Dusty Travels

I just got back from a really lovely relaxing vacation with two close friends where we wandered around old cities, swam in the sea for as long as we could take the cold, and boated around really pretty islands. I’ll share some photos, but not too many so you won’t get jealous. If you do get jealous, remember that I had to take 3 planes to get there and it was very long and tiring and more expensive than I had originally planned for it to be. And on the first plane a lady tried to put her feet in my lap and sleep. I said no. Then she put her head in my lap, but got up when I kept accidentally (probably) poking her whenever I moved.

But don't forget I had to endure this first:

I pushed her feet off my lap with my bag
and then a little while later she changed positions.
I'm sure she slept fine on her trip to Dubai.

And then, after all the relaxing good times, I got to come back to Chad, where I do want to be, but getting here can definitely take a toll. For one thing, no one knows that Chad exists outside of Chad so airports are often very confused about where I’m going. They never give me my boarding pass early enough. 

I had 14 hours in Athens, but I also have free lounge access, and l do enjoy lounging in airport lounges when they have good food and everything is free (Athens lounges have good food). But Croatia to Greece is Schengen so I had to leave the Domestic Terminal to go to the International Terminal, and couldn’t get back to the lounges until Ethiopian Airlines decided to open their check in (which they don’t do until last minute). I wanted to go out and wander a bit in Athens but I wanted to come back before dark and lounge it up. My flight was at 2am. Fortunately, after many emails and help from the wonderful Anurag, travel agent extraordinaire, I got my boarding pass early. I then wandered down to the port in Athens, which was actually fairly boring because it was only cruise ships and shops. I already did Athens tourist stuff 15 years ago (to the day!) with some cool friends back when we were young and spry so I wanted to do something else and it was not the best, but I did get some fresh air.

I mean, it was a nice little walk, I guess...

The flight from Athens to Addis was uneventful. Then I boarded my flight to N’Djamena, which is where everything started to get tense. First, the lovely Anurag pre-booked my seats. He knows I like the aisle. But he put me in the front of the plane, which I avoid when booking for myself for many reasons. The reason that is now the most important to me is avoiding the very entitled Chadian women who are rich enough to go to Dubai to stock their businesses for their families. When I first saw these gaggles of women on my flights, I tried to be compassionate, thinking that their pushiness was just nerves on their first flight. I have now come to realize that is not the case. They’re pros. They’re also pros at using their inability to speak English with the Ethiopian flight attendants and their inability to speak French with non-Arabic speaking travelers to do whatever they want on the flight. One lady in particular insists on taking a specific seat, even if it is not hers, and will be very annoying until people give up and give it to her. I’ve seen her do it many times, but I was not in a mood to take it, and I do happen to speak both French and Arabic. She was in my seat. She tried to refuse to move. I showed her my ticket. She motioned to the middle seat. I said no, you are in my seat, and you need to move to yours. Where is your boarding pass? She said, “I lost it.” (Unlikely, as she would have had to show it to get on the plane.) I said, “Look, airplanes are not like busses. There are rules.” She yelled that she knows everything about airplanes and flies all the time. Then she moved to her seat, but she poked her elbows and knees into me most of the flight and leaved heavily into my seat (she is a hefty woman). I ignored her, and settled into the flight.

Memories of the good times keep you going during the tough times,
aka when someone is jabbing you with her elbow for 4.5 hours.

Everything was mostly fine until we started to land in N’Djamena. The pilot circled a couple of times and then sharply pulled up like we were dodging a missile or a flock of birds. Immediately the Italian Catholic priest across the aisle from me whipped out his prayer beads and on the other side of my All-Knowing Seat-sharing traveling companion was a Muslim mullah from Saudi Arabia who whipped out the Quran app on his phone and began chanting surahs loudly (wearing a 15th century outfit, but with 21st century technology). Finally the pilot gave a whispered announcement I couldn’t hear as Chadians loudly asked what the guy was saying and those of us who speak English tried to tell them to be quiet so we could hear. I flagged down a flight attendant who told me that we were going on to Kano (Nigeria) for an undetermined amount of time because of a dust storm in N’Djamena that messed up visibility. Then I passed the news on in French and Arabic until everyone understood. I wanted to go back and pass it on in Chinese too, but they seemed to get it and the aisles were fairly blocked. 

We landed in Kano, and before the plane comes to a complete stop, the commerce ladies are up, in the aisle, with all bags unloaded. The flight attendants are yelling sweet nothings to them about staying in their seats with seat belts fastened, and they are studiously ignoring them. Finally they understand that we are not yet leaving the plane. Everyone settled back in (bags strewn about on the floor still) and we started to get acquainted. I was happy to meet Sharon, an English missionary doing Bible translation on her way back from some months in the UK. Oscar in front of me is an Italian hotelier with African Parks going to the place I really want to visit in Chad but haven’t yet gotten to see. I connected him with the Italian priest and hands were flying as they chatted in their native tongue. I texted Anurag for an update and found that there was a new guy named Sameer coming from India to join their travel agency. It is his first trip to Africa and I should try to say hi. I saw an Indian guy not too far behind me and thought—that must be him! So I went over to say hi and it was not him at all. It was another very nice and now very confused Indian guy named Anees coming to Chad for work completely unrelated to Satguru Travel. When they finally let us go into the airport to sit in chairs that were almost as uncomfortable as the airplane ones, I met Sameer and let him speak on the phone with Anurag. He was also initially very confused that a strange white lady greeted him by name and also knows where he works and where he is coming from, and it will probably take a while before he wants to be my friend, but I’m sure I’ll win him over.

Note the juice box is as long as my thumb.
I do not actually have extra-long thumbs.
It did not quench the thirst.

Eventually they took our passports and sent us off to hotels for the night. I sympathized with the poor Nigerian airport workers as the Chadian commerce ladies imperiously demanded things from them, pushed past them and generally caused more mayhem and confusion than necessary. None of them spoke Arabic or French either. Eventually, they put me with the business class people (because I have Gold status on Ethiopian Airlines), and things were a bit calmer for me for a few hours. Still no one really knew when/if we were going back to the airport the next day. They said we would get a 5am wake up call and leave at 6. Then they said we would leave at 7 so we could have breakfast first. Then they gave everyone a 5:20 wake up call for reasons unknown to anyone. None of us were late, and everyone was very nice to everyone else. I would like to point out that there WERE Chadians in the group, but none of them were Commerce Ladies. I did hear one of the commerce ladies screaming that she had platinum status (which I would believe because they seem to be on every single flight I’m on), but she was not taken to the business class hotel probably because “you catch more flies with honey.” (Though in Chad, you can catch flies simply by existing so she probably doesn’t know that expression.)

When you take the stairs in a hotel, you never know what you might stumble upon.
I found this room of Christmas decorations. I can't decide if Santa is smoking a pipe
after decapitating one of his more recalcitrant reindeer or if someone sent him a message,
Godfather-style, and he is contemplating his John Wick-style revenge.
(Note: I have seen the Godfather, but not JW.
Because of my TCK trauma, I stay fairly up to date with pop culture
so I can know what I'm fake-laughing at. I believe JW is Keanu Reeves taking down evil people who killed his dog. I could get murderous if someone messed with my dogs, so the plot seems believable,
but I have chosen other films to watch on long flights because I don't watch movies where dogs die.) 

The next morning at 7am sharp, we head back to the airport. We arrived before 8am, which is, incidentally, the time that the airport actually opens. Something that you would think the organizers of our Nigerian tourist experience should have known. Everyone plonked down on the sidewalk in front of the airport, no problem for Chadians, even commerce ladies, but some of the nasaras were looking around for chairs or leaning against the walls. When they finally let us in the airport, again it was mass chaos of pushing and shoving (Commerce Ladies) and the English missionary (who speaks excellent French and Chadian Arabic) trying to tell everyone to stay in the queue! She was ignored and I’m really worried for her in Chad while she tries to lose her British love for waiting patiently in lines. I sympathized, really I did, but there are some battles you have to accept that you cannot win. 

Another angle on vengeful Santa.

We make it inside and are eventually forced into a line that is inching forward. We are close enough to the front that we can see a very harried and confused bunch of Nigerian immigration officials fighting with the crowds to stay calm and wait for their passports. Women screamed out their names at the poor men who were trying to differentiate between Fatima Abaker and Fatemeh Aboubaker Hadje and Hissein Ali and Ali Hassan and so on. One of the business class men I’d been chatting with told me I should go help because I can speak to everyone. I said that I didn’t want to be “that know it all white girl” but he dragged me there and offered my help to the Nigerians and they said, “Please, yes, please help!” Next thing I knew, I was in the immigration booth behind a stack of passports, sorting names and yelling at women to wait in line and then verify that we had handed them the right passports before moving on to the next people. I also helped the official sort out babies who didn’t have passports (one of them was so young, it might have actually been born in Nigeria the previous night) and the one Chadian lady who didn’t have her passport because she had been in jail in Saudi Arabia and they had confiscated her passport, given her a boarding pass and sent her back home. We also had an issue with one man coming through and saying his mother was still sleeping back at the hotel. Someone went to get her. Finally there was only one passport left, and it was another guy also sleeping at the hotel. I don’t know how they do it, but they must have slept through wake up phone calls and door pounding. The harried Ethiopian Airlines Kano-based official, a very nice Ethiopian man who was very grateful to me for my help and very appreciative of my appreciation for his country’s food (we had a little conversation in the midst of the chaos), told me he found the guy crying at the door that he was going to miss his flight. So that was sorted. 

Eventually we got on the plane, flew the 1 hour flight to NDJ, and we were home! Poor Sharon, though—the Commerce Ladies charged through the plane the minute it touched down as it was still moving towards the terminal, throwing bags down no matter whose head might be in the way. My lady, who was much nicer to me on the last flight and even kept her elbows to herself, climbed over me before I even got my seatbelt off. Sharon was pushed out of her seat and standing in the aisle while the plane was still moving, which she was not happy about at all. The commerce ladies forced themselves into the business class bus, ignoring the protestations of Chadian airport officials who they definitely understood, and I heard later, really annoyed the business class passengers who had paid for their expensive business class flights. I was happy that most of them weren’t in the commoner immigration line with us upstairs because it was much calmer without them. Also the airport now has line dividers up that really work against line cutters. I did have one older commerce lady come out of no where and try to cut in front of me. I said, “you need to wait in line.” She whispered conspiratorially at me “we’re together, ok?” She was cute and old and so I let her stay pressed up behind me, telling me to put my passport on the counter while the guy in front of me was still getting his electronic fingerprints processed. I told her I would wait until he was done. When we got downstairs, we still had to wait in piles of luggage until our bags came off. With 3 planes arriving and leaving at about the same time, it was packed. 

This guy told me that they watch movies during slow times,
but he had to pause the one they were watching when things got
too loud on screen and we couldn't hear people screaming their names at us.
It was a good 10-15 minutes after I joined up, so I'm thinking maybe they
watch all the time, even we we are in long lines, and maybe if they watched
films that were a little less exciting, immigration might go a bit faster...

Manon had been planning to pick me up on my original arrival day with Sabit, Joe, and Pika (we don’t let Zig in the car anymore as she always tries to jump out the window or stand on the driver’s head), but she couldn’t come, so Anurag picked me up when he came to get Sameer. Pretty handy to be friends with your travel agent—especially if he has an Indian chef and sometimes the Indians invite you to dinner…

I have since received many messages from one of these guys,
assuring me of his undying love for me and proposing immediate marriage.
It's not the worst marriage proposal I've ever had, but once again, it was done over the phone.
I told him I am too old for him, but he said age is not important.
More poetic than the Chadian guy who asked me to be his second wife.
I told him that I was too old, and he said, "Mais non! Tu connais Macron?"
(TCK tip: if you want to know why Sabit and I laughed til we cried over that,
google French President Macron's wife.)

She's so cute. Still recovering from being spayed on my coffee table
(I am too), but mostly back to normal. 
Joe and Pika refused to be photographed for this blog post.