Kwaheri Marafiki Wangu (Swahili from Google translate--I did know the Kwaheri and the rafiki parts)

I just sent off two of my three Kenyan colleagues for the long, roundabout, UN flight that will finally get them home after nearly 7 months of Chad. We never meant for them to be separated from their families this long, but they were so gracious about it and patient as we waited for an opportunity to get them home.  

 I’ve worked with Emmanuel a long time, as he is our drilling chief here in Chad, and he is just a wonderful man of God with a servant’s heart. He works so hard with very few breaks, and his work is hot and dusty and sweaty and he never complains. He’s a hero to many across Chad who have water because of his hard work.

Old friends. 

Wearing the neverthirst Uganda shirt I gave him
a while ago, but standing in front of the majestic
flag of Chad!

Henry is a new friend and we’ve been stuck together pretty closely for the last 6+ months. He lived in the other house on my compound, and we hung out a lot due to lack of other company and proximity. He does an embarrassingly accurate impression of me driving, and he taught me Swahili insults to yell at the other drivers in my way so that I use less English profanity. He’s also been sucked into my hobbies a bit, now running 3 times a week and building up from being a non-runner to running 10ks on the weekend. He’s also taken on the most American thing about me and measures his runs in miles instead of kilometers. And he's thinking about getting a dog someday, after joining me most afternoons to walk Joe and/or one of the other dogs. They will all miss him. 

Giving them the leftover bones from dinner

Personally, I was a failure as a swimming student. I thought that the water was too cold and at least the last teacher I had that I remember the most was not a stereotypical Canadian nice guy (some Canadians CAN ruin lives, even if most are wonderful people). But it turns out that I’m a really good swimming teacher and Henry went from dog-paddling to breast stroke to front crawl to diving for coins in the pool. We discovered a mutual appreciation for the classiest of all film genres: the action comedy. If you laugh a lot and something blows up, it’s a superior movie. He made chapatis and mandazi for me. And I made pizza and chocolate chip cookies for him. I took him to the hospital to get some tests done when he was ill and he let me cry on his shoulder after a particularly hurtful day. And I will miss him, but I’m so happy he gets to be back with his wife and children. He was so excited to finally be leaving that he was giddy about it. But I appreciate that it is not because he doesn’t love Chad (he bought a Chad t-shirt and we did a photoshoot in front of the biggest national monument before he left), it’s because he loves his family so much and really needs to be with them. Long distance work away from your family is fairly normal in many parts of the world, but I hope we can find a better system next year if we can get Henry back that will allow him more time at home. (Prayers for this appreciated!)

Final photoshoot before leaving Chad

Waiting for tests at the hospital

Roadtripping to get photos and videos for neverthirst

With la belle Emelie who is also a wonderful friend

In other news from here, rainy season has arrived. My front yard has a perpetual giant puddle in it that the dogs are loving. Speaking of dogs, I’ve now got 4. I’m hoping to be back down to three in a few weeks if the Americans come back. Puppy/Kwach/Kakilé is no longer a Tiny Puppy. She has fattened herself on 3 pairs of my shoes, one pair of the guard’s shoes (I reimbursed him for his loss), a chunk of the sofa (I promise to replace it before I leave this house!), all of York’s chew toys that were brought from America (I’ll call it payment for all the food that I’ve bought for York this past month+, and York has helped with the chewing). She’s currently working her way through a baseball that I hope was not of sentimental value. I did not know what was inside a baseball. But now I do. It’s all over my house.

Should I have named Flip "Dobby" or "Wile E Coyote"?

Joe and Flip insist on coming to work with me every day.

My pack of dogs

I’ve also had some fun bringing trucks back from the field to N’djamena. Victor (our last remaining Kenyan who we hope to send home soon) and I were the nominated drivers. He would drive one truck, and I would drive the other. I told him I would drive the truck that was worse because he is a slow driver and I wanted us to stay together. If I drive the car that works well, then I will inevitably leave him in my dust. This is a joke we have about Victor driving versus Leif or me driving. Victor is slow and methodical and doesn’t even pass old lady drivers. Leif and I get competitive about how fast we can go, Leif doesn’t notice bumps until it is too late, and I pass anyone who dares to be in front of me.  I’ve been teasing Victor about this for some weeks, and I noticed that he started to tell me about all the times he actually did drive fast. Apparently he used to have a bad reputation for killing cars. Anyway, I apologized for teasing him too much, and he said he wasn’t bothered, but when we drove back together from Dourbali with the cars, he left me in his dust (rainy season hadn’t started yet). I had to follow the plume of black smoke that poured out of that car. In the end he had insisted on driving the bad car, and having recently driven that car after we had it “repaired”, I’m very grateful that he did, and I’ve sent it to be REPAIRED again. Anyway, Victor CAN drive fast, but he prefers not to in town. Noted. I remain grateful that traffic is a rarity in Chad, and road rules are optional--pass anyone anytime you like! And I will, while yelling "mjinga wewe!" at them. 

With Henry and Victor at our favorite Lebanese restaurant for Covid-pick up of course.

Emanuel telling me what was wrong with the truck
once I got it home and couldn't make the steering wheel turn anymore.
Apparently it's the hydraulic something.

And finally, we’ve completed a bunch of wells, rehabilitations, and biosand filters in all the Neverthirst Africa countries, and that’s been really encouraging to see in spite of the corona-restrictions. In one location that I can’t specify for security reasons, the villagers were desperate to see water in their village. People had tried to drill there before and all had failed. We didn’t know it at the time, but they took measures into their own hands to assure our success, calling witchdoctors to pray verses from their Holy Book over the drilling site, sacrificing chickens, and burying one near the location where we were going to drill. And soon EVERYTHING went wrong. The machines broke down for no logical reason. The water tanker hired to bring water to location would go to the water source and there would be no water, but when they drove away, the water came back. There were ferocious rainstorms. After drilling a borehole that he was sure would be successful, the driller was shocked when we found that the borehole was actually dry. He could think of no reason why there would not be water, and in his 20+ years of experience, this had never happened to him. We asked others for their opinions as to why it didn’t have water, and still no answers. Our local ministry partner prayed and then he found out about the sacrifices and the witchdoctors. So he prayer-walked the whole village. He preached from the Bible, and prayed over the new site. And our drilling partners drilled again. And this time we got a bore hole with a 7m3 yield  (very high yield) and the people in that village are saying, “Wow! Prayers in the name of Jesus are powerful!”

biosand filters

water from a new bore hole

If we hadn’t failed on the first attempt, the people would have credited their witchdoctors and sacrifices with the success of the borehole. But because it did fail and we drilled again, they got to see the power in the name of Jesus, which they would not have seen otherwise. It encouraged me to know that sometimes things that seem like epic failures in our lives might actually  be a part of God’s plan to amaze us with something that we never would have seen if our original plans had gone the way we hoped they would. We don’t always get to see the reason why hard things happen to us in our lives. Sometimes everything sucks, and it hurts, and we only ever get to see the mess this side of Heaven. But sometimes we get the Joseph moment, “What you intended for evil, God meant for good.” And I wanted to share that with you because sometimes we have to hold on to other people’s moments when ours aren’t coming, and trust that God is still good even when we aren’t seeing Him answer the deepest, hardest prayers of our lives. If we can’t see it in our lives, seeing it for others can be encouraging.  Honestly, in the ugliest parts of my heart, as I pray the hardest, deepest prayers in my life, there are some blessing stories that don’t really make me feel so much encouraged as resentful, but seeing the marginalized, the vulnerable, the forgotten people get a high yield bore hole in the middle of a dry and weary land, THAT is a story that I will hold on to. And you can hold on to it too, if you like.

OK-that’s my sermon done. Now I will inflict you with many photos of my dogs and my friends and my work.

Henry wanted to make sure to stop and get photos
of the town names in between N'djamena and Dourbali
to prove that he has been to Senegal!

And sometimes Joe made Henry sit in the back because he is spoiled.

Does your face mask match your dress?
It should!

Henry tries camel milk for the first time

Hanging with the men around the bowl of camel milk,
just before I started to feel miserably sick.

Even our nicest paved roads crumble

Thanks to Henry for this photo of me and my friend Fatima

I just really liked this guy!
He's got a cool hat and a great smile.

Another friend who drove us out to the village,
by that I mean that we followed him on his motorcycle
because there are no roads.
And he's holding a guinea fowl we brought back for Henry and Victor to have for dinner.
Tastes like chicken!

Antani and her beautiful daughters,
they are only a tiny bit screamy around Joe.
They liked Kwach/Kakilé though.

Emelie and Amanda Chad monument photo!

Emelie drove me and the boys home after work one day.

I let Henry drive the unpaved part of the trip back to N'djamena.
You can see by his expression how excited he was about this.
Note: we do not drive on the same side of the road as they do in Kenya
so it is even more impressive.
Although, having said that, when there is no road, the side doesn't matter.
But the stick shift is on the opposite side and it can be tricky to switch that.

I'm not sure what Moussa and I are gesturing wildly about here,
but thanks for this action shot, Henry!

Henry and the Dar Salam of Chad

A sprite that we found at the store
that is meant to be sold only on airlines.
I guess they had to sell it to stores with all the cancelled flights.

When there is no power in your office,
it helps that your HR/Finance Manager is an accomplished electrician.

Got to celebrate this wonderful woman's bday.
She is one of my favourite people in the entire world.

Another Henry photoshoot classic

I took Kwach swimming today. She scratched me in the face.
I thought since she insists on playing in her water bowl that maybe she would like it.
I was wrong.

The excited greeting of Joe on his return from the office.
Kwach loooooves him.

Chad Corona, Hot Season, and Anniversaries

With Kadidja and Fadouma, chatting about their

daily quest to get water and petting their donkeys.

I was planning to write about hot season because hot season is always an Event, but then I was reminded that it was my 8 year anniversary with Neverthirst while I was in Dourbali listening to Moussa and some of his ministry friends chat about the old days. So I thought about writing about that, and then I thought maybe I should write about how coronavirus is affecting us here in Chad because there have been some entertaining moments, but maybe everyone is sick of hearing about the coronavirus? I guess I’ll just mash everything up into one long super-blog and call it a day.

Anyway, like I said—it is hot season here now. So hot the steering wheel burns your hands when you get in the car and your silver jewelry heats up instantly, which can be unpleasant. It’s not too bad for me, born in the desert/raised on the equator, but it really is nice to have AC occasionally. Fans help, but when it’s really hot, mostly they just move really hot air around the room, so you feel like you’re inside of a hairdryer plugged into the wrong voltage (but not the one that blows up the hairdryer—the other one that makes it go too slowly). Now that you are sensing the depth of my knowledge of the complexities of electricity, you will not be surprised to read that when Henry and I tried to fix my non-functioning air conditioner by applying the classic “turn it off and on again” method to the electrical system in our compound, we ended up breaking everything. 

Fixing the electricity-what you can't see
is that everyone was sweating buckets in that room.

It was around 7pm, 38/100 degrees out. We called Urbain. He came right over, like the hero that he is, and told us a bunch of words for what the problem was. I didn’t understand most of the words, so I cannot put them in this blog, but my favorite part was when he asked me if I had any copper wire to give him to fix the thing that was broken.  (Note: we did not break the Thing. Well, we did, but the Thing was about to die anyway, so actually it is a good thing that we broke the Thing before it broke by itself because we were able to fix it.). Did I have any copper wire just lying around?  No, I did not. But Urbain found a bit of old cable and extracted something and tied it to something and wound that around something and anyway, he fixed it. I’m telling you that there is no stopping African innovation. We had power all night long! The next day Urbain went to get the real thing that we needed to fix the Thing that we broke from one of the shops that is considered non-essential and was closed due to the Coronavirus. No problems-he knows the guy. He got the thing. And this is how commerce is working during these days of coronavirus in Chad.

Speaking of the coronavirus, we have around 30 cases confirmed in country, no deaths, and 5 or so recoveries. However, we have implemented various precautions around the country because everyone else is doing it, and we thought we would follow along. Note: this includes sending funny memes around in French/Arabic/Chadian Frabic (French/Arabic combined, don’t try to use this word, I just made it up right now and I don’t know if others have been this clever before me-likely, but as yet unproven). I’ve really enjoyed laughing in multiple languages. I’ve also seen some of the same jokes in English and French, which shows how unifying this whole disaster has been to global culture.

A meme that Hervé and I laughed at a lot. 

So here in Chad, churches, mosques, schools, restaurants, bars, gatherings over 50 people and shops not selling food are all supposed to be closed (though, as mentioned previously, if you know the shop owner or someone who knows the shop owner or someone who knows someone who knows the shop owner, you can still buy what you need). One excellent side benefit of this is that there is no more thumping music at night, and I’m not saying that it makes it worth it to have a global pandemic, I’m just saying that it is possible to appreciate things that happen because of the global pandemic, just like those of you who are appreciating working from home in your pajamas.

This Eagle Wings Hot Liquid Oil from Cameroon,
source of the virus in Chad was still a must for me
because of course it was.

We have hand-washing stations outside of all officially open stores and offices (ours too!), and I’m telling you, Chad has never been so hygienic. We had a curfew of 7pm to 6am that was recently changed to 8pm to 5am. This pleased me, as I like to get out before 6am to run. But I followed the curfew, though I could hear many people NOT following the curfew while I waited for 6am to go out and run. But I know that nasaras will be disproportionally targeted for curfew violation fines, and anyway, I should probably follow the laws of the country where I live, even if I fail to see how a curfew will prevent the spread of the virus when circulation continues as normal during the daytime.

Hand-washing station in front of our office
And the water is naturally heated by the sun!

Then there was the great face mask debacle. It was declared that from 14 April, everyone should wear facemasks in public. I heard late in the day and decided I would have to skip my run the next morning, not having any face masks handy. I was planning a system with which I could tie a face mask haphazardly over my ears and wear it whilst running, but I had to purchase one first. Fortunately for Joe who absolutely MUST have his morning constitutional, the government had made allowances for head scarves and turbans to be used to cover the face. I diligently followed the rules, using the same logic as I did for the curfew (save money on fines so I have enough to buy the good candy), and went out, wrapped in a head scarf. I noticed quickly I was one of about 10 rule-following dorks out that morning. Fortunately, by 2pm that day (incidentally after we had procured face masks for everyone in the office), the great Face Mask Imperative was canceled by the government due to “not enough supplies for everyone.”

I did get to use my face mask once when Henry asked me to drive him
home a bit early because he wasn't feeling well. He was a good sport about all
my coronavirus jokes and he's fine--don't worry!

Speaking of things that don’t help everyone, the Chadian president speeched later that week, promising that the government will pay electric bills for 3 months and water bills for 6 months for people in N’djamena. This benefits the very small percentage of people in N’djamena who actually have electricity and city water in their homes, of which I am lucky to be one. However, the side effect of that announcement has been that almost every day since we have had significant power cuts, lasting hours at a time because the electric company is motivated to save the President a bit of money probably. But in a fortunate turn of events, a friend who was evacuated with the American Embassy left me the keys to her fully-air conditioned house with automatic backup generator and a pool. Henry and I (and Victor and Claire too) have been enjoying moments of coolness, and I’ve been teaching him some swimming. Suck it, Bandung Alliance International School Swimming Teachers of Young Amanda who never thought she was paying attention to what you were teaching her because she was too busy complaining about the cold water you were forcing her to be in. Henry now knows the breast stroke and he will be learning the front crawl soon.  He’s also finally mastered jumping onto one of those floaty rafts, and we have had a few races across the pool, using pool noodles as paddles.

Henry can swim AND get on a floaty raft. If there is a tsunami in Chad,
he will survive because of my spectacular swim coaching skills.

Easter in the AC-thanks, Lisa!
Chapatis and chicken stew-thanks, Victor!

Anyway, enough about the virus, it was also my 8 year anniversary of working with Neverthirst. I never thought I would last so long with one organization, but I’m also super lazy about applying for jobs (you send them a CV and you also have to type everything from your CV into their website—this seems like a waste of everyone’s time), so I guess it was inevitable. Working with Neverthirst has introduced me to many new cultures and languages, from India to South Sudan to Chad to Alabama. With Neverthirst I have traveled or worked in more than 10 countries on 4 continents (not even counting North America). I’ve had to change over and set up new offices, find new projects, escape warzones, speak on local television programs, and talk my way out of fines and jail time for certain videographers. I’ve seen the Neverthirst culture grow, change, twist dangerously, and heal. I’ve considered quitting many times, but God kept me in the game.

Little Amanda in India 2012-had not mastered balancing the scarf on my shoulders
so it functioned like an unnecessary neck-warmer.

With the one and only Antony Samy in Nepal,
who taught me most of the important things that I know about working in WASH
in developing nations. 

With Ester Roba in South Sudan, heading out to plant some peanuts in her garden.

And as I read through slack messages from my colleagues about this 8 year anniversary for me and one other guy and sent stupid photos of each other back and forth, I was sitting in a group of men at Pastor Moussa’s house and they were reminiscing about the old days too. I’d brought Nadji and his wife Tabitha to Dourbali with me, as they were old colleagues with Moussa and his wife Marthe in the Lake Chad region for years. When I saw Tabitha and Marthe greet each other with so much joy and laughter, I realize that I need to make this happen more often for Marthe’s sake—she never complains, but she rarely gets out of Dourbali, while Moussa often travels to conferences and events. Nadji and Tabitha worked in Dourbali for a short time as well, and it was handy having Nadji with me, as the police decided to pull us over because we are white people traveling (one white person, but I was driving, so extra visible). They were giving us a hard time until Nadji hobbled over in his cast and then, “Oh Doctor! When did you get here? So good to see you again. Are you moving back here? Oh, just a visit? It’s ok, go on, no problem, no problem.” So that was handy.

Tabitha and Marthe

Tabitha and Marthe posed photo-Marthe says she doesn't
smile much because she doesn't have nice teeth like Moussa,
but Tabitha and I assured her that she is beautiful and we love her smile.

This is not important, but will someone please tell me
why a pick-up truck needs a button for opening the trunk?

I’m getting side-tracked, but Tabitha and Marthe were catching up, talking fast in a tribal language that I don’t know, but the men were all on the other side of the curtain-wall speaking French, so I was listening to them. Pastor Rene from N’djamena who also used to work in the Lake Region was there too.

Pastor Rene and Nadji catching up--it was hot, like I said,
thus the elaborate fans.

Pastor Rene said, “Remember that time we were going to have that conference for missionaries in Bol when we were all working by the Lake? And how we didn’t have enough money, so we were thinking about canceling it? But we decided to pray about it first. And then Nadji, you went fishing. Remember? And you threw the nets out and caught 80 kilos (over 175lbs) of fish! And we sold it and it was enough to pay for the conference!”

Everyone is laughing and saying, “Yeah, yeah, I remember that. That was a great conference.”

I popped my head up from sending a photo of me on the job in India in 2012 to ask them, “What was the theme of the conference that was so good?”

“Prayer!” they said, laughing at me. I’m guessing any Prayer Conference that starts out with a miracle is going to be pretty good.

The dream team: Nesie (discipled by Moussa and Rene),
Pastor Moussa, Pastor Rene, Nadji, and Pastor Eli

There have been some pretty sucky days working with Neverthirst, I’m not going to lie. But there have been more good days and so many good stories like that one that I’ve heard from faithful servants of the Lord. I loved hearing former Hindus talk about how once they decided to follow Jesus, they realized that God loves everyone, even the Dalit, and they started to love and serve people they previously wouldn’t have even allowed to touch them. I’ve seen South Sudanese singing praises to God even as they hid in the bush from people destroying their town (we were far enough away and the guns were loud so we weren’t in any danger of being discovered). I’ve listened to stories from my Kenyan drilling chief working to provide water to people in South Sudan while avoiding bombing raids from North Sudan during the war. I’ve heard Leif talk about dodging bullets while trying to start up a relief project in Somalia back in the day. I’ve joined in singing and dancing in various mud churches around this continent, consistently being the worst dancer (though not usually the most tuneless singer, contrary to what you might expect, as volume tends to be more important than tone in most churches where I’ve been—it’s a joyful noise, though). Anyway, the good has outweighed the bad, I believe. You never know what the Lord has for your future—I might stay with Neverthirst until I die or I might get fired tomorrow for saying “sucky days” on the internet or supporting the wrong Alabamian football team (Roll Eagle or whatever). But anyway, I think I have a few more adventures left in me.

And here are a bunch of photos of various recent adventures:

Moussa's granddaughter wants him to open her candy for her.

Selfies with some cool kids

Iyagana and Didja are sisters and friends who wanted to show off
the henna on their hands. They are all dressed up for a wedding.

Iyagana wanted a photo with me. I think she has a career as an Instagram model.
If I were on Instagram, I would help launch her career. She's got the smirk down nicely.

Harun, chief of the village where Iyagana and Didja live.
This is his hand pump behind him. People come from all over to use it,
as it is one of the few in the area that works, though it breaks down frequently due to the depth of the pump.

Nomads setting up camp near Pastor Moussa's house so that they can use his water.

Another nearby crowded water source.
The horse helps pull the water up.

Nadji says goodbye to Moussa's family

Moussa says goodbye to Nadji's wife, Tabitha

I got a new puppy! It's a long story. If you want to know how it happened, I'll tell you.
If you just want to see many photos of this adorable puppy, keep scrolling down.

Joe checks out the puppy. He is not sure about this new "friend."

I am sure. I love her. But I am not sure what her name should be.

Now they're friends! I mostly call her "Tiny Puppy".
Her other names are Shalom (Emelie's idea that I vetoed because Shalom is not a peaceful creature),
Bishi (means 'dog' in Ngambaye and makes the Ngambayes annoyed--'That is what she IS, not her name.'),
Nasara because I think it is funny, Pika because Antani's kids heard it on TV and like it, Mike Tyson because she likes biting my ears, Puppiko because that is something Emelie heard me squeal at her in a high-pitched voice, and more.

All my dogs!

How cute is Tiny Puppy in the flower pot!!
It's like Anne Geddes for puppies!

Oh right, I have 3 dogs because York belongs to a guy who works for the Embassy
who was evacuated and could't take him along. I told him I would look after York for him,
and in return he brought me 3 giant bags of dogfood that none of the dogs will eat unless one dog is eating it and then
they suddenly decide it must be desirable, a box full of canned goods, spices I already had, and a giant jar of nutella (finished that in two days), and some giant tubs of candy I don't like so I gave to less picky children who were thrilled.

My happy, beautiful puppies!