I had a pretty busy year in 2024 and I didn’t blog as much as I thought I would or as much as I hoped I would. I actually didn’t think I would suddenly turn into a disciplined writer in 2024, but I had a vague hope about it. I thought I should give a quick run down for posterity because in my old age I’m becoming more forgetful and maybe someday I’ll want to remember it.
I do think that when you hit milestone birthdays (for me those seem to be decade birthdays for whatever reason), you do tend to look back and feel the passing of time. It’s been those birthdays when I look at where I am and think about where I thought I’d be at this age and what I have and haven’t achieved. I haven’t taken a very typical road, and sometimes I feel a moment of missing what I don’t have, what I thought I’d certainly have by this age, and what I’m not likely to have at this point. I don’t think it is honest to say “I have no regrets about anything” but even the things that I wouldn’t do again if I had the chance, I wouldn’t go back and change them even if I could because I learned from them and they are a part of who I am now.
Anyway, enough deep thoughts…I didn’t celebrate 40 with black balloons. Instead I visited my last continent with an old friend who is always up for a crazy adventure. And then once I realized work and life got me to every other continent except Australia, I decided to go back to Australia to visit more dear friends and be a part of what I deem an elite club of people who had enough time and disposable income and ability to ignore the problems that come with lack of sufficient sleep to visit all 7 continents in one year.
So here is 2024 with special thanks to my camera roll that allows me to see the photos I took each month so I can remember where I was when.
January:
I started it where I am now with Marian and her family, ringing in the new year with nieces and nephews who love it when Auntie babysits because she lets them eat as much junk food as they want and never makes them get off the screens. Special thanks to Charis and the family dog who are always up for a long walk while the others continue to rot brains and bodies before their loving parents return and reinstate all the rules.
From the US, I went back to Chad where I was visited by the neverthirst CEO, his son, and a new colleague. We had a successful trip until the last day when the hotel I put them in was raided by the police and my new colleague was miserably sick for 24 hours +. I already wrote about this.
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| Festival Dary is a highlight when Chad celebrates its diversity. It's in January, and I'm missing it this year because of meetings. |
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| The CEO, his son, and my soon to be poisoned new coworker. |
Then at the end of the month I flew to Argentina and boarded a boat for Antarctica!
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| Thanks to Debbie for always being up for the crazy stuff. |
February:
Started in Antarctica with the penguins and other less important wildlife. It was beautiful, I already wrote about this too. I started off the year strong with the blog!
Also visited Uruguay briefly.
Then back to Chad where my friends planned an epic celebration which brought together people from 6 or so countries, my two dogs, and the river I love to play in, which has given me the gift of schistosomiasis according to blood tests I did later in the year in Australia.
February ended with me in Ethiopia for a donor trip.
March:
Ethiopia is always fun but the rest of the month I was back in Chad, spending a lot of time swimming in the river with the dogs, trying to beat the heat. Dreaming of ways to clean it up, and I’m still dreaming of that.
April:
More river time, less electricity (the worst it has been since I’ve lived in Chad but thank God for our solar power), celebrating Eids with Muslim friends and birthdays with deaf friends.
Ended April in Zanzibar where I promised Claire I would go with her even though I’ve already been. Naomi joined and we had fun even though we discovered the level of incompetence at Kenya Airways had exceeded the highest levels we had imagined and Naomi spent too much of the holiday in the same clothes, waiting for her suitcase to arrive. (Never fly Kenya Airways!)
May:
Made it back to Chad for more river time, mango season, Manon’s birthday, Chad elections (a very unfunny joke).
I ended May in Cambodia for a neverthirst meeting. I loved bringing Africans to Asia. Loved being back in Asia having rice for breakfast every day and morning runs through rice fields.
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| Kadessou and Ayouba at Angkor Wat! I thought I had blogged about this, but I only started one that I didn't finish. |
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| See? We had meetings too, not just all fun times. |
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| Kadessou learned what it feels like when random people come up to take your photo because you are cool and exotic. |
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| Ayouba bravely tried deep fried spiders with me |
June:
Started June in Cambodia. Got back to Chad in time for Claire’s birthday, another Eid, a last minute trip to Elephant Rock with Manon, David and Emelie before all of them left!
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| Road tripping to Elephant Rock |
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| Got the truck stuck in the sand (dug it out with lot of people helping) |
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| Joe loves the car |
Mahabba was born and I am his unofficial Auntie Oyinbo.
Debbie got to come to Chad for work, break a few hearts, see a hippo in real life, and not get any decent photos with me.
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| Here is a photo of Pika who hasn't featured enough because she gets carsick and doesn't go on long road trips. |
July:
Manon left for a year in France and we are still missing her!
Rainy season floods make driving in Chad more exciting.
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| Meant to put in a photo of flooded roads, but liked this one more. Abiner takes good care of my handicapped puppy. |
August:
Finally made a trip to visit Rhyan after many years of discussion. We met up in Portugal and I got to meet her sister, brother in law and their adorable child. Always great to be back with old friends!
Ran a 2km marathon with Jesse in N’Djamena and won for being the oldest woman who ran the race.
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| Blogged about this too earlier |
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| Telling the reporters that I just ran fast, didn't stop for the whole 2km race, while also being super old, and that was my strategy. |
Recorded music with Kazeem.
August was very Nigeria focused—I finished August dodging crocodiles and Boko Haram in Nigeria.
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| He helpfully put the croc on the ground so it could chase us around a bit. |
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| I mean what a great disguise, right? You would have no idea that there was a white girl in the car. |
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| Lovely village that hosted us when our car broke down in Boko Haram territory |
September:
The first of September I flew back to Chad and enjoyed a few moments at home before I headed off to Tajikistan. I had a great time visiting a potential partner there and eve better they agreed to help me fulfill a childhood dream of visiting Samarkand, just across the border in Uzbekistan. They even added a quick trip to Bukhara, which I may have liked even more. I should have blogged about this trip. It was amazing, but life was a bit nonstop until…well, a couple weeks ago, and by that time I was already in the US for Christmas and not wanting to spend a lot of time on my computer chronicling my life.
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| You know it's going to be a great trip when your seatmate gets her cats out. |
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| We were given so many presents. Here is fresh naan! |
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| The Registan |
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| Bukhara--see the cool young kid at the end? It's his dream to be an exchange student in the US. Anyone got any contacts? Let me know! |
October:
I was supposed to go to Niger, but I didn’t get my visa because Niger is mad at Americans right now and they accidentally on purpose did not sign the papers in time. I mean, I know why they’re mad, and I get it, and they’re right to be miffed, but I didn’t do anything and they know I’ve been there many times without causing any problems.
Instead, I stayed in Chad and caught malaria, which was bad timing since Claire was in the UK. I survived, thought, thanks to my Chad village that includes Antani, training to be a nurse, and Mikael, training to be a doctor, and others who sent help from a far. Merci beaucoup à vous tous!
November:
I headed out to Bangladesh on the first, and I caught the inaugural flight for Ethiopian Airlines from Addis to Dhaka! I got presents from the airline and many cameras in our tired traveling faces.
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| Receiving gifts from the Bangladesh partners, gifts from Ethiopian Airlines not pictured. |
I enjoyed my time in Bangladesh with more great food. I had been craving dumplings since I had malaria and they served momos for breakfast at the hotel so right off the bat I was pretty happy. And thanks to the Sri Lankans who made sure that my constant cravings for pani poori were satisfied as well.
From Bangladesh, I decided that I was close enough to get to Australia and to make it seem like I was doing it for Reasons and not just to hit all the continents in one year, I did a lot of medical stuff. Best of all, I got to see old friends I haven’t seen in 5(?) years and meet their youngest daughter, this time out of the womb, and re-meet the older daughter at an age where she will likely remember me now.
I made it back to Chad just in time for Esther’s wedding, which I was happy not to miss.
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| Abiner was a great wedding escort--he got us there an hour early. |
Thanks to Claire for spending Thanksgiving with me even though she is British. She was happy to eat turkey and mozzarella sticks with cranberry sauce and make cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing.
Finished November making masala dosa with Darshita and Jo!
December:
Bittersweet time finishing projects in Uganda, but mostly sweet because we were celebrating good things, going on safari with the Feat Africa team, and planning for a few more visits to the Pearl of Africa.
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| Known this guy for more than a decade now! |
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| The Nile River was as full as I've ever seen it. The boats were right outside my door. |
Back to Chad and less than a week later back in the air on the way to the US because flights were filling up fast.
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| Thomas kids are too cool to smile. But we had a great time. |
Now it is January and I’m in Virginia until the 6th and then the 8th I leave for Chad and then land on the 10th and then 12th I’m off to Dubai for a day and back on the 15th. Already planning Ethiopia for early February so this year looks to get me spending a lot of time in airports again. As we say in Chadian French and possibly also real French French (I can’t verify with Manon because she is now in France and anyway everyone there keeps making fun of her French, which is now very African), “ça va aller!”
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| The twins on their birthday with their new dog! |
Bonne année à vous tous! Or for me it is better to say “Selamat Tahun Baru” because I usually celebrate New Years in Indonesian since our tradition is to make Indonesian food and call Ati on NYE. May the Lord bring you Good things in 2025.
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| Traditional bala-bala with Charis! |
Actually NOW I am in the airport, waiting for my flight to DC where I have to spend the night because of Ethiopian Airlines schedule being annoyed with people who listen to stuff on their phones out loud. Can we make that illegal? See you soon, Africa, I hope! Looking forward to some warm weather!
