Dangdut: September 2023

It’s been a very long time since I have written on the blog. The only excuse is extreme laziness. People keep asking me about it. And some people have even said, “Oh this will end up on your blog for sure!” And I feel bad because nothing has ended up on my blog at all recently. This is concerning because I write the blog so that when people tell me to write my memoirs, I can just send them to the blog, but if there is no blog that means that someday I might actually have to write them. I guess I could just use the laziness excuse again.

Fun time in Kenya

Well, here are some short recaps on various things that have happened to me this year, which I’ve been told should show up on the blog:

My parents came to visit me! It was their first time in Africa, and they opted to fly via Addis Ababa, one of a few options on the way to N’djamena. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but it turns out we arrived right before Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas, which is just after not Ethiopian Christmas and not Ethiopian New Year. Ethiopian Airlines did not manage increased amounts of baggage well. One guy told me he brought 15 pieces of luggage with him. We each only had one suitcase, but none of them came for 3 days. My mom and I had decided to go for comfort over fashion for the trip. My dad drove me crazy in all the airports as he slowly and methodically took off his belt and shoes at each security check (fortunately this time he did not bring a pair of scissors in his carry on—he did forget his covid vaccination card again, but we had a photo so it was fine), but he looked decent in all the photos. Mom and I looked…comfortable but not fashionable. We were just about to go buy new clothes when all my contacts who I had roped in to help us find the bags managed to pester the right people into finding the suitcases. We got them the day before we went on to Chad, so that was lucky for us.

5am in the airport, looking as good as most people do at 5am in the airport

Lost bags in Addis International

Other than the bag stuff, we had a great time in Addis, visiting my friends and trying the food. I forgot that injera is somewhat of an acquired taste and that my parents’ tolerance for spicy food has decreased with age and distance from Indonesia, but they liked most of the food anyway.

With Moussa and Alala in Chad

In Chad we crammed into my tiny house full of happy dogs and plenty of sand. I had so many friends to visit and we drove out to Dourbali to spend the night chez Moussa as well. My dad had promised to paint a mural on the wall of his church building. He’d spent weeks designing it and running it by Moussa who had opinions. The final design was chosen, my dad did an official picture, using all the good colors and framed it up nicely too for a present. When we got to Dourbali, he threw his back out trying to push the truck out of a sand pit even when I told him not to. Then he was in agony for several days until the medicine Claire prescribed fixed him up again. Fortunately, he was still able to get the outline of the mural up on the walls—with two of Moussa’s pastor friends holding him up.

Holding up my Dad as he draws

Not bad for a guy who can't stand up on his own

A local church member colored the mural. I have a full photo of it somewhere, but couldn't find it.

The other highlight of the trip for my parents (besides meeting a million people I talk about all the time, telling me how much nicer Claire’s house looks than mine, and eating pain au raisin at Amandines) was visiting the hippos in the river. Dad told me he really wanted to see some cool African animals and apparently Joe and Pika don’t count. We got to see a big group of hippos just a few meters away from us. Then we went to Kadessou’s house where his wife had prepared a huge feast and he gifted a giant Massa shield to my dad. It was an epic day for Dad who was actually walking around unassisted by that point, thanks to Claire Bedford, PhD (pharmacist Doctor). Mom was tough and feisty the whole trip and went on extra visits while Dad was convalescing in bed with Joe keeping him company and Pika guarding the door.

Taking photos of hippos, with Mom walking slowly in the background,
wearing my clothes.

Hippos!

Mom with Nadji and family, while Dad convalesced chez moi

With the Massa shield

I was a bit concerned about the Massa shield making it all the way to America. It would have been destroyed as toxic waste if my parents were Australian because it is made out of local grass and wood, but I was mostly concerned about they allowing it as checked baggage. Fortunately, due to my consistent presence in Hassan Djamous International Airport, people know me there and I talked my way inside (normally illegal without a boarding pass) so I could get it wrapped in plastic and checked with their other bags.

My airport friends who like that I speak Arabic gave me their badge so I could go inside with my parents.

Supervising the wrapping of the shield.
It made it all the way to Nashville!

After that visit, I was traveling every few weeks: within Chad, Niger, Uganda, DRC, Jordan. and Madagascar. Madagascar was for fun…a friend who doesn’t want to be named and I needed a bit of beach time and relaxing fun. Fortunately, said unnamed friend is a wonderful organizer and all I had to do was buy my ticket and keep her going until she could get to the trip date because she was exhausted and overworked.

I thought I would catch up the blog after my parents left, after the Niger trip, after the Uganda/DRC trip, after the Jordan trip, after the Madagascar trip, but it’s months later, I’ve been on the Kenya trip and the Cambodia trip and the Ethiopia trip, and I still haven’t managed to pull it off.

Niger/Chad travels

Some of my favorite South Sudanese in Uganda

Rolex with Philip on the way to DRC

Sunrise on the Nile #nofilter

Went to Jordan for work, but got to see old friends and their 4 kids
(they didn't have the kids back when we lived in Lebanon together years ago)

Reunited with my Arabic teacher in Jordan
(2007 pics below and present day above)

Good times with my favs in Kenya

❤️

Zip-lining with the Chad and Niger guys in Kenya

Work hard/play hard at neverthirst

I did not get many photos in Cambodia.
Ok-I got a lot of photos, but most are close ups of food, not interesting for other people.

Ethiopia fun

I feel like I should call it a Year Off from Blogging because I am very unmotivated and also very lazy and always tired. I’ve accepted the fact that I am aging rapidly and my body is just not capable of all the activities that used to be so easy for me—typing things on the computer, eating 6 bags of gummy bears for dinner, not having back issues.

I did finally decorated my living room, thanks to birthday presents from friends,
after all the pointed comments from my parents.

For my birthday we also went kayaking and ate lots of cake

I had all the best of intentions to write about each trip. I also meant to write about my kayaking birthday celebration, our new kitten, watching Biola and Bukola’s kitten for them for a few weeks, the river clean up project we started, all the fun adventures I’ve had with my new group of deaf friends who are patiently teaching me Chadian sign language. Fortunately Chadian sign language is closely related to American Sign Language since it was an American missionary who brought deaf education to Chad (among other African nations). I would tell you to go look up Andrew Foster on the internet because he was a very interesting man. Because I’m super nice, here is a link to his wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Foster_(educator).

They patiently help me learn new signs

Abiola and Bukola before they popped over to Nigeria for a few weeks. Kitten not pictured

We're paused for rainy season because the river is so high,
you can't get down to the shore anymore because the shore has come to us.

Road trip with Antani and kids and friends.
13 people in my truck!

Boat trip with Kadessou

Probably most of the funny stories would have been about our brain damaged cat, Ziguégué. We, using the internet in the way it was intended, have diagnosed her with cerebellar hypoplasia, which is literally brain damage. It means she walks like she is drunk, turns lots of accidental somersaults, and makes Manon and me laugh a lot. She also is deeply in love with both dogs, especially Pika, and loves to try to jump on her and attack her tail. Pika does not find this as amusing as Manon and I do.

We got her when her eyes were still closed and fed her
yoghurt and evaporate milk with a syringe.

Antani, Abiner, Joe, Pika, and Zig came with me to the airport for one of my trips.
I had Barka drive because he told me had a license. That is when I found out he doesn't
know how to drive a stick. So I yelled "embrayage" (clutch) when I needed him to push it with his foot
and shifted gears for him with my hand. Then I called Mariassou to pick them up.
I have high hopes that Barka will learn how to drive manual transmission soon.

I’ve also discovered that my Chadian friends do not respect the names I’ve chosen for my pets. For several years, Joe has been known around the neighborhood as “Gane Gueye”. Initially I thought they were calling him “Danaby” because of his beautiful tail (it's hard to hear on the street while walking the dogs), but they said they want to call him Gana Gueye because Joe is a cool dog and Idriss Gana Gueye is a cool Senegalese footballer. I’m fine with that because I am a fan of the Senegalese team.

Moussa decided a long time ago to call Pika “Kakilé”, a Fulfulde word meaning something like “beware of the dog.” It does suit her until you get to know her and realize all she wants is to unconditionally love you and lick your feet or arm for about 20 minutes while you’re watching a movie (or Le Bureau des Légendes with Manon and me).

She did not appreciate being a fake wet nurse for Zig.
This may be partly why Pika runs away whenever Zig gets too close.

And Antani has been calling Ziguégué “Karambani,” which she says is Ngambaye for someone who is always getting into things (she thinks—she isn’t Ngambaye, but the Ngambayes are proud of their language and it has been incorporated into a lot of Ndjamena slang). It is apt. I’ve been told by others that it is actually Chadian Arabic. I think that is more likely as it is one of the 4-5 languages that Antani speaks. Ziguégué, for the record, is Chadian Arabic for a small gift or snack. People were concerned if we called her that then the dogs would think she was fair game to chew on, but they have never once come close even to biting her (though they’ve growled at her when she has bitten their tails/legs and tripped over them when they’re eating). This was unexpected because there is a cat that hangs out on our roof that they hate passionately. They’ve tried so hard to jump on to the roof, using the fire of their fury, and chomp its head off, but they’ve not managed that just yet.

She's a music lover

Zig and I like the stringed instruments

Happy playing together

And here I am, back from yet another trip since I started writing this but not having finished, and then Claire mentioned again that I’ve not written on my blog in a while (true) so I went back to read over when I wrote. And I’m thinking it’s good enough for now…There are things that happened that haven’t been mentioned, but if you want to imagine my life, bref—it’s crazy amounts of travel, visiting people and places I enjoy, eating all my favorite foods from those places (shekela tibs, rolex, klichi), having meetings that are sometimes productive, filming lots of videos for neverthirst donors… interspersed with a few weeks at home, working on the computer, taking Hausa lessons when the internet is working (as I write this it is not working, which is why I’m actually finishing this but how will I post it?), playing with my dogs and cat, watching French tv shows with Manon, helping Sabit and my deaf friends learn a bit of English, trying to speak better French so I can be nice to Manon who really appreciates when I bother to use the subjunctive tense, hanging with Claire chez moi when she needs to get away from the hospital, making Thai food with Antani during a rainstorm, running slowly around my neighborhood remembering when I used to be young and fast, plotting the downfall of the Cameroonian bar next to my house, which has started having weekend parties that go from 3pm to 5-6am (unacceptable), taking my friend’s kid to the French bakery near our houses and filling her up with chocolate ice cream, eclairs, and cake and then sending her home…anyway, it’s not a bad life.

I did not take this photo. It was in the news when a hippo decided to trot down the street,
and the military came out to make sure no one died.

I'm so lucky to have Manon as a neighbor because not only will she
pick me up from the airport, correct my French without laughing (sometimes),
get arrested with me when we go out looking for hippos on the river, but she also
accepts all the pathetic animals I bring home unquestioningly and even helps take care of them.