just love his hilarious face.

In a fit of jealousy of the new puppy, Joe peed on the couch.
But we washed it and left it in the sun and it's totally fine now.

He's in charge of making sure everyone in the office
goes home on time whenever he decides to join us at the office.
At 4:15pm he starts barking and jumping on me until I pack up and we leave.

Every morning I open the car door and let Joe decide
if he wants to hop in and spend the day at the office
or stay home and play in the yard. I never know which he will chose.

Besides puppy time, I also had another quick trip to Bol, by Lake Tchad. Unfortunately my team follows rules and due to recent Boko Haram attacks in the islands, I was not able to get on a boat, but we drove around to many villages and got stuck in the sand multiple times, so it was almost as fun. Technically, we didn’t exactly get stuck in the sand so much as take 8-10 tries (while I have been known to exaggerate at times in the interest of telling a good story, I’m not in this case—I counted) to get to the top of various sand dunes. We would get almost to the top and get stuck, reverse to the bottom, rev the engine, make sure 4 wheel drive was in the correct gear and zoom to the top. A few tries and we would drive to another hill that looked smaller and give it another shot. Eventually we would make it up or we would get out and push. After one of our (successful!) pushing attempts, my skirt became covered with burrs (tis the season) and it took another 15 minutes to get them all out. They refused to let me help the next times, but it was their loss because it took them a lot longer to push up the hill without my amazing muscles.

They told us not to take photos from the plane, so I did.
These are the islands in Lake Chad where people live unless Boko Haram is attacking.

Burrs in my skirt. This doesn't give you a good idea
of how painful it is to get them stuck in your fingers as you try to pluck them out
or in between your toes and your sandals.

And that was October! And now I’m off to Deutschland, with a suitcase full of stuff Rhyan wants me to take to her family and a bag full of clothes borrowed just this morning from Marianne, bless her Swiss heart, who insisted I take her woolen socks, feather puff coat (Oh Puff, I miss you!), long underwear, and fleece, which she keeps for her trips home to Switzerland. “Amanda, you must take them or you will freeze to death.” It’s like she knows me.

Upon my return to Chad said suitcase will be full of chocolate and Haribo smurfs (they taste like blue!). Priorities.

Please enjoy the following photos.

Petting a goat. Everyone found this hilarious.

With my peeps in the car.

The busy streets of Bol.

The Chief walking us through the village.

Waiting for the driver to map out another hill
we might be able to get up.

With the literacy class ladies!

I showed off my Arabic reading skills and they loved it.

Family vehicle parked outside the house.

Little girls peeking at the nasara

Tell me that camels aren't cool...

Completely unrelated to this post, but Emelie got her driving license!
I was the first one to teach her how to drive.
After one lesson with me, she decided to go to the professionals at Relax Auto Ecole.
She drives slowly and doesn't swear at anyone, so clearly I had no lasting impact on her driving.

I think Neverthirst posted this like I was having some uplifting spiritual conversation with the camel guy.
I thought I should set the record straight that I was coming back from showing him the photo I took of him.
He thought it was cool. I thought he was cool. Everyone was impressed.

Some men at the local mosque asked me to come talk to them about biosand filters.
They made us sit on the chairs--we weren't trying to be snobby or anything.

The last day before driving back to N'Djamena.
I had slept in a tent for two nights in the heat.
The previous night I'd been attacked by a cockroach. I was pretty tired.
I saw this photo later and I remember that I really thought I was smiling in this photo.
You can see that it is more akin to a grimace.

I am NOT strangling this donkey as has been suggested
by others I sent this photo to. He's clearly smiling.

It's kind of a dramatic photo, but I taught little Aisha how to do
a few rubberband tricks with the rubberbands on her arm.
When I was her age, I also had about 50 rubberbands on my arm, which were
my favorite toys and weapons. I totally get her fashion statement.

With Ketema and Leif at the Greek restaurant run by Syrians in Chad!