Happenings 2

Back when it was still beautiful

Back to the trip: we finished two reports in Mangalmé, which is a fascinating little town, home to the minister of roads and transportation who dedicated himself to paving the roads in his little village. There are actual stop signs that I feel compelled to stop at because they are in logical places where you would stop to check if any traffic was coming. While in town, most of the traffic that I saw was the kind that eats grass and pulls carts and does not respect stop signs but there were a few beaten down old lorries that also did not respect stop signs. If you are wondering, I can think of 2 stop signs in N’djamena that I pass by regularly—one that is in the middle of a road on the way to my office, which if you stopped at it, you would definitely be rear-ended by a motorcycle. The other is on the way to Modern Market, also in the middle of a road, just after you get out of a roundabout, and again, no one ever stops there EVER even me when the driver’s side door of the rickety old truck I was driving last week popped open while I was on my way to buy groceries to take out to Claire in partial repayment for her being an amazing friend to me all the time. No, I managed to quickly jerk the steering wheel to the correct side of the road while grabbing the shifter with my right hand and down-shifting, as I caught the door with my left hand and tried to slam it shut while still driving and not hitting a motorcycle that was trying to pass me on the wrong side. I realized that the door was not shutting unless I locked it, so I slammed it again and jammed it down with my elbow, which hurt because I still had stitches in it at the time. But it worked! And now I know that when I drive that truck, which also struggles with many other issues, locking the door is key.

I felt compelled to stop at the stop sign.
I'm pretty sure the chill dudes on the side of the road would have been
unbothered if I hadn't adhered to international traffic rules though.

And back to Mangalmé-but actually we are done there. We dropped off Job’s kids, had lunch and then booked it back to Mongo, stopping on the way to do another report (3 out of 4). The wind and clouds of the impending storm made for some dramatic photos, most of which Nesie took because I was busy playing with a group of kids who were hanging around. They kept sneaking up towards us and when I would turn around, they would run away screaming. Then I kept hiding and jumping out at them because it was more fun that watching Nesie slowly type up the report, but they thought it was really funny, so soon Nesie was doing all of the reporting while surrounded by a crowd of laughing, shrieking children.  We finished JUST before the rains (ok fine, Nesie did), and we carried a few old people in our car back down to their houses so they could get home without getting soaked. When we got to the place where we were staying, it was pouring so hard we couldn’t get the guard’s attention, so we just sat in the car for about 45 minutes waiting for the rain to slow down. Fortunately, I’d bought some Pringles and sodas and a chocolate Swiss roll cake at the petrol station where we’d filled up with diesel in preparation for our trip back the next day so we had sustenance. This was all we ate that night because even after we finally got the attention of the guard and got into the house, it rained ALL night and we couldn’t get back out to buy anything to eat. Job and Nesie were super cool about this, something I’ve noticed almost everywhere I’ve worked in Africa: sometimes you have to skip a meal, but people take it in stride. The only times I’ve skipped meals when traveling with Westerners has been when we’ve been stuffed with food multiple times already for days and we are just full. Usually they have a few (roughly 25 each of all possible flavors) protein bars stuffed away in their backpacks, so they survive easily. We carefully divided up the chocolate Swiss roll cake (the Pringles having been demolished earlier in the truck while waiting for the guard to open the gate) and drank some tea and coffee that was provided in the guest house where we were staying. After I worked on the application on my computer for a bit, we watched the first episode of the Chosen, which I’d downloaded months earlier after 15 people recommended it to me but never managed to convince myself to watch. I probably would never have watched it except that I knew that Job and Nesie would enjoy it, and I thought it was like a new version of the Jesus Film so I wouldn’t have to be translating the whole time. I was wrong and I did have to translate the whole time, but they still enjoyed it. Anyway, the last time I stayed in that guest house, I was with Emelie and we watched movies I had to translate for her, and then I let her read Pride and Prejudice on my phone in French (she was a fan!). So I guess that’s just what I do in the Mongo Guest house.

Playing games with kids

Peaking over the wall

Pretty fun crowd

Car snacks, but before the rain. Actually this was maybe the previous day.
Anyway, it sets the mood.

The next morning we got up early and were frustrated that we couldn’t get ahold of the pastor that we were trying to meet up with, so we decided just to drive out to where we might get better reception. Fortunately, we passed him on the road on his way looking for us. That was probably the most fortunate we were all day, but it was a nice moment.

A solar powered pump that IAS installed nearly 10 years ago,
still in use!

The drive out to the last village was mostly off-road, and as it had rained for hours the day before our visit, the road was a mud-hole. Four-wheel drive engaged in the Land cruiser truck I was driving made the whole car sound like it was about to collapse into pieces. So I just kept the car in low gear and powered through. We made it to the village without getting stuck!

On our way out, we passed an IAS foot pump installed nearly 10 years ago-
also, still in use.

Non-muddy part of the "road"

At the village, we found that they were having a wedding. We arrived as the parade of people carrying household goods to the new bride and groom (a bed frame, pots and pans, woven mats) was disappearing into the compound where the celebration was going to be had.  This concerned me because I wanted to get in, do the report, and get out and drive 500km back to N’djamena and reach home before dark. I had the best of plans prepared! But our reports need interviews with women, who were all occupied with wedding festivities and a photo with as many community members as would like to be in it (usually a lot). So after meeting with the village chief and explaining the situation, we went down to the water point (a bit outside the village and down a small hill—farther away than most people wanted, but in this region where you can find water is where you drill and that is usually at the bottom of the hill, and not at the top). Nesie started doing the basic reporting while I became chauffeur to the stars—shuttling women and children from the wedding prep to come be in the photos and back. They were so excited this! And I am happy to report that it did not hurt the wedding prep at all, and people got to ride in a car, which they thought was very exciting. I impressed them all by learning 3 words in their language, which shows that they are probably way too easily impressed and also how much people appreciate any effort at all in learning about their culture. I wonder how impressed they would be if they heard that now I can only remember one of those three words? (I’m really not that impressive.) I had fun laughing and chatting with the ladies (in Arabic, which they also understood-most have never been to school and are illiterate, but they are bilingual and strong enough to carry 50L of water up a hill, so I think they're pretty impressive), and we got the report done. Then we spent 15 minutes convincing the people that we really couldn’t stay for the wedding, and we couldn’t stay to eat because I had people waiting for me in Bitkine.

Coming down the hill with the ladies. 

We made it out of the village and back to Mongo at the time when I had been planning to be in Bitkine, but Bitkine is only 50km from Mongo, so I was still feeling pretty good about how we were on time. We had to fill up the truck with diesel and buy some snacks. Nesie also had some errands.

Job looking good while the storm rolls in behind him

Here’s a story about Nesie: Nesie had some land in the outskirts of N’djamena. He bought the land. He had the papers. When he went there to start working, he found that other people had built houses on it. They told him it was their land. His friends and family told him to take them to court and Nesie would win. This is the logical thing to do when someone steals from you. Nesie took the radical Jesus-way. He went to the thieves and told them, “You can keep this. My God owns all the land.  He can give me anything He wants, better land than this and even free. I will trust in God.” His friends were shocked. His wife was annoyed. The thieves likely congratulated themselves on their easy win. Fast forward a few years and Nesie had the opportunity to buy about 12 hectares of land (29.6 acres) for almost nothing. It’s good land for farming. There is water nearby and it isn’t far from the road. The land is good and clean and better than the land he had before. He said, “Look what God did! I want to use this land to start a farm so that I can support my family and Chadian church workers who don’t have enough money from the church. I want to bring boys living on the streets in N’djamena doing drugs and get them out here in fresh air, teach them how to plant a garden, give them education and love and a home when most of them have been kicked out of everywhere else. I want to bring in prostitutes who want to leave the life and give them a new chance to start over in a safe place. I want to use this land to bless the most vulnerable people, and share the love of Jesus with them.” It’s important to note that Nesie is already doing this in his life right now—his faith in the Lord never wavered and he started following his dream to help the least even before he had the land. A former prostitute and her baby live with him and his family. Every week he meets with street kids to give them food and water and love on them. Just a thought: it's easy to say you'll do something for others when you get that high-paying job or that new, bigger house. Sometimes people do actually do what they say they will when that happens, but you can usually be sure that people who make a habit of loving and serving others before they have anything are going to continue doing that even more once they have more to give. Anyway, I'm sure of Nesie.

How the ladies of the villages here fetch water

And so when Nesie wanted to stop in Mongo to buy peanuts to plant in the garden, I took a detour and lost 20 minutes. Then before Bitkine we stopped at market day to try to find some cassava roots to plant and lost 30 minutes. At this point, I was losing patience, but still agreed to take a friend of Job’s the remaining 20km or so to Bitkine. And when we got to Bitkine, Antani, who I’d told to be ready to leave at 12, was ready to leave at 1 (I don’t mean she was late—I was late. She was ready at 1 when we got there). And we loaded up into the car and took off. Naturally, as I’ve mentioned a few times in past blogs, we brought a box with a couple of live chickens in it (I can never leave Bitkine without chickens in the car with me). Last time I’d transported chickens (from Dourbali to N’djamena) they hadn’t been properly secured, and they were unfortunately crushed by a sack of rice when I went over a bumpy stretch of road and I felt terrible. We made sure that the chickens were properly secured.

A beautiful lady who graciously let us interview her for our report.

Then it was my turn to make a few stops to take some videos for Neverthirst because the mountains are SO COOL in this particular spot and I always have to take a photo there. But it was a quick stop and then back in the car! The road was smooth so we could drive pretty fast and I may have hit 140kmph (I’m not putting that in miles because Mom) a few times, but I was the only one on the road, so it was ok. I don’t think I was at 140kmph when our tire blew out, and I know it didn’t blow out because of the road, which was lovely and smooth at that part. Fortunately, I kept control of the car, drove us off to the side of the road, and we all piled out.

It's so pretty out here!

Nesie and I jumped into action, digging out the jack and the other tools you need to change a tire, whose names I can’t remember in English. The tire was old and patched already and nothing would have saved it. But we had a nice new spare that I’d bought for the trip, so Nesie heaved that out of the back of the truck while I started loosening the bolts of the flat. Then Nesie crawled under the truck to find a place to put the jack. He was sweating and covered in dirt by the time we realized that the jack at full extension was still too short to get the car up where we needed it. We searched for rocks and were able to get it up enough to get the old tire off, but we had to dig a hole to get the new, fully-inflated tire on. And by the time we finished, we’d lost an hour.

WHY? The road is so smooth!

Definitely flat

It is not the better part of wisdom to drive anywhere in Chad without a spare tire, and we knew the road ahead got worse and worse before it got better. OK, really it never gets better. The best part was already behind us. So we stopped 100km down the road in Bokoro, the next “big” town to repair the tire. But it was impossible to repair. We had to buy a new (to us-it was secondhand) tire. Then after we found the right tire (that took a while) and haggled down the price (and that took a while), Nesie heard a leak in the tire. So they had to take the inner tube out and pour water and try to find the leak, and they couldn’t find it for a long time and that took a while. We lost another hour and a half in Bokoro, and at that point I was very tired and cranky. I hate driving at night here because people blind you with their lights and you can’t see very well because there are no street lights, and the roads are terrible, and it was just bad. We’d barely eaten anything since lunch the previous day at Job’s house in Mangalmé, and I had no appetite, but I also knew I should eat. I also knew there was nowhere else we could really stop before N’djamena. We had to make it home or else. So we got in the car and kept driving.

Team work
And if you were wondering how we dug a hole
so that we could get the new tire on--we chiseled it with a hammer.

I'll probably post the rest of the story later, but these posts do get oppressively long sometimes. If you made it this far, good job! Sorry I don't have a prize for you, but I do promise to show you a good time if you ever come visit me in Africa, so that's something.