Can't Think of a Title About Traveling I've Not Yet Used

It’s been a while since I’ve written. If I hadn’t written that last post about breaking my arm, I could have used that excuse, but I think traveling and life has kept me too busy. Also when I’m traveling, I’m staying in hotels with good wifi so I can use Marian’s netflix account and mess up her algorithm by watching reality tv shows about people on boats and documentaries about crime people getting caught and once even a serious show about a woman escaping her emotionally abusive partner and trying to navigate complicated and inadequate social services because she has no one else she can lean on, which made me glad that I have people all over the world that I can lean on.  And speaking of the world...

This is how seriously I take my job*

I’m currently in Pakistan visiting some partners we are hoping to work with to bring clean water to some vulnerable people here. I’m excited that I got to make this trip because technically I’m the Africa Programs Director and Pakistan, I hope you know, is in Asia. It’s a good chance for me to pull out my rusty Hindi and visit my first ‘Stan (though I’ve plans for a few more hopefully in 2022!!) and of course I mostly came for the food. Just say yes to curry. Always. And throw some more chilis in there too. 

We stopped by the Indus River on a busy highway 
because I've long been interested in it since learning about
the Indus Valley Civilization in Hrappa as a kid.

It was a stupid long trip with unfortunate connections. As always, I follow my strict policy of arriving at the airport in Chad early to avoid lines of people who don’t normally travel by plane who often casually push in front of you and wave you off if you say anything. Note: I never say anything, I just give POINTED LOOKS. Chadian and members of nearby African nations flying alongside me however, will sometimes say things. Once there was even a fistfight. I try to stay out of all of the fights anyway, but I inevitably feel guilty whenever I get huffy with a little old lady in traditional clothes, traveling maybe for the first time in her life, who is very stressed and really doesn’t know what she is doing. I rarely remember to have compassion until I’ve already been rolling my eyes, and then I feel bad and try to make up for it by helping carry one of their 25 plastic bags full of various and sundry necessities up the stairs into the plane. After doing this for several women, I read an article about how sweet looking old ladies, who are actually drug mules, get you to help with their bags so your fingerprints are on them, and you are implicated in their crime. Clever plot and those bags are always super heavy so a few kilos of illegal substances likely wouldn't be noticed. I’ll still probably help them, but here is me going on the record saying I am not complicit in drug trafficking! If I’m ever arrested for that it was because I was trying to help a little old lady who I’d previously huffed at for elbowing past me in line, and I felt bad about it.

Eating a local hot chili as everyone around me says it will kill me.
It did not. It was not even the hottest one I've eaten, so I think I got a dud.

I don’t mind helping when I’m traveling. The places where I travel in the increasingly inter-connected world where we live often have people walking around with confused expressions on their faces, and speaking a few languages as I do, I can overhear conversations, and I am not too timid (and not good enough at minding my own business) to jump in and help. At the NDJ airport last, I heard the posh clipped tones of a fancy Brit who’d spent a brief amount of time at the new British embassy and the UNDP and was wondering which gate she should be waiting at in the airport. I helpfully informed her that though technically it does say that there are two gates, only one is ever open at a time and you are hustled out the gate to the waiting bus through various bag checks (though your bag has already gone through an electric scanner twice by this point), and been frisked (though you’ve already been frisked and been through an electric scanner once by this point), and had your passport and ticket checked anywhere between 4-6 times (though they’ve also already been checked by 4-6 people previously). After waiting on the bus, now festooned with signs calling for social distancing and covid prevention, for a varying amount of time as they stuff it full of people wearing facemarks under their chins, possibly with the AC on, more likely without it, you’re then driven about 50 meters to the only plane waiting on the tarmac. When the doors of the bus open, you’re caught in the current of the crowd, swept up the stairs, tripping on robes and smacked in the ankles by roll-y bags, before making it on your flight. It’s really impossible to get on the wrong flight or be at the wrong gate.

Taking notes, apparently about something funny.
I think Sunil is probably making a joke.

Once on the plane, you may have to negotiate for the seat written on your ticket. This is where I start offering my services to flight attendants, speaking French or Arabic to help those around me find their seats, get a blanket, order the chicken. The Ethiopian flight attendants are always really grateful, but they’ve not yet been grateful enough to share injera and tibs with me at dinner time. Leif says he once charmed them into a plate full of shiro and tibs. I’ve tried but I don’t think I have his Swedish charm.

Cannon pose with Nadeem on Umerkot Fort

Once in Addis Ababa International Airport, also festooned with covid prevention signs, I obediently sat at the end of an empty bench that was quickly filled up with a group of other ladies. I made small talk with a lady from Niger, commenting on her croix d’Agadez earrings and assuring her that we had plenty of time before we needed to get in line to board. While I was in line boarding, I overheard a young man who was trying to figure out why he was pulled out of the line. He asked some other francophone Africans and they all said, “I don’t know, man. I can’t speak English.” So I offered to help, and I got things sorted for him. When he got on the plane and walked past where I was sitting, he smiled and thanked me again. In the plane I Arabicked some men into understanding that they were in my seat and their seat number changes on each boarding pass so even though they were in 26ABC on their first flight, now they were in 43DEF. In Dubai I then helped a Burkinabé guy on his way to Glasgow where his very limited English will likely be quite useless to him and finally made my way to the fancy airport lounge that I just found out I can access for free due to my insurance. I’m not gonna lie, as a generally healthy person, this is the most I have ever gotten any money’s worth out of an insurance plan. Plus there is no way I could have convinced myself to spend $800 on a hotel room. Apparently sometimes they have $300 rooms available, but I wouldn’t pay that either. So I skipped sleeping in a bed and dedicated myself to the consumption of lounge food and beverages (free!) and wifi and reading documents I should have read last week but didn’t.

Signing the visitor's book in the village with the beautiful Sonia

When I finally got to Pakistan, in spite of being stopped at boarding because my ticket said my point of origin was Ethiopia, which is on the no go list for Pakistan (I convinced them I originated from Chad using boarding passes and the Pakistan travel health app), some nice English-speakers made sure that I knew where to go to get a rapid PCR test, required on arrival, and then got my boarding pass stamped before getting the results back because the stamp was the important part. At immigration I was helped through by a Pakistani American guy and later a Pakistani Brit chatted with me as I waited for my suitcase. Karma! Or it would be if I were going to India, but I was told while in Pakistan not to talk too much about being in India. I’ve found that to be mostly impossible, but I have tried not to be too loud about it.

Walking down from the top of Umerkot Fort.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying being back in Asia, having food made with multiple spices, all of which I love, buying brightly colored clothes with Kehkshan so I could be culturally appropriate, visiting museums with scary-looking mannequins dressed in beautiful traditional clothes beside plaques detailing classical tragic love stories from across the country, the incredible generosity of people I’ve only just met showering me with gifts and kindness and chai. 

Taking a video of my fav kid Dilip who was too cute

I’ve been thinking, “It’s so nice to be back in Asia. I would love to live in Pakistan, probably because it feels like home to me from my childhood on this continent.” Then I remembered that I had also thought, “I would love to live here” when I was in Djibouti, and I’ve seriously contemplated moving to Ethiopia (though I hate traffic, being a road-ragey kind of person who thinks no one else should dare be on the road when I’m driving). Also, recently while in Switzerland I thought, “It’s so lovely here. What a nice place to live!” And when I’m back in Chad it feels like home too with my dogs and my friends and knowing people in the airport. I didn’t want to live in Dubai though. But I was very impressed by whoever does the azan for the Dubai airport—his voice is beautiful, haunting, makes you feel like you’re in a real Arab country and not a fancy building built by underpaid overworked migrants. Anyway, here’s to Pakistan—first time I have ever visited, already want to live here for the rest of my life until I visit another country, and I’m sure I'll want to live there.

This photo makes me feel like we are walking towards the camera,
getting ready to burst into song and dance like we are in a Bollywood film.

*All photos taken during the Pakistan Trip, after I started writing this blog, before I finished it. Blogs without pictures are boring.

Hands

Several weeks ago, I fell and broke my left wrist. I’m right handed so I didn’t think it would cause too many issues for me until I realized that I used both hands to put my hair up (essential in the hot humid weather we’re currently having here in Chad) and to get dressed and type blog posts faster than a caveman learning about technology. It gave me a newfound appreciation for that surfer girl whose arm got bit off by a shark and started me on a campaign to convince the doctor to let me get the cast off early. (I won! Never underestimate the power of cookies.)

The people around me said, "It's fine. Give it a few minutes and you'll feel better."
I said, "I don't think it's supposed to look like this."

The incredibly patient Dr Kalbassou

The saw thing makes me nervous

You can see pen marks and the henna at the top that looks like a bruise.

I got the cast off and my arm is shrunken and smelly with pen marks from where I scratched it with an open pen so I didn’t lose the top down there. It also had the remains of the henna designs my friend Samira did for me in Niger. They’d long washed off my other hand, but the cast had protected them longer than necessary. 

I admired Samira's henna and she offered to do it for me.

She said she's not really good at it.
I think she's wrong.

I can’t remember the first time I had henna drawn on my hands. Probably it was in the Middle East. I know I did it in India and my refugee friends in the US did it for me once. I’ve had it done for weddings in Sudan several times. I always admired how the women had these patterns and designs in their minds and could squeeze the mud out of a little plastic bag so perfectly. I asked some Somali and Yemeni guys once if they thought it made women more beautiful to have henna on their hands. They looked at me blankly for a minute and then said, “Uh, yeah…sure,” which led me to conclude that most of them don’t notice it much. But women do. 

India 2013?

Yemen 2011? I also don't know why my face is like that.

Women in the US and other “western” countries don’t have the culture of doing henna designs on their hands, but I’ve occasionally been a part of the pre-wedding mani-pedi. Having pretty nails is something mostly we women appreciate probably more than men for whatever reason, but I do think most people, regardless of gender, often do appreciate nice hands—whether from a Christmas-themed manicure done by your artistic sister who used a toothpick to draw reindeer and stockings on your nails (Happy birthday, Joanna!) or from a friend who is handy with the henna. An old Chadian adage says, “Don’t eat with someone with dirty nails,” which makes a lot of sense considering we eat from a communal plate here. So clearly people notice your nails.

I’ve been thinking about these things a lot, especially after I showed up with with beautiful henna designs on my hands (thanks to my friend Samira) in a remote village in Niger where we are doing water projects. I like to talk to the ladies about water and just hang out with them whenever I’m in the field. They are amazing and have really interesting stories. They’re stronger than I could ever hope to be, and they’re funny and kind and resilient. We laugh together often, and I usually have to be dragged away by whatever man is with me keeping track of the time. (This is not a comment on gender stereotypes, this is just reality that usually it’s me traveling with a bunch of men.) I almost always find out interesting things I hadn’t known that I should be looking for. And that is exactly what happened this time.

Fun ladies

We have the same Arabic name so that was a good connection.

Instant bond

See? Always with men. This is my military escort.

We were talking about how the new water point would change their lives and the women started showing me their hands—everyone had gnarled and bumpy fingers with thick callouses making their thumbs and joints extra knobby. They called out women who had the largest callouses to come and show me. Some of them were embarrassed, but others came up and showed me and told me to take photos. One woman explained, “These hands look bad because we throw buckets down into the open wells to get water. Then we pull the heavy water buckets back up by the ropes. We do this so much that our hands develop these callouses.” As Claire said to me when talking about how my broken wrist is healing, “The human body really is amazing.” And this is a way that their bodies adapted to be stronger. But women everywhere usually do want to be beautiful. And these ladies hadn’t decorated their hands with henna. They didn’t want to show them off. Most of them were twisting them in their robes and kind of shy-laughing as we chatted. 

I felt a bit embarrassed by my henna-hands, which I’d done to have a reason to hang out with Samira, who was fun and sweet, and also because I do love how it looks. I talk with my hands, which you’ll know if you’ve ever seen me in any of neverthirst’s videos. I wave them around even when not on camera, using them to describe things more dramatically, a trait I probably picked up from living in a multi-cultural and multi-lingual environment most of my life—it really helps get the point across if you don’t know (or don’t remember) a word in the language you’re trying to speak. But while I’d been very proud of my hands before, and shown them off to many people and my 20 friends on Instagram, I felt like twisting mine in my own long dress, ashamed of my dainty princess fingers and the easy, comparatively rich life I lucked into when I was born to educated middle class white American parents.

Talking with my hands to some local leaders

But as these ladies showed me their hands, I thought of the time they spend every day pulling up water for their families, serving their children and husbands and relatives living with them and animals providing them with their livelihood, and I know that they have nothing to be ashamed of, and much to be proud of. So after Aisha (name changed) showed me her hands so I could take a photo of them because she wanted me to show people outside what they suffer for water in Niger, I held her hands in mine and told her that her hands were beautiful. Her hands show her love for her family. Her hands show her strength and perseverance in hardship. Her sacrifice for people she loves. And I told her that God sees that and loves her. She smiled at me, still embarrassed, but I wanted to say it, for the record. For her, in case she ever thinks about it someday. For me, to remember that in spite of hard things I’m facing in my life right now, I don’t really have it so bad. For God, because I know He would say that to her, but He wants the Body to go out and be His Hands and Feet to serve others (or His mouth to speak His words to them).

And speaking of serving others, I’m so thankful for those who donated to this and other neverthirst projects. Because honestly, pretty words are often only as effective as henna on an arm in an old school plaster of Paris cast that weighs two kilos according to the bathroom scale Naomi gave me. You know what says “God values you and cares about your suffering” more clearly than French translated into the local language? A new water system with tap stands and a water tank that provides a jerry can full of water in less than a minute with no wear and tear on the hands, no dead animals and bugs having to be fished out at the top, no danger of children falling in. Again, we are the Body of Christ. His hands and His feet. We serve those in need in His name. We can’t multiply loaves and fishes, but we can use our resources to provide for those who don’t have them in the name of Jesus, and it’s such a blessing to us when we get to be a part of the answer to prayer. 

Also sometimes you get to climb water towers and that is always fun
though hard to do in a dress.

The End of an Era

Taking Nathan to the airport on the day of the funeral,
so I brought Joe to help us get through the checkpoints. 

There’s no music playing anywhere. I noticed that this morning while taking the dogs for a quick walk around the neighborhood. I’m pretty sure I’ve complained a lot about loud throbbing music blaring through the night. It is one of my biggest struggles every country where I’ve lived in Africa. I have theories as to why it doesn’t seem to bother anyone but me, but it really does bother me. I’ve used ear plugs and white noise apps on my phone, but the buzz of a bass gets into my skull and makes me crazy (or crazier than usual). I get really swear-y. I have been known to throw things. In South Sudan, I actually did something positive and taught myself how to whistle loudly, with the index finger and thumb against my teeth. I always wanted to know how to do that, and no one could hear my attempts or successes, so it worked out well. 

While I don’t love music shaking the walls of my house even during the day, I don’t mind it much when I’m out walking around the neighborhood, passing by people hanging out in the shade with their radios tuned to classic African pop. I mostly hate when people call things “African” because it generalizes an entire continent, and African music is very diverse, but the pop stuff around here sounds pretty similar. People in South Sudan and Chad and Uganda and elsewhere have told me that they love Congolese music. “Lingala is the best language for singing,” I’ve heard. So we get a lot of that around here. I like the upbeat bounciness of the majority of the music—it’s got such a happy feel to it. I like watching children gathered around dancing their adorable little hearts out. But there has been no music here in Chad over the last few days. Not near me anyway.

During the covid curfew days of last year and early this year, I reveled in the quiet nights when bars were forced to shut down anywhere from 7pm to 11pm, depending on the whims of the government. Now, radios are still on, but everyone is tuned to the news.

I had been asked by my sister to write a blog about the recent elections, as I had described with gleeful detail some of the interesting and amusing campaigning going on. I didn’t love that MPS (the president’s party) kept loudspeakers on all night and into the wee hours of the morning, blaring Sudanese/Chadian Arabic style music (I am a bit nostalgic about this music, but I tend to prefer Congolese pop myself, even if it turns out the Koffi Olomide is not a very nice guy in real life). I’m out running around 5:30am in the mornings and the speakers are still blaring and NO ONE is around to listen. I don’t get it. During the campaign, cars started sticking posters of the President to their windows and bumpers, and I wondered if it was for ease of making it through checkpoints or genuine support of MPS policies. Once when stopped at a checkpoint, I watched people coming up behind us, getting their MPS flags out and hanging the out the window, getting ready for their turn at the checkpoint. A bit telling, I thought. 

MPS "Support Offices" popped up all over before the election.
This one near my house amused me because they didn't think the space 
between "du" and "MPS" was important, making this fun for English speakers,
and the 30 years of democracy because of one party shows that they might not really
understand what democracy actually is.

On the last day of the President’s big campaign, he held a rally down the street from my house. As I was out running early that morning, I passed by about 50-75 people who had come to camp out in front of the stadium where he would speak. They also came with about 30-40 horses. I loved that. I also loved that the ladies all cheered for me as I ran by. Women supporting women right there. On my way back down that street at the end of my run, I noticed that along with posters of the president’s face, which had already been adorning the lampposts for days now, there were about 4-5 giant blue beach ball type things also sporting a smiling president, affixed to the lampposts as well. I definitely stopped my run a bit earlier than usual to ask a soldier if I could touch one—I wanted to see what it was made of. He grunted assent and it turns out that it was actually a giant beachball, which has really kept me up at night wondering how that ended up being an important campaign expense. Someone on the team really thought, “Hey, posters are boring—what about giant blue blow-up beach balls with the Pres on them? That will really bring out the vote.” Whatever the reason, I really wanted one for my trip to the beach in Cameroon planned for a couple days after the election.

After the rally they moved this now-deflating ball to the airport.
I took this sneaky picture because it was worth the risk.

The campaign beach balls reminded me of this Amazon review.

My lovely friend Amanda and I decided to take on Kribi, Cameroon together.  She needed to get out for a bit, and I was happy to join her by the beach. We had a lot of fun confusing people by having the same name, teasing each other about our very different upbringings (she’s Canadian and I’m Equator Girl), swimming as much as possible and trying different kinds of shrimp and fish. We also had the most stressful time navigating the Cameroonian covid testing system, but thanks to a very kind Cameroonian lady, we got the results 15 minutes before our flight closed. 

More Cameroon photos on Instagram if you're curious about Kribi.
I'm not very good at Instagram, but I think I'm called "thedangdutlife" on there.

Amanda2

The day before we were to leave, we heard that rebel forces were closing in on N’djamena. I checked with my people on the ground in Chad and Amanda did too. They all said that they thought it would be ok to come back. My people in the US and in Australia did not like that idea, but after much insistence, some unfair insinuations from me about their motivations, and reminders of my Birkman personality test (I scored a 99% in my need for freedom), they left it to my own intuition, which has never failed to lead me into exciting places. When we left Cameroon, all was calm. When we landed, my phone blew up with whatsapp messages telling me that the roads were blocked and the military was out, and people were in full panic mode. My colleagues couldn’t get to me to pick me up, and told me to take a taxi home if I could. There were no taxis at the airport (unusual as Chad has the same “hey, come to my taxi” people that every other nearby airport has), so Amanda and I shared her taxi, which she had arranged previously to pick her up. He was the only taxi there. While people in the airport had all be smiling and reassuring, the taxi driver said, “hurry, get in, things aren’t good.” That was concerning, but as we drove to Amanda’s to drop her off, we noticed that more and more people were out. By the time I reached home, we had been told that the tanks on every corner were put there as a show of force and nothing had happened or was happening to cause concern, and people were sheepishly returning back to normal. That night we were told by the American Embassy to expect celebratory gunfire as the President’s election victory was going to be announced. No one was surprised that he had won. Most people had boycotted the elections, not wanting to stand around in 110/43 heat to vote in what many considered to be a pre-determined election. 

Ballot boxes in Chad, there was one around the corner from my house.
I saw less than 10 people there.

The next day I drove to the airport to see Claire off. Her mission insisted that they evacuate, as per the advice of the British Embassy that had also evacuated. We were very sad, and I didn’t want to miss saying goodbye. Everything seemed mostly calm that day. We expected security levels to go back to normal, but later that morning we heard the news that the President had died from wounds sustained at the front. 

I'm not much for crying, but when I heard the 21 gun salute (which we had been warned about,
as Chad military learned that people are very sensitive to abnormal use of weapons right now),
I cried for the end of a man's life. For his grieving family, for a tense and frightened nation,
for all that he did and all that he should have done. Paix à son âme.

President Deby, a military man to the core, long prided himself on actively leading his troops into battle. He was a good soldier who fought for his country and turned the Chadian military into the strongest in the region—the only one that successfully fought off Boko Haram, Al Qaeda Maghreb and other terrorist groups. He kept stability in the region, and without Chadian troops, Boko Haram would have recked even more havoc in Nigeria and Chad. But he also amassed great wealth for himself, his family, and his tribe to the detriment of a country he ruled for 30 years, leaving behind 90% unemployment, 30% literacy for men, 13% literacy for women, barely 50% access to water, and 16% access to improved sanitation facilities. These are not good conditions. Chad remains one of the poorest countries I’ve ever been in, though there are many resources that could be used to build up the economy from leather to cashews to gold to shea butter to oil or agriculture. People are desperate for change, and they need a good leader. And there were some good candidates, ready to run and work hard for their country. I have my personal favorite and I’m praying that free and fair elections are held someday and he somehow makes it. I am praying that the rebels fighting don’t send the country to civil war and then change one all-powerful tribe for another. It would be devastating for the country. But I’m also hopeful that their military will stay strong because it would be destabilizing for the region if it doesn’t. And the only role I hope the French play in a country where they have allowed and encouraged and supported a 30 year dictatorship is to ensure peaceful and fair elections and keep the country from descending into civil war. People here are saying (and I agree with them) that it is time for the French to stop treating Chadians like children. They have the right to choose for themselves. 

Chad is on the brink—of civil war that would destroy lives and set this already impoverished country even farther back than the rest of the world or of a new era of opportunities and freedom and development. Please pray with me for the latter, for this country that is so precious to me, and its people who are my family now, and this region that has been so exploited by outsiders for so long. Pray for music again (but not the kind that shakes my walls at night, please). Pray for peace. Pray for hope. Pray for new beginnings that lead to opportunity for the 15 million people of Chad.

Some more photos of real people who long for peace and opportunities.

Maybe different from you, but also the same. 

They are Chad. And I love them.