Holiday Seasoning in Chad

Me and la belle Emelie chez le Hilton

Whenever I take photos lately with friends, they frequently ask “if this is going to show up on the blog” sometime. To be honest, it’s always a possibility—unless you specifically tell me not to put it up there. But don’t worry: my mom, aka my main reader, always loves all my friends and her text messages to me go something like this:

“Hi Amanda! How are you today? What are you doing today? Are you feeling ok? Are you eating healthy food and drinking all the water? If you don’t drink enough water, you know you will get sick and die, right? How are all your friends? What is Claire doing? How is Naomi’s work going? When are you going to hang out with Rhyan again? Is Emelie feeling better? Maybe tell her to drink more water. What about Herve? How is his wife after the motorcycle accident?” Add in a few Bible verses and assurances of continued prayer for all of our well-being, and you’ve basically talked to my mom.

My dad’s text messages are shorter: “How are you doing? When are you coming home? Have you bought tickets yet?”

But yes, Claire, this photo of our Thanksgiving celebration is going to end up on the blog.

I'm the one with the crazy eyes in the middle of my lovely group of normal-looking yet beautiful friends.

As you can see, it was an epic celebration of Thankfulness. We ate lots of food and generously invited the former colonizers (those dang Brits) to celebrate alongside of us.

Last year I was in Uganda eating mangos for my Thanksgiving feast. It was not a bad feast. But this year I had my own oven and I got serious about making the food I really like for Thanksgiving, though we can’t get canned cranberry sauce out here, which is one of the few things that tastes better than home-made stuff. You can disagree with me, but you are wrong. Anyway, I baked and baked and baked and bought a can of whipped cream at the store and ate it all and had to buy another.

Baking-don't be fooled: the blender doesn't work.

Finished products (not all by me)

Dinner plate

Dessert

Then I started on Christmas celebrations, watching Rhyan’s employees put up a giant tree. I realized that though I really like Christmas and I enjoy looking at other people’s decorations, I do not mind at all not having to help with the process. As a child, I used to disrupt the process greatly, adding blasphemous Santa hats into the manger scenes or decorating an unappreciative cat. Usually, my sisters would not appreciate my creative additions to their careful home-making skills, but thanks to heightened seasonal Christmas Spirit, they could accept my jokes with good grace and not get too annoyed with me when I didn’t help with anything else.  Fortunately, no one at the Hilton asked for my help.

Hilton decorating

Rhyan is also super helpful and she was crazy busy preparing for the Christmas Market
(which was amazing, by the way!)

The Hilton also ended up being the location of our end of the year IAS Christmas party, thanks to the beautiful Rhyan, who always hooks me up. My staff were so excited to see the Hilton all sparkly and decorated up for Christmas.  I even dressed up because I knew they would love it, and I was feeling generous. Hopefully that image of me lasts for a long time in their minds so I don’t have to do it again any time soon. I have one blurry photo of me that Marthe took, and naturally, I’m carrying my only bag, a lovely cloth one crafted by the Acacia ladies, which Claire made me buy so I’d stop carrying my wallet and phone around in my hand like a man. Since unlike most men, I wear girl(ish) clothes that don’t have pockets, the bag really helped. It did not exactly match my dress, though, as Rhyan kindly pointed out. But Herve said, “Tu est très belle ce soir et je te tire mon chapeau,” so I guess it was worth it putting on the heels.

Joe didn't want to take dress-up photos with me

He's not wearing a chapeau to tire at me,
but I do appreciate this guy

The rare sight of Amanda in heels and a dress,
complete with unmatching bag.
The camera was so shocked, it blurred.
Photo credit: Marthe's phone

My team said they really enjoyed the experience, though everyone was a lot quieter than usual, awed by the splendor around them. One of my staff said, “It’s like you brought us to paradis.” I had one of those moments when I was happy to have given him that experience and also overwhelmed by the unfairness of life where a day spent at the Hilton for me is not a rarity (I like hanging out with Rhyan by the pool!), but it is an other-worldly moment for people I work with every day. I have so much more than I need or deserve, and I'm grateful for it, but it really isn't fair. 

The team in front of the Christmas tree

Our beautiful table

In the end, I have really enjoyed my holidays in Chad. I saved a free day, earned by working straight through various weekends to have Thanksgiving Thursday off, and then I pouted until my friends let me bring my dog to the party (then they all loved him, of course, because he is the best and so lovable). And I love Christmas anywhere. I can get into the spirit in the middle of the desert or enjoy the dulcet disco-beat tones of “Feliz Navidad” blaring through the speakers in our fanciest supermarket. I can make my puppy watch Hallmark Christmas movies with me because they are unintentionally hilarious and they make me think I could be a good actress if I suddenly became stunningly beautiful. I listen to Christmas music (and last minute agree to lead carols in church even though I'm sick so I end up croaking like a frog the whole time—thanks Tara for singing with me and over me) and bake cookies for people, and buy presents for my family. And really, as I was traveling around the last couple of weeks—to Koumra to install a water system at a hospital (while miserably sick for most of the trip) and to Dourbali to finish up ipad reporting for 2 wells out there)—I started thinking: Chad is a perfect Christmas place. We’ve got shepherds. We’ve got camels. We've got long-suffering donkeys. We’ve got a crazy despot on the throne and foreign militaries running around. We’ve got abject poverty and people who would let visitors stay in their barn and/or random government building if there is no room at the local inn (or if there isn’t any local inn available). And we’ve got people waiting to hear the Good News that “unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given…of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.”

A long suffering donkey

Camel! And some wise kids.

Shepherds on a bike

Finally, as my Christmas gift to you, please enjoy the following photos:

Trying to see the submersible pump we installed at the PMI (Protection Maternelle et Infantile) in Koumra.
I couldn't see it, but Jeanpierre also made sure that I didn't fall down the well. He is a gentleman.

The beautiful Rhyan talking to a mother bringing in her child to be weighed.

The crew hanging at Jeanpierre's moringa factory in Koumra.

Rhyan, lovely traveling companion and Hilton connection, with moringa flowers.

She is clearly exhausted from weeks of planning for the Christmas Market,
and I was sick the whole weekend. We're still almost beautiful enough to play the lead in a Hallmark Christmas movie.

Life hack: when the hotel you're staying in for one night has a water heater but no towels,
take the hot(ish) shower and just use the bedsheet as a towel (make sure you shower in the morning before you leave, of course, so you don't have to sleep on wet sheets).

The lovely Absa, who is a famous movie star thanks to Neverthirst videos.
Whenever I go to Dourbali, she comes to say 'hi'.

King Cow. Seriously--he is wearing a tiara.
I don't have the photo of Djibrine 2 standing by him, but he came up to the tail.

So I found a pathetic tiny puppy.
I couldn't leave it to die in the street.
I could NOT. If I were capable of expressing human emotion in a normal female way,
I would have cried in the street over his miserable shivering body.
Instead, I brought it home, washed it, and convinced the guard that he really wanted a puppy.
He wanted to trade for Joe, but I said, "absolutely not," so he agreed to take Tiny Pathetic Puppy.
Joe was interested at first, but then he got super jealous, so I gave Tiny PP to the girls downstairs.
They played with him and then the guard took him home. He might not survive, but at least his last days will be happy ones.

SO SAD!!!! But he plumped up and was even wagging his tail
(after I protected him from Joe and he dried off after his bath).

 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2018!

Where Everybody Knows Your Dog's Name

I started writing a blog post about holiday celebrations I’ve done here in Chad recently because of the importance of chronological consistency, but I can’t be inspired by that while I have a much more important post to write about my new best friend and roomie, Joe (as in G.I.).  He is in almost every photo in this blog post and now the majority of photos in my camera roll and the only reason I’ve not posted a million photos of him on Facebook is because I have been waiting to officially introduce him and also it takes a lot of energy to post photos, especially when there are so many excellent ones to choose from.

Joe’s presence in my life is a direct result of me being exhausted, frustrated and a tiny bit burnt out after the Faya trip, which you will recall was not all bad, but it still weakened me. Specifically, it weakened the part of my brain that controls the decision-making process as it pertains to the addition of people, animals and/or things in my life. Generally, when offered a gift from someone (and Joe was a gift), I think about many things. First, can I refuse this gift without hurting anyone’s feelings? If no, I take the gift, and plan whom I can re-gift that gift to, secretly so that no one finds out.  If yes, I think, “Do I really need this? Do I really want this? Will it take up a lot of space? Will it complicate my life? Will it be difficult to travel with? Will it cost me money?” If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes,’ I usually politely refuse the gift. Obviously, when someone offers to give you a puppy, the answer to most of those questions is ‘yes.’ So naturally, in spite of really really REALLY wanting a puppy for many years now, I should have said ‘no, thank you, but your kindness and generosity have been noted and I am deeply impressed by this self-less gesture.’ Poetry. And 100% true. An excellent polite refusal. But for some reason, I did not. I said yes. And now I have Joe.

Are there times when I have regretted saying ‘yes’? Honestly, there are. But then I spent three nights away from my fuzzy puppy when I went south to Koumra to install a water system at a maternal health center and I missed him so much it hurt. Or I was actually sick most of that trip, so maybe that was it.

At any rate, Joe and I are best pals. He comes with me to work and sits by my desk or plays outside with the guards. I’m fortunate that they really like him and agree to have him stay at the office while I’m traveling. When I got back from Koumra and went to pick him up, Mbaye was very sad, though he tried to act brave for Joe’s sake. So far only one of our visitors has run screaming from the office when she saw him quietly sitting beside my desk, making no noise or disturbance.

Most people really love him, and this includes all the children in my neighborhood and the family that lives in the flat downstairs from me. The youngest daughter has been terrified of me up until I got Joe. Now she loves Joe and will sometimes come up to knock on my door and ask if she can play with him. She waits for us to get home from work and runs out yelling, “Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe!”

The neighborhood kids also run around after us, yelling his name. He is like a celebrity. And the best part is that no one knows my name, so I can maintain my anonymity.

The Joe fan club (Joe not included because a chicken ran by
right before we took this picture and he had to chase that smug noisy little bundle of feathers).

While walk/dragging Joe (he’s not super great on the leash yet), I’ve had several people ask me if I’m selling him. Once when he was being particularly stubborn, refusing to continue to walk with me, a man helpfully told me that Chadian dogs just won’t listen to foreigners. Thanks a lot for embarrassing me in public, Joe.

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I won’t bother you with many more stories of how he sleeps curled up by me on the bed or prefers to drink water off the ground to water in his bowl or how much he loves candy and cookies (he is my dog, after all, it’s only natural). Instead, please enjoy this selection of photos (a tiny percentage of the many many I have taken).

He likes to chew my hair. I'm trying to break him of this habit,
but how cute is his face?!

He sometimes eats pumpkin pie with a fork.
(I got him right before Thanksgiving so he got to try the pie.)

After his first bath. So much sadness.

This is also how I look after taking a bath--cold and shivery and sad.
I'll be happy to have some warm water showers soon in America.

Yes, I give him everything he wants when he looks like this.

Please enjoy the following photos of Joe trying various foods for the first time. You better look at all of them because I've been forced to see all your posts about "Happy 4.5 months, Baby Sparrow! You love singing the alphabet, drooling on Daddy's head, changing the password to the internet, eating chocolate-covered peas, and being Mommy's favorite baby EVER!" #blessed #mommylove #babysparrow #ilovemybabysoooooomuch #howcutearehiseyes #cheeksfordayssss #helookslikehisdaddy #hesalivebecauseofessentialoils #youcanneverhavetoomanyhashtags #yolo

*insert adorable photo of a baby in hat holding a perfectly-lettered handmade poster*

He loves whipped cream. Just like his mommy.

He was indifferent to cheetos.
Guess that came from his daddy because mommy also loves those.

He looks indifferent to this sour patch kid, but you're wrong.
He loves them. He's a genius.

Can you see the resemblance?

He begged to try it, but he doesn't like tea.
I blame the Americans he spent his early weeks with.

He loves these Chadian candies. I give him the yellow and orange ones I don't like
 and eat the cherry and strawberry ones myself.
Note: this photo is staged. I take most of the paper off before I give it to him.

Some cookies that ended up being gross.
Now that I have a dog, they weren't wasted:
I ate all the chocolate icing out of the middle
and he ate the gross cookie part.

Un chasseur! He got a lizard.

He tried to hunt this chicken too,
but the owners of the chicken were not impressed by his skills.

He's a fancy French dog. He loves paté.

Watching Home Alone, a classic film in which a little boy's dream
of living alone and eating junk food for dinner is fulfilled,
aka Amanda's Life Story

Are you still paying attention?
This is not my dog, but it is my adorable niece with her dog.

I will leave you with this sage unsolicited relationship advice that Kandos and Herve have now given me. I told Herve after I got Joe that now I don't need a man anymore because I have a dog. (His fondest wish is to see me married and popping out babies, and he is sure that I'm intentionally scaring off the men by putting up "walls".) He responded, "Non, Amanda. Tu peux pas dire ça-- ça c'est trop!" Loose translation: now, you've gone too far.

Kandos, seeing me lying in the office floor by my dog, whispering sweet nothings in his ear, said, "Someday when you find a man, you will love him more than that dog. I hope." I'm not making any promises though. Kandos then forbade me from sharing photos of me lying in the floor with Joe in case it scares off potential husbands. "They don't want to think that you will love your dog more than them. Amanda-you will never find a husband that way!" Ah well, the spinster life for me, then I guess. At least I'm not a cat lady. Yet. I like those too.

Herve took this photo and sighed.

Urbain took this photo and laughed. And Kandos sighed.

Driving home from work. I still drive better than most people here,
even with a dog impeding my vision.
(Calm down, Mom. I don't really drive like this. Usually.)