Corona-running, Puppies, Videos, Building Projects, Got Out of Jail (Probably Not Free) Parties, Life

I didn't want the first photo to be me in a face mask
because we have too many of those in the world,
so here are the puppies instead

The face mask rule is back. Government is issuing dire warnings to people who don’t wear them at all times in public. Emelie shows up at the office 3 days after this public announcement, “What? That was serious? I don’t have a face mask.”

The first day of Mandatory Face Mask, I dutifully put mine on to go out for a nice morning jog. I walked out to my starting place and watched a couple of face mask-less guys trot by on their run. I yelled through my mask to ask where their masks were and they said, “It’s not a problem—we’re running right now. We will wear them afterward.”

Because it was my first day of Face Mask Required and I had read the dire threats of jail and fines, I kept mine on. By mile 3.5 I was feeling light-headed from inadequate oxygen-intake, and 80%  (according to scientific analysis) of all runners I passed were not wearing face masks. I pulled mine down and let it bounce around my neck and finished my run while breathing in the fresh dusty air of N’djamena like all the other running rebels, feeling like a dental patient with one of those bibs on to catch the drool.

Face mask running

My very-cool African fabric face mask, which reminds me
of one of my favorite Chadian memes...

When you go to pick up your clothes from the tailor and see that
everyone there is wearing a face mask made from your material. 😆

While in the past, I would have been one of maybe 3 morning runners, the stadium where people jog around in circles like hamsters has been closed because of coronavirus, so people are experimenting with street running. I don’t mind this because there aren’t really that many of them, I like passing people, and Chadians are mostly very encouraging when they see runners, yelling “courage!” at you so you don’t feel you need to stop and die by the side of the road—Henry admits to getting a burst of energy at the end of our first 4 mile run together. “That ‘courage’ really pushed me,” he told me. Yes, as a woman running, I’ve had the occasional rude comment that makes me consider using the pepper spray Annie gave me a few years ago (thanks, Annie!), but I’ve had many more “courages” yelled than otherwise. And also a few “ni haos” because somehow I look Chinese? I guess you can take the girl out of Asia, but her blue eyes and mousy brown hair will always tell you that she is probably Chinese.

Just a Chinese girl driving in her car with a puppy

Since being corona-stuck together, Henry, my Kenyan coworker mentioned above, and I have been running together sometimes, often with Joe. Joe is great when you are just starting to run because he gives you bursts of speed when he sees a goat or cow on the road in front of him, and every 5 minutes or so, he gets tired of running and MUST stop to smell the nearest poop—cow, dog, goat, human (yes—many of my neighbors do not have toilets in their homes, it’s part of why I’m here, but talking about poop is less socially acceptable than talking about water, so you may not have known that).  So you get lots of breaks with Joe, while also moments of sprinting. Henry likes to hold the leash (he loves Joe, just like every sane person who has ever met him) so he also gets an arm work-out, holding Joe back from attacking snobby goats that taunt him with their tasty freedom.

Love this photo of the puppy trying to walk Joe because
Joe's face cracks me up!

Thanks to all his great workouts with me, Henry was able to fulfill his duty as a Kenyan and win the 5k race I held for Neverthirst. I was very proud of him, though I had been planning to win myself. When I got to the halfway mark and couldn’t see any of my friends and colleagues behind me, I decided that I should go back and make sure that everyone knew where they were going. And I realized it was one of those moments when I needed to quell my competitive instincts and make sure that Emelie did not die on her first attempt at a 5k. Good news: she did not. But she did hobble around for another 3 days after that, saying her whole body hurt and she had to hold on to things to ease herself into a chair or pull her body out of the chair. Henry and I recommended continuing an exercise program at a reduced scale, but by the time she felt better she said she didn’t want to feel that way again, and so I do not think Emelie will be starting an Instagram Exercise Influencer account any time soon.

Note: one of these guys was running in flipflops and others in dress shoes,
so winning this race would never have been a testimony to my superiority,
but asics might be able to make a commercial about how their shoes
are easier to run in than flipflops.

If you or anyone you know wants to do a 5k for Neverthirst, find out more about that here (deadline is May 16-I think): https://www.neverthirstwater.org/5k

This is unrelated to this post,
but I thought I'd pass along this helpful solution
 in case you are ever in the same situation.

In other news, my next door neighbor was arrested for running an illegal bar next door to my house. I realized this while scrolling mindlessly through Facebook, as one does, and suddenly noticed there was a photo of my house that I hadn’t posted. I read the article, which included a clever pun mocking the name of the bar, and was so excited that the bane of my existence was closed. No more loud raucous parties and drunk men hanging about! Until last week, when I thought I heard noises, but I ignored them, thinking it was my imagination. When I saw the balloon in my front yard the next day, I figured something must have happened there. The guard told me the party was so loud, he went over to tell them to turn it down. I’m guessing she was celebrating getting out of jail by throwing a drunken party for her and her friends—still illegal, but you can’t keep her down! Or maybe now she knows who she has to bribe to keep her fake liquor license…who knows? At least she can’t play music over speakers and I can drown out drunken singing with my fan.

Partying with Joe

If you are interested in reading the article or you want to see what my gate and my neighbor's gate looks like, go here (my house is the green gate): https://tchadinfos.com/faits-divers/fait-divers-fermeture-dun-debit-de-boisson-clandestin-a-ndjamena/

Another neighbor's house that says in French on one side and Arabic on the other:
"Forbidden to enter in here Corona" and the Arabic side politely adds 'for your health and our health.'
Henry and I are wondering if this is an anti-theft policy (see how they casually leave the door open) or what.

Finally, this past month has seen an increase in videos on my phone, not just the videos I’ve taken of the puppies, but also because I’ve filmed some for Neverthirst. Some of them they aren’t using, as they were probably too terrible for the internet, and others are mashed into a video for monthly partners. So if you want to see that one, you need to go be a monthly partner with Neverthirst because it is EXCLUSIVE CONTENT. It was filmed over the course of a day, traveling to Dourbali, hanging with Moussa and his family, shamelessly bribing kids to stay in the 113/45 degree heat with candy. They didn’t have to stay too long, but I definitely felt bad every time I screwed up a take. And then when the phone overheated because it was too hot, I had to go sit in the car with the AC cranked up, trying to cool it down so that it would turn on again.

It seems I talk with my hands a bit.

The new government official who likes us
(the former one who didn't was voted out in a few months--power of democracy!)

Goat on a motorbike--happy Ramadan!

With Nadji and family in front of their new house.
I brought the puppy with me for the kids to play with.
There was much happiness.

So that’s life these days—running, sweating, working at the office, wearing face masks sometimes, planning how to report my neighbor to the police, trying to fix my shower with my Swiss army knife (didn’t mention that, it’s an on-going saga), and still no consensus on names for the puppy. Henry has given me some good Swahili and Luo options, as well as some new things to yell at mjinga drivers on the road, so I basically speak Swahili now, but he still calls the Puppy “TP” for “Tiny Puppy” and the fact that this is American slang for toilet paper in these trying times of toilet paper shortage (for you—we are still fine here) is not lost on us. Please vote on the following names and I may or may not actually choose a name for her.

1.     Tiny Puppy, aka TP

2.     Puppiko - Emelie’s preference because she thinks I called her that one time, which is possible because I say lots of things in a high squeaky voice when I am talking to a small adorable creature.

3.     Kakilé - Moussa’s preference as it means “beware of danger” in Fulfulde and this dog is afraid of nothing and no one and loves a good fight.

4.     Kogo  - Ngambaye for ‘smile’ (Ngambaye is a local tribal language that most of my colleagues speak)

5.     Bishi – Ngambaye for dog, which means all the Ngambayes say “No, don’t call her that. That is what she IS, it's not a name.”

6.     Nasara – local term for ‘white person’ which I think is funny, but may confuse her when I take her on walks as people always yell ‘nasara, nasara’ at me when I’m out.

7.     Kim – for a tribe here that is known for always running TO a fight and never from it. But this could be problematic if a Kim is offended by me naming my dog after his or her tribe as you don’t want to mess with a Kim. They might not realize that I think of it as a compliment, though my friend who is a Kim did laugh when I told him.

8.     Cheka – Swahili for ‘smile’ but Victor (also Kenyan) believes that we should not pick a Swahili name for a Chadian puppy.

9.     Msupa is Swahili for ‘pretty, cute thing’ says Henry, but since the Puppy has started biting ankles and has ripped some of Henry’s trousers, he hasn’t been too keen to call her this.

10. Kwach is Luo (a Kenyan tribe—Henry’s tribe) for ‘tiger,’ so said Henry when he suggested it to me because we know that Puppy is ferocious. When I challenged him on why the Luo would have a word for ‘tiger’ when they don’t actually have tigers in Kenya, he specified that they use it for all types of big cats—panthers, cheetahs, the mythical tiger, etc.

11. Pika is the suggestion from Antani’s kids who heard it on TV. I’m wondering if Pokemon shows on TV here possibly?

12. Zilla, short for Godzilla, which is Claire’s preference. She told me the other day that she is tired of me not choosing a name for the puppy, she’s worried that it will be traumatised (British) and so she has arbitrarily decided to call her “Zilla.”

13. There have been many more suggestions, thanks to my nieces and nephews (I liked ‘Sharky’  and ‘Raptor’ because I have been bitten a lot), but feel free to write in your suggestions and add to the impossibility of picking a name for my poor confused fierce ball of teething energy.

Here are some photos so you can see her personality, to help you with your decision.

That's her, squeezed in the middle of York and Joe.

All three dogs wiped out after destroying my house.

On a Masai blanket from Kenya that Jack and his fiancée gave me.
You could make a case for naming her something in Swahili.

Sound asleep in Henry's arms. He likes her, but Joe is his favorite.

I sent this photo to Emelie so she would take Shalom off the list
of possible names for the Puppy. She agreed, but says if I had named
her Shalom from the first, she would never have turned out like this.

I was worried about how the dogs' water bowl was always empty.
I felt really bad that they were always so thirsty and I wasn't on top of it.
Then I saw Puppy splash all the water out of the bowl.
I got her a bigger bowl and she decided to relax in the bath with the emoji of a glass of wine,
which I added to the photo because she is so classy, and I am hilarious.

Why haven't you picked a name for me yet, human?

And she does love stealing the toilet paper,
chewing it up and leaving bits of it all over the house.

"Hehehe, but I'm cute!"

I love them so much.
Also, the Chadian soldier who gave me the puppy told me yesterday
that he is going to give me the other dog that I originally wanted,
but don't worry--I already named him Flip.
And there is still room for him on the bed after I de-tick him.