Everyone inside the car was FINE, Stanley.

Mark was worried that this photo looks like
something inappropriate is happening, but
I promise that Djibrine wasn't trying to grab
my boob. I was just trying to get the hook into
the thing to lower the spare tire, which
was more difficult since I'd previously
bashed the back of the truck in with a tree.

After Uganda, we slowly made our way over to Chad. Our flight left Entebbe at 3am on Sunday morning, so naturally, I couldn’t sleep at all on Saturday night. I had very elaborate, time-sensitive schedules for our time in Chad, involving me driving 4.5 hours Sunday afternoon, so it would have been a good idea to do a bit of sleeping, but sleeping is not one of my greater skills. Also, I had a problem on my mind: Hervé was supposed to be arriving back in Chad on the same flight as we were, meeting up with us in Addis on the way back from his trip to Kenya where he had been doing a training about sand dams with UNICEF. I’d told Leif (who was buying his ticket) that we needed him to fly back on 17 September to arrive in time for our trip south to Koudalwa and beyond. If you are a regular reader of this online cathartic journal of mine (Hi MOM!), you will recall that this is the location of the 16 hours in the mud and 9 hours of night-time motorcycling. I wanted Hervé with me to drive one car full of Americans and their luggage, while I drove the other car full of Americans and their luggage. On 16 September, having just arrived back in Entebbe where we would spend a few hours before our trip to Chad, I received a frantic message from Hervé, telling me that he had just noticed that his return trip was for December 17 and not, in fact, September 17, as we had requested. Leif was informed (“Oops,” he said), but there was nothing we could do to change the ticket, so I had resigned myself to making the trip alone, with Djibrine as the other driver.

Market photo that did not get me arrested.

17 September ended up being a day of crumbling chaos, that started off well with a 2am peanut butter milkshake in Entebbe (see previous post). Our flight in Addis was delayed for various reasons given to irate passengers that no one really believed (I've never seen customers get as passionately upset with flight delays as I do whenever I'm in the Addis Airport, but then again, I do spend a disproportional amount of time there compared with other airports).

We arrived 2 hours late to our office where the immigration guy, who came in on a Sunday to help us out, had been waiting for us. You know how people give Africans a hard time about punctuality? I’m just going to admit that in my experience, it all evens out to where I’m late as often as they are, but occasionally at inconvenient times for the other person, we may show up on time.  The immigration guy showed up on time, and likely he regretted it, like that one time I showed up punctually for church (never happened again). 

We left N’djamena around 5pm with a 4.5 hour drive ahead of us, mostly in the dark. I didn’t realize that Djibrine is an anti-speeder who kept to 60kmph (less than 40mph), a ridiculously slow speed that forced me to pass him and then call him multiple times, asking him to speed up because I realized that I shouldn’t leave him in the car with my boss, who he can’t communicate with, while I’m way up ahead, in case anything happens. Something did happen: I exploded a pigeon. It was not on purpose. And I honked at the dumb thing, which was sitting in the road like an idiot. It then proceeded to fly up into the windshield with a juicy thump.

Around 11pm we made it to the hotel. They’d given away our reservations and taken down mosquito nets that had been there when I’d visited previously. The boss’s face was super not happy with me. I made a big deal about reservations and honoring commitments and they found a few rooms for us, but two had to double up. Not Kiden, the Lone Woman, of course. I got to my room, caught the frog that was jumping around in the bathroom, threw it out the door, brushed the dead bug carcasses off the bed, and slept for almost 4 hours.

I picked up my frog prince and threw him out the door.
What was I thinking?!

The only outlet in the room was up high.
I needed to charge my battery.
So I plugged it in and tied it up there with my bikini top.
As they say, "Necessity is the mother of invention."

We left bright and early the next day. Backing out of the hotel driveway, I was hit by a giant evil-minded tree right in the middle of Nathan’s speech to me about trusting my driving. Then the first leg of this trip I’d timed (twice!) at 40 minutes until we got off the paved road to the dirt road took us 2 hours. Mostly, I blame Djibrine’s slow driving, but also, a dog committed suicide on my car bumper and I got a flat tire. Already mourning the death of yet another creature on my watch, I was starting to get concerned about my driving, assuming the flat was from my decision not to let the presence of the jagged pot holes keep me from maintaining maximum speed. In fact, it wasn’t. The guys fixing the tire called me over to show me the sharp piece of cow bone (I verified that it wasn’t dog bone) that had punctured the inner tube, causing a flat. I never would have noticed that little piece of bone in the road, but I do still have it and I plan to make it into a talisman to hang on my rearview mirror to warn off other animals.

Marching up to the police with my permits.
Do not mess with me when I have paperwork.

While we were fixing the tire, Djibrine told me that I could let the guys film in the market—after all I had all the permits. Nathan was quickly grabbed up by bored police who did not appreciate my self-righteous defense of his cameras. Djibrine had to go off and sort that out. We finally arrived in Koudalwa around 2pm with 40k to go to get to the village. We piled into one car for the trip in, which our faithful guide Ramadan assured us to be dry enough to get through. It was dry enough, but it also went through a forest. And eventually there were too many trees for us to pass through. A motorcycle would have made it and Ramadan has a motorcycle. But we called it around 4pm. Mark said, “This is the first time in the history of Neverthirst that we have not made it to a village.” So-Infamy achieved. Thanks a lot, Chad.

I sat on the floor in the back of the car as penance for all
my bad ideas on this trip.

I also made peanut-butter stuffed brownies
to try to encourage everyone.
They were well received.
Even "I'll Just Have a Power Bar" Mark liked them.

We embarked on the long, slow, dark trip back to Bongor and the hotel, which was promised to have mosquito nets, dinner, and enough rooms for all this time. At 12am, Djibrine’s car refused to go any further, having already been subjected to the abuse of the forest trip. Mark, John, and I pushed it off the road to a nearby village and we all got in the other car to drive the last 15k. We arrived at 1am, ate a hasty dinner of meat and bread, and slept for a few more hours under brand new mosquito nets. They kindly gave me the pink one, to remind me of my gender probably.

This might have been when we called it.
Hard to know the exact moment.
Djibrine sitting in the dirt, does help you get
a sense of the level of Discouragement.

The next day, we left Djibrine behind to deal with the car, and Amanda became the sole driver back to N’Djamena. Yes, there was much gasping and clutching at door handles as she drove, but she also made it there in 4.5 hours, thank you very much, without any other deaths or injuries. Americans can be so dramatic, especially the men.

Fortunately, the rest of the trip went well, gaining some good footage for videos and encouraging the Neverthirst team to keep Chad on our list of places where we work (and Amanda as an employee). I spent lots of time driving and translating and enlisting the help of generous friends to arrange for the last day to be spent at the Hilton (thanks, Rhyan-I hereby donate my new name “Itoru” to you, Savior of the Americans and my possibly my job!) to help delicate Americans recover before their long trip home. In the end, it was a good visit, full of adequate unavoidable adventures, and no one asked to be put on the list of “People Who Will Never Travel with Amanda Again,” and two of the 4 guys said that Chad is one of their favorite places they’ve traveled and one of those guys has actually travelled to many places so his opinion was quite valid even. I get a lot of haters out here in Chad, so I’m always happy to have people who will laugh with me through the disasters and find the beauty in a harsh environment.

Mark took this photo of me taking a goat selfie.

Filming mommies is fun because I can hold their babies while I'm translating.

You can't tell, but I was super happy to be riding and not driving.
I was pretty bruised up after this though, thanks to Hervé's driving.

Hervé and Djibrine chilling while we do the interviews.
If one of them would just learn English already, I wouldn't have to be the only translator!

Absa liked pulling my hair. I loved Absa for being the best little 360 video actress ever.
And gorgeous.

Here is one of her actually smiling.
Too late to delete the other one now.

Absa's father and brother busting out the bow and arrows.

We were allowed into the cattle market with strict instructions not to photograph anyone.
Naturally, I took quite a few photos. You can't tell ME what to do.

Cattle Market day made Dourbali super cool.
The guys thought it was like the Old West, with everyone riding in on their horses.
Probably this day redeemed the whole trip for everyone and saved my job.
Good thing this was the last day of filming.

See the very different quality of this photo (and the following one)?
I didn't take them. But maybe you already noticed since I'm actually in the photo.

Supervising the filming.
(This filter really shows off the dirt on my skirt. Thanks a lot, Kyle.)

Rhyan is the best. The Hilton is a little Oasis in the middle of N'djamena.
It's not real life, of course, but it was a nice recovery time for the guys.

Leaving the Hilton, someone thought it was hilarious that they
were all walking around me like they were my body guards.
Let me just take a moment to point out that I was always
going to be the one taking care of them in the event of anything happening.
But they wanted to pose for this photo, which I found slightly humiliating,
and I kept telling them that I actually have to live here!
But I guess I owed them this moment for all of the pain...
Enjoy, guys. Enjoy.


And finally, I know the title is from the Office, but I'll leave you with a classic reference from The Wind in the Willows, as Mr Toad has long been my alter-ego, especially when it comes to driving and adventures (and this drawing is amazingly close to depicting what happened  to the pigeon incident):



"Sit still, and you shall know what driving really is, for you are in the hands of the famous, the skilful, the entirely fearless Toad!"

Une Histoire Pour Les Romans (One for the Storybooks)

The thing about having a good adventure is that it involves a lot of discomfort. Of course, if it’s a really good adventure, you don’t usually remember the miserable moments very much, or if you do, it’s almost better for having had them because the story is so much more exciting.  I told my mom a version of this after she mentioned that she was praying for me while my electricity had been off for 4 days. I told her that once it got past the 4 day mark and then my water cut out too, I was ok. By that time, my refrigerator was gone and I’d eaten everything possible and thrown out the rest of the rotting food, but you know what? Gummy smurfs do not have to be refrigerated (one of their MANY virtues) and so I had plenty of food for survival. I explained to my concerned parent that once things get to a new level of bad, I’m ok and I kind of want to see how much worse it can get. It’s the intermediate level that I don’t really like because it’s not a good story, and it’s just annoying. She replied with the Eye Roll emoji because she is supportive like that.

Anyway, to get to the point, I’ve noticed recently that I can’t go to Koudalwa without SOMETHING happening. This should have given me pause before inviting a pastor working with the people group in the area to come with me. In my defense, I last-minute asked him, and I really thought he would say no.

Scenes from the road

 Our trip started in the usual way—an hour late. This didn’t bother me much. I didn’t expect it would bother our guest either—I mean, he lives in Chad too.  We sped down the road, Hervé driving, in the large Land Cruiser borrowed from a Neverthirst partner who had parked his car at our office while he is in the US for a vacation. (I did ask him first.) After un-installing the car seat from his car, I decided never to have children, or if I do, only to have ones I don’t mind roaming around cars in an unrestrained fashion. When I reinstalled the car seat after we got back (SPOILER ALERT: we made it back), I was affirmed in the wisdom of this decision.

He wasn't pointing out the cool cow cart,
he was greeting his friend.

 While on the road, we called ahead again to remind our friends that we were coming (they knew, but it’s always good to follow up) and to ask them to get the motorcycles ready for us (they also knew about this). Why motorcycles? Well, last time we got stuck in the mud for 16 hours in our 4-wheel drive Toyota Hilux, but with motorcycles you don’t get stuck, though you do have to carry your bike through mud holes some times.  Naturally, upon arrival we thought (naively of course) that our hosts would be prepared. They weren’t, and then the motorcycle guys saw that we had two white people and they tried to jack up the price to new and terrible levels. Hervé resented this and fought for our rights. An hour and a half later we were on the road. This was a problem because it was after 3pm and sunset is at 6pm. And we had 40km to go. And it was about to rain. And the roads were terrible. But we were committed.  Or I was anyway. Plus, I like adventures, and it is pretty fun to splash through rivers of mud, so I was in a great mood in spite of the delay and the anticipation of a long evening. I estimated our ETA back in Koudalwa at 20:00, well after dark, but early enough to get some dinner and sleep before the trip back to N’Djamena. I was wrong, very wrong, but not knowing the future can be relaxing. I have no idea what Mr. The Pastor was thinking at the time, but I imagine he was beginning to wish that his wife had put her foot down and said, “No, absolutely no spontaneous trips with that woman with the crazy eyes.” Well, too late now.

Before Hervé took over from Orange Shirt

 We splashed along, 4 motorcycles with Hervé bringing up the rear because he didn’t want me to be on the last motorcycle (he takes chivalry very seriously). We were following closely at the beginning, rushing along to try to make up for time lost to bargaining down the nasara price and lack of preparedness. Just at the last minute, my moto driver swerved around an up-ended tree. Hervé’s moto guy didn’t have the reflexes and I looked back to see his motorcycle stuck in the roots with Hervé standing behind looking dazed. Sadly, I don’t have a photo. I was laughing too hard (it seems I don’t reciprocate chivalry with a great deal of sympathy). Hervé told me later, that when he saw they were going into the tree, he just stood up and let the motorcycle continue on without its passenger. He is very tall, so he just put his feet down, voilà—he was on solid ground. He told me this later, while we were trudging through the mud together around 11pm. I was wet, cold, muddy, sore all over (I've never been saddle sore on a horse before because I don't like them enough to stay on long enough for soreness, but motorcycle saddle sores are real), exhausted and hungry and I STILL laughed for 10 minutes with this image in my mind. I noticed soon after the tree incident that Hervé had become the driver, with his little moto guy hanging on as the passenger. Hervé said, “The driver was too small, not strong enough to drive us.” That was probably true. It is also true that Hervé is a bit of a control freak.

Rainbow Snake Omen of Coming Evil

Initially, I tried to avoid getting splashed too much, but soon this was out of my control. Then it rained on us. There was a lovely rainbow that I kept trying to get videos of for Insta-stories for Neverthirst Instagram, but I never got to post them because I didn’t get into internet land soon enough. I meant to ask if Chadians also think rainbows are scary snake omens of death like the Moru in South Sudan do, but I never got a chance to do this. Maybe because I was distracted getting on and off motorcycles to wade through deep rivers. One of these times, I stepped in the wrong spot and got suctioned down in the mud. My driver had to pull me out, back onto not dry-but firmer, less-suction-y ground because I really couldn’t get out by myself.

After being pulled out of the suction

After my dress got longer because of rain and mud and began dragging on the ground.
Djibrine kept yelling at me to pull up my skirt so that it wouldn't get caught in the wheels.
My shiny white legs were scratched up by thorns and chewed on by insects.

The good part of the road.

Hervé is still smiling here.

He is plotting my assassination here, thinking about how much better it was
back in the day before I came on board. He told me this morning that he is sick
because of our trip and that we never should have planned it like this.
(Now he just told me he forgives me because I gave him half of my sandwich.)

Amazingly, we completed two reports, though one will have to be re-done, likely, as it was completed after dark, and it is not easy to get photos of Chadian people after dark in a place without electricity. I had all the motorcycles shine their lights on the pump so we can get some photos, but the main thing is that the pumps are there, completed and working. So when I take the American boss there in a few weeks, it should be something nice to show him. Though, I will have to make sure that the roads are passable first. The boss is not one for night-time rainy rides. He loves to say things to me like, “No unnecessary risks!” and “Amanda, if I TOLD you not to do that [presumably dangerous thing], would you actually not do it?” (Fortunately for my job, he has never pressed me to answer that last question because, sadly, I think we both know what my insubordinate answer would be).

Dress dragging through the mud, getting some work done.

Road conditions. This road is wider than most,
which is nice because you're less likely to get hit in the face by a tree branch,
but still impossible to drive down without pushing with your legs.

Bugs attacked me when I stood in the motorcycle beams.
My glowing skin is worrying these children.

This photo isn't too bad, right?
Hervé took it to help me with night photography.
Shortly after this last report, we lost a motorcycle to fatigue,
so we tripled up on two motorcycles.
Hervé wouldn't let me, he said that "ma reine" (as he was calling me
that night) should stay with him on the third moto. Also, I think he was tired and wanted
the smallest person on the bike with him. We had some fun conversations--
this blog post title is a quote from him, and he told me the details of the tree-crash story, and we
admired the stars and his helpfully-long legs, but time is not making this memory fonder for him.

This is what my face looks like riding in the rain
on the back of a motorcycle.

 In conclusion, we were on the motorcycles for 9 hours. We got back to Koudalwa at midnight, in time to crash on the floor of the chief’s house. I did not bring my own mosquito net tent like Mr. The Pastor, but I did bring organic bug spray that my sister gave me. I do now have mosquito bites on my scalp and all over my legs. Chadian mosquitos laugh in the face of your lavender and citronella oil. And then they bite you in YOUR face, the little bastards (sorry, Mom, it was warranted). We didn’t get dinner, but that was ok (for me-- Hervé was not happy and he ate the rest of my cinnamon peanut butter cookies that I’d made for the trip) because I didn’t feel like brushing my teeth or hair or doing anything besides getting out of my cold, wet, muddy dress and collapsing on the blanket-mat the chief gave me and using my bag as a pillow (Mr. The Pastor brought a pillow—some people are way more prepared than others who have already gotten into the habit of using the bag as a pillow to minimize the carrying of extraneous objects). I was awake just long enough for our guest to tell me that he is never traveling anywhere else with me again. So, I’m adding him to the list of people who have said this to me…he did graciously admit that there were one or two beneficial connections he made on the trip, which I found gratifying.

In penance for my bad planning (“Why didn’t you just stay there a little longer and take your time getting the work done?” people asked me. BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT TO! Also, because we had a UNICEF meeting the next day.), I drove 5 of the 8 hours back to N’Djamena, letting everyone else sleep when they (ok, Hervé) weren’t pointing out ALL of the speed bumps and potholes and wandering goats after I was ALREADY BRAKING for them and lecturing me about how you can’t pass someone on a bridge (I KNOW THAT TOO! I WASN’T GOING TO PASS THAT GUY WHEN I SAW THAT THE BRIDGE THAT WAS COMING UP WAS A ONE AT TIME BRIDGE—THAT’S WHY I SLOWED DOWN AND WENT BACK BEHIND THE TRUCK!) and stopping to buy watermelons. I got home at 4pm and ate two bags of gummy smurfs and ordered food to my house and was in bed by 8:30. Adventures are exhausting.

I'll leave you with this drawing of me and Hervé driving back to NDJ.
The men in the back were sleeping or asking why I wasn't wearing my seat belt
(answer: because when I hit an unavoidable bump, I fly in the air and it chokes me).
Note Hervé yelling at me about speed bumps and me yelling back that I already saw it,
and also me trying not to swear-drive because Mr. The Pastor is anglophone, and he would understand,
unlike that time I was driving with Emelie and she asked, "Amanda, what does $*#@! mean?" and
I had to tell her NEVER EVER to say that again, especially not in front of the Church People.