Chad from Nepal

I have been in Chad for a month now. Though currently I’m in Nepal, but this is the first time I’ve felt like typing on my computer in a long time. When you spend the day in the office typing emails, proposals and translating French reports into English, it is hard to be motivated to get the thing out again when you get home.

Blurry but shows that even office Bible study time is done
on electronics. Chadians are advanced.

Also, I don’t feel like I have too many stories, except for all the driving ones. Yes, in  Chad I am driving. A Lot. As you know, I hate driving, but I like mobility, and I don’t like being dependent on others for rides all the time. So far I have only been pulled over by the cops one time. And not for anything illegal, but he did make me pay him 12,000CFA. He had wanted 16,000, but I told him I didn’t have it. I thought I was telling the truth, but I realized later that I wasn’t. I gave him 10,000 and he said, “Give me the 2,000 too.” So I did. I also made sure to talk in my most halting broken French and open my eyes at him in wide confusion. He realized that he didn’t care to keep trying to have a conversation with me, and let me go. The next day my colleagues showed me a new way to get between my home and the office that doesn’t have any cops. And so I am learning my way around N’djamena in an effort to avoid paying a lot of bribes.

Ginger juice. It's good.

Not being pulled over by cops helps my stress level, but driving is not something that competitive people should be allowed to do, especially in Chad. I find myself reminding myself that this is not a game of bumper cars. When I get mad, I MUST NOT ram my car into the offender who cut in front of me wildly and dangerously. I cannot even gently knock his bumper. (Oh the depths of my self-control that I am discovering!)  But since no one expects anyone else to follow any traffic etiquette, I have dispensed with socially accepted niceties altogether. I tailgate beautifully, just to make sure no stupid motorcycles cut in between me and the car in front of me.  I make sudden right turns from the left lane. I dodge pedestrians, leaving mere inches between the car and their bodies. I have even run red lights, once when the light was actually working and I’d been waiting two cycles already for the interminably slow cars in front of me to move.

One thing I can’t do, though, without risking grave danger, is go against the French traffic rule that cars entering the traffic roundabout have the right of way and cars already in the circle must yield. First of all, who in the world ever thought it would be ok to let the French make traffic laws? Seriously. There are many things that the French do well—croissants, art museums, public parks. But traffic? No. Even they are terrified to drive in their own capital city. And now they have foisted off ridiculous rules on unsuspecting Francophone African countries, which, let’s be honest, were not going to be naturally inclined to follow traffic rules anyway, and look what we have!

Diagram of Chadian Traffic Circles-legibility not important

Anyway, so far I’ve survived. I have no pictures though, even though there are a million things I wish I could have photographed. I’ve deemed it wise not to whip out the camera while driving. Of course this hasn’t stopped me from slapping on my veil (I have been living across the street from a mosque and getting home right at  Maghrib, so veils at home have been important) while dodging cars, motorcycles, pedestrians and changing the radio from French news to Arabic news to who-am-I-kidding-of-course-I’m-going-to-end-up-listening-to-music. I’m sure you’re all amazed that I’m still alive. I am too, actually, but mostly amazed that I haven’t wrecked the car, though I drove to work on an almost flat tire, and only realized that it was completely dead when I drove up over the curb and heard a crunching sound. But I was NOT the cause of that scratch on the front bumper, and whoever told Kandos it was me is LYING. I have not hit anything yet.  I’m saving that for my second month in Chad.

Himalayas in Nepal

Post script:

Traveling from Chad to Nepal is an exciting journey. Possibly you will be seated next to a very pungent man who recites the Koran loudly all the way to Addis. Possibly one or more of the passengers on the plane will fashion the Ethiopian Airlines blanket into a posh-looking turban and wear them proudly off the plane. (I really need to learn how to do that.) Possibly once you get to Addis you will meet a French citizen from Gabon who has been trapped in the airport in Addis for several days and is really happy to vent her frustrations to someone in French. Possibly a Chinese man that you tried to help find the internet will find it for you and bring you the password without you even asking. Possibly when arriving in New Delhi you will meet a girl from Bolivia who speaks no English traveling to Nepal to meet her online boyfriend. Possibly with your terrible Spanish you will help her navigate the airport and try to warn her off the boyfriend while introducing her to the wonders of Masala Dosa. I tell you, anything can happen when traveling from Chad to Nepal.

Masala dosa con Maria