Starting out 2024

This photo has nothing to do with the blog but it is from our visit to Festival Dary,
a Chadian Festival that celebrates Chad. It is a lot of fun if you go on a day where there are no riots.

It’s a new year, and some new year miracles are happening—first, I’m writing this instead of doing some other useless thing. Second, my priority checked bags actually both arrived nearly first off the plane in N’djamena and I got out of the airport before almost anyone else. Manon and Joe were waiting in the car to pick me up. Pika continues to hate car rides unless she knows we are going to buy some goat meat for her dinner. Ziggy was not invited along because she is very mad at Manon for getting another kitten and keeps trying to attack her. Now Zig sleeps with me and stays exclusively in my house. Manon is sad, but those are the consequences for getting a kitten that can walk and chase mice. The consequences of keeping Zig mean she is constantly falling into the dogs’ water bowl and knocking her food all over the kitchen but she is so cute.

Manon's new kitten

Zig is unimpressed by her new neighbor

I’ve already had one visit here in Chad, which I thought was going to be fairly easy and painless. My boss, his son, and 2 new colleagues were coming. Well, the woman colleague’s plane was canceled due to the snow and she couldn’t make it. This was sad to me because I’m almost always the only girl here, and it would have been fun to have another one along. It was also sad because she was bringing me her winter clothes to wear on my trip to Antarctica. Yes—I’m going there next week. 

Excited to eat grilled camel meat

I turn 40 this year, which is an age I always thought was SO OLD as a kid. Probably because when I was a kid, it was en vogue to throw grave yard parties with black balloons and “over the hill” signs for people who turned 40 and we had a lot of those parties for my parents and others of their expat friends. My life did not follow the traditional plan where I am now married with several children who will give my old age purpose and visitors and black balloon parties, but I think I should embrace the things I did end up with—flexibility and freedom to travel. So I have one more continent to visit to “collect them all,” and I’m heading there next week inshallah!

I also get to embrace these 3 things that do not particularly like being embraced.

Anyway, back to this most recent trip…

I picked up the guys and we went to visit projects in Dourbali. Everything went fairly smoothly except that the night we spent in Dourbali we ended up taking a woman to the hospital who was in a minor motorcycle accident. My diagnosis is that she made herself hysterical, but was actually not badly injured at all. It is a good thing I am not a doctor because I have no bedside manner. I let Matt drive her to the hospital because it is the greatest joy of his life to drive in Chad when roads aren’t paved. I ended up driving back to the hospital later that night to pick her up when she was discharged because Matt was already asleep. I got in bed around midnight that night.

BTS of a Matt video in front of a terrible water source.
Good news: a well is being drilled in this village right now!

The next day we visited another village and they insisted on us riding camels and horses into the village as they celebrated. Matt and I rode the horses since we’ve ridden plenty of camels in the past and let the others ride the camels. I’m not a fan of horses much but these ones were fine, except it is awkward to ride astride in a dress. I’m glad to see people happy to have clean water, but I do feel awkward in those types of celebrations. People here get a kick out of it, so I try to have fun with them. 

The presented us with camel milk, which I told Matt to pretend to drink. He did well.
The kid's sign is asking for education for children in the village,
sadly that is not something we do, but I hope that there will be a school in this village someday.

Anyway, all was well. The visit went well. Jeff drove back some of the way until we got to the paved roads and had a great time. I took everyone for pizza back in N’djamena. They’d all done so well eating the Chadian food and enjoying it, so I always reward people with pizza after that trip.

The next day I went to pick up the guys from the hotel to take them to breakfast. Matt and Nathan were there, but Jeff didn’t come. I went inside to find him, knocked on his door and he appeared in his underwear with a miserable look on his face. He had diarrhea and vomiting all night and was still going. I said to rest and I would come back later with meds. Matt, Nathan and I went on to the French bakery for some nice pastries. Then we went to my house to drop off their bags so we could go see the hippos. I called Claire for medical advice, she gave me the names of meds to get and Abiner went off to find the meds. Then I got a call from Jeff. He said, “The police are here and they are wanting to arrest me. I don’t know what to do.” I told him to pass me the phone and had the following conversation:

Me: “The nasara is sick and I left him there to rest. I’m coming back to pay for the rooms. Please leave him alone so he can rest.”

Police: “We know he is sick. We don’t want to cause problems for him, but there is a problem at the hotel. We are arresting everyone. Can you come get him?”

I live 5 minutes away so I hopped in the car and went to get him. 

Probably one of the last times Jeff was smiling in Chad.

I get there and the place is crawling with military, police and tons of people. People are carrying out lamps, sheets, food, mini refrigerators, and it is mass chaos. I go inside and find the nice guy from reception and make sure he is not about to be arrested. He assures me he is fine, but the owner of the property and the Chinese renter (it is the Hotel Hong Kong) are having a spat about the rent and the Chadian owner took the Chinese renter to court over it and they were currently there and fighting it out. So everyone has to leave. Not as bad as I had thought, but I guess if you can’t speak the language and stuff is coming out both ends and police bang on your door you would think that is pretty bad. Jean from reception said, “Do you mind if I get your bill to you later? Everything is a bit unorganized right now.” He was not wrong.

I brought Jeff back to my house where Antani had graciously cleaned my room up nicely for him, but he collapsed on my very uncomfortable small sofa instead and insisted he was fine and didn’t want to move. I brought him a pillow, made him take some meds and drink a sprite and then we went off to go see hippos.

Matt and Nathan were excited to see the hippos, but we made the mistake of putting everyone in the same wooden canoe and we nearly sank while paddling to the little island where the hippos were sleeping. They also didn’t want to go closer because hippos are a little scary. Before we made it to the island, Matt kept trying to get us to go back, but the guys refused, probably because turning around would have tipped the boat for sure. Both Matt and Nathan’s shoes were soaked, which I felt bad about because they were flying out later that night, and it isn’t fun to travel with wet squishy shoes. Matt said the hippos were not worth the boat trip, but we got two canoes to pick us up and the trip back to shore was not bad. Nathan said he enjoyed it anyway. Chad weather came through for us and their shoes were dry by the time we walked back to our truck.

See? They didn't sink!

Then we spent some time buying soccer jerseys for Matt’s other kids and finally we got back to my house to check on Jeff. I noticed he was no longer on the couch, so I went into my bedroom where he was sleeping on my bed. I congratulated him for moving to a more comfortable location. (Really the only people who like to sit on my couch are Joe, Pika and Ziguégué). He said, “I think your couch is like a futon or something because it folded up.”

It is not a futon. He just was too big for it and it collapsed. Fortunately Manon has an extra couch in our storage room and she let me take that while Matt tried to find enough straight nails in our nail jar to fix my old one. I like the new couch better anyway, but I need to buy new cushions for it because my ones are too small.

My new couch will look like this once I get cushions that are the right size.

Jeff skipped our late lunch/early dinner too, but perked up for souvenir shopping before heading to the airport. (Dr Claire saves the day for the neverthirst team again. She says, “I always know to keep my phone by me when you have a neverthirst team here.” And Matt says we need to keep her on retainer. Honestly, she has even helped with medical advice when I’ve been in Niger, Ethiopia, and Uganda even.) Their flight was delayed again, but I think everything else has been ok because I’ve not had any other messages from them. I doubt Jeff will ever want to come again to Chad, and now I need to find another go-to hotel, but otherwise it was a mostly successful trip. I’m happy to say that I think Nathan had a good time, so at least we are passing good memories on to the next generation.

Another recent visitor--cute little CODA.
His hands are blurred because he is trying to sign to me.

Now I’m sitting under my fan in my room typing this and feeling very cold as Pika licks my legs for no reason. I am happy that the warm clothes I ordered on Amazon made it to Debbie’s house so that I can have some warm clothes for Antarctica because if I’m cold in these clothes under the fan, I’m not going to be ok hanging with the penguins without some extras.

Pika is unsure of these chili lemon gummy bears, but I love them.
Thanks to my niece and nephews for the Christmas present.

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.

Quarantine Catch-Up

A couple of months ago, I had a blog post started. I was going to talk about a trip I had made across jagged, muddy roads to Dourbali to report on a bunch of finished water projects. Naturally I went in a car that had no spare tire because I like to live life on the edge. As you know, having recently been in a car accident, I should have been more prudent, but I did make sure to drive slowly, and I had no tire incidents. I did get stuck in the mud twice, but Victor got me out. 

 I was planning to tell you about convincing nomad women to stop for photos, driving out to a new water project that we had worked so hard on and being surrounded by laughing happy people and new babies named after me and after the water, taking a sick old man to the hospital in the back of the truck and giving him my second to last Turkish airlines pillow (it’s the best airline pillow, if you travel Turkish Airlines, please get one for me to replace my devastating loss)…that trip was pretty fun, albeit exhausting.  

Then when I got back to Ndjamena, I found out that I had shingles. Claire was super psyched about this because she correctly diagnosed me, and it’s always nice for her to be reminded that she is a medical genius. I was relieved that it wasn’t one of those crazy African bugs that lays eggs in your skin. So anyway, I had to recover from that… 

I was very proud that I drove through this mess and didn't get stuck.

Pride goes before a fall. I got stuck here twice.

Just sitting and waiting for Victor to come in his truck to pull me out.

Preferable means of transportation in rainy season.

Kadidja shows me how she used to travel for hours to get water,
but now she has it right near her house.

She almost smiled! She and her friends
from another Chadian nomadic tribe, passed by a hand pump
that we upgraded into a solar pump. They all stopped to drink and fill up their jars.

With my friend Fatima and another girl whose name I didn't get.

 

This is the hospital in rural Chad.

More photos at the end! (I have several blog posts' worth of photos)

 Once I recovered from shingles, Joe and Flip suddenly got sick one morning. I called the vet, and tried to figure out what was wrong. The same day, the owners of my house were fixing the cement walls that were cracking and crumbling. They told me that the British vet was in town, and she came over to check on the dogs. If your camel needs medical attention, you definitely want the Chadian vet. If your dog needs medical attention, you want the British one. Katie (British vet) agreed. I don’t actually want to tell this story because it was really painful. Joe survived the sickness, but Flip died. It was really horrible, and I stayed up all night holding Flip while he screamed in misery, and I realized that I was also getting a fever. The next day I was miserable, the dogs were miserable, and I called the vet to come and I called Abiner, Antani’s youngest brother who loves my dogs. He really helped save Joe’s life. He helped give them water, injections, and all the care I couldn’t give because I couldn’t get up. We thought that Flip was going to pull through but he died later that night. I was pretty devastated by it. Flip was such a sweet little dog. I’d trained him to sit and shake hands. He followed me everywhere. Just a lovely sweet boy. I really miss him. But I’m so thankful that Joe is doing better. He’s back to normal now, and I’m down to two dogs. York went back to his owner. Joe and Pika are still with me. Though Moussa continues to call her “Kakilé”, Pika is now the official name of Tiny Puppy. Antani’s kids came over a lot with Abiner to play with the dogs while I was sick, and Pika is now the name that she answers to. 

The last photo I took of my pack of dogs.

I would always bring Flip and Joe to work with me.
Flip jumped in the car any time I opened the door--
was always disappointing for him when I opened it just because I forgot something in there.
I brought Flip and Joe to work and left York and Pika because Flip and Joe will sit quietly.
I think they somehow got rat poison or something while they were at the office,
as York and Pika were fine.

I pulled out the guest mattress for the sick puppies.
Abiner is helping take care of them.
Pika wanted to photo bomb the photo.
I was lying in bed when I took this photo.

Now it's just Pika and Joe and me, but Pika loves Joe
and Joe tolerates Pika and sometimes condescends to play with her.

 As for me, after Flip died, I accepted being miserably sick and just went to bed. Claire stopped by and went against her principles of requiring a malaria test before giving malaria meds. She saw that I was pretty feeble and just gave me the pills. The meds we use here are for 3 days—one tablet in the morning, one at night. It was Wednesday that she gave me the meds. They tend to work fairly quickly, but by Friday when I should have been improving as I was on the last day of pills, I was worse. Claire came back into town, driving through a huge rainstorm, to bring me into the hospital. The storm was so bad, my whole yard was like a swimming pool. I had to wade through water over my ankles to get out to Claire’s car. Once at the hospital (a 20-30 minute miserable bumpy ride for me despite Claire’s best efforts at smooth driving—the road always wins), she took me to the OR where the docs immediately tried to hook me up to an IV. I’ve got pretty pokey veins and it’s usually not hard to get in one, but I was pretty dehydrated, and it took many pokes in both hands before they got one in. They took some blood and did the malaria test and it was positive as soon as it hit the slide. Dr Tom told me that I have a serious case of severe malaria that is resistant to the tablets, so I had to have medicine in an IV. He said I was also very dehydrated and that is why I was suddenly freezing and not because it was a rainy day. I also had symptoms of typhoid, but Tom said there is no point in testing because almost all typhoid tests here always come out positive whether you have it or not. He gave me antibiotics anyway. It’s great that I have a friend like Claire who strongly believes in the efficacy of modern medicine. Left to my own devices, I probably would have tried to treat my illness with the power of my mind and/or some green tea and chocolate. It’s also great having a friend like Claire who lives on the hospital compound. She put me in her spare room, IV bag hooked up to the mosquito net pole. I was there all weekend, and everyone took care of me. A bunch of the MKs on the compound drew me pictures and made get well cards for me. Abiner took care of Joe and Pika. 

Positive malaria test, attempting to smile for the camera.
I was freezing here and Claire went and brought me a pillow and blankets 
from her house because I had to get 4 bags of fluid in me before they would let me leave.

When you're constantly sick or in recovery, you don't run as much.
It's spider season and they staked their claim on my shoes.

Once Joe was better, he desperately wanted to go for his walks.
Here he is getting closer and closer to me to demand I take him.
Unfortunately, I was too sick to stand up and the vet said to make him take it easy
for at least two weeks.

I’m very thankful to have wonderful friends who love me and help me when I’m alone and in need. While sometimes I feel like God doesn’t answer the deepest prayers of my heart, the ones that I bring to Him all day/everyday, I can’t say that He hasn’t consistently provided for my needs during difficult times. It’s a tricky thing because in this world I constantly see people in need around me, and I wonder sometimes—why hasn’t God provided for their needs? He has everything. But just like He used people to provide for my needs, I’m someone He can use to help others. If I’m not paying attention to the needs of others that He puts in front of me, or if I’m too selfish or lazy or caught up in my own comfort, I can miss the needs of others. I’m not saying that God relies on me to do His work-He doesn’t need me, but I think there are consequences to my actions, and that might mean someone doesn’t get the help that they need in particular moment when we were supposed to step in. We have a responsibility as the Church to be the hands and feet of Jesus around the world—if you remember, in the Bible, Jesus’s hands and feet were constantly serving the poor and needy right up until that moment when He gave up His life for all of us. If you say you love Jesus, you don’t get a pass on this. Going to church on Sunday, praying before you eat, reading a few verses of the Bible in the morning—all nice things. But if your life isn’t transformed to serve others in the name of the One who gave us everything, you’re missing it. We are not going to fix this world, not in our lifetime, not ever. This world is broken. But we are supposed to work to bring good, peace, life everywhere we can (i.e. the Gospel, the Good News-in word and deed). A little village in the middle of nowhere Chad got a desperately needed water source because people all over the world obeyed—giving money, moving to a new town and reaching out to the people around them, taking a pay cut to work with a new organization that wants to bring clean and living water to the poor through the local church. But there are many many more villages like this one that haven’t gotten access to water. More people are going to have to step up if we are going to help them too. God can do miracles, and sometimes He does. But miracles should be rare, otherwise they’re just normal, not miraculous. Usually He works through His people to do amazing things. Don’t you want to be a part of seeing amazing things happen? 

They're happy babies!

The village gave us a goat in appreciation of the new well.
Sadly, we ate it the next day for breakfast. It tasted good though.

My little pals.

Getting water from the new well!

Anyway, moving on from the sermon, I’m currently in quarantine in Ethiopia. Initially, there was no required quarantine for traveling to Ethiopia. I waited until the last minute to buy my ticket, and so I had time to add another week to my trip when they added a 7 day quarantine requirement. THIS IS WHY YOU NEVER CAVE TO PRESSURE FROM PLAN-AHEAD PEOPLE. Last minute ticket buying is the only way to go in this uncertain world. Lucky for me, it meant I was on the same flight as Claire from NDJ to ADD. We did covid tests together—Negative! And got to the airport together. We did not get checked in together. At the airport they discovered that I was not a man, in spite of the fact that l’Hôpital Centrale had put “M” instead of “F” on the form. Everyone was concerned. I was informed that Ethiopia would send me right back to Chad because of this grave error. Two MAF pilots were in the airport vouching for me, but no one was swayed until a tired Chadian official came over to check on the hold up. He glanced at the paper and said, “Technically we only need the full name as on the passport and a negative test. We don’t even need the passport number or any other information. Why are you complicating this unnecessarily? We don’t need this. Let her check in.” What an amazing guy. I don’t know his name, but he is a pragmatic genius who should probably be in charge of everything. 

Waiting to pick up our covid tests!

So excited that it was negative, I didn't notice that I had turned into a Male.

In the airport in our matching Chadian flag face masks!

Claire and I planned to watch the latest episode of the Great British Bake Off on the plane, but my computer is old and not working very well and we couldn’t get the sound to work. We had fun talking about everything and eating the less than impressive airline food. Landed in Addis and said our goodbyes…and I went through immigration where no one mentioned quarantining or the fact that I’m actually Female. Claire discovered that many airport shops are open and the internet was working due to the airport not being packed to the gills as it usually is. I’m now staying with Paul Murphy and his lovely wife Almaz, who is treating my cold (unless it’s covid) with ginger lemon tea, while Gladys Hayes who is also in quarantine in the Murphy house along with her husband and two children (it’s a big house), smiles indulgently. Gladys is an actual doctor. But Almaz will heal me with Eritrean/Ethiopian health secrets, lots of love and care, and sheer determination. 

I like to sit in the garden while I'm in quarantine here.
I have to be in the sun though, otherwise it's too cold.

 I may write more after my trip to the field when I am tasked with getting many many photos and videos for Neverthirst. But possibly I will be too busy. If you want to see photos and videos for Neverthirst, follow us on social media because hopefully I’ll get one or two images acceptable for the public. And hopefully our local partners will film me better than I filmed Claire for a 3 minute testimony video that she had to do—I cut off the top of her head in the last minute of the video. She was already stressed about the video, and I ruined her perfect first take. After multiple subsequent takes, we finally got an acceptable one with head fully in the screen, but the people chose the head chop one to put on social media, so I feel bad every time I look at it. I’m sure they did it just to spite me. But it was a great story Claire shared and people really appreciated it. If I get my voice back in the next couple of days, due to the power of ginger lemon tea, I’ll hope to do as well as she did, though her accent is way better than mine (Devon is class).

I drove out to see Nesie's land.

Riding a donkey

Cuddling a little boy named Almi (water).

Good friend with his new solar-powered pump.

Dog bunk beds

Moussa's daughter (red head scarf) is a nurse.
She's training young mothers in proper care of their babies.

Cows like to ride in trucks.

Moussa and friends.

My little namesake, Amina, came by with her mother to visit me.

Some of the men from the village

Two nomad men who were in town visiting. 
They heard about our project and invited Moussa to their village.

Nomad ladies passing by on their way to sell stuff in the market.
They stopped to get water at one of our pumps.

Face tattoos are common in this tribe.

Nesie on his land with the owner who sold it to him.
They're good friends now.

Moussa and Joe shared a seat in my single cabin truck
on the way home from the office. Pika doesn't like the office.

The village elders with Moussa.
The man in the middle started this village.
Many people are related to him.

Selfie time!

Happy Thanksgiving from a Chadian turkey.
Moussa is looking for a female now.
He's got flocks of chickens, ducks, and guinea fowl.
He wants to start with turkeys too.