Across the Country and Back in 55 Hours: a Leif and Amanda Travel Story

Leif was here, so together we came up with a brilliant plan to fly across the country to Iriba where we are drilling some bore holes. Then we would spend the night there and then drive to Abeche (about 8 hours drive on unpaved roads) the next day. During the drive we would have meetings with the other passengers, innoncent people who we coerced into driving us around, as all our cars were in use in the field. Then upon arrival in Abeche, we would have more meetings with local staff there before getting up at 4am to take the bus back to Ndjamena. If this seems like a crazy schedule to you, note that this was over the weekend after we’d been working all week, and Leif had a flight out the night we arrived back in N’djamena to attend a conference in Ethiopia the next day. Also, yes, it was my idea, but I would never have pitched it to anyone but Leif because anyone else would have laughed in my face.  But I know Leif, and I knew he would be just crazy enough to be up for it.

A Leif and Amanda planned trip where we end up wandering
the desert on camels just in time to attend a meeting
before rushing off across the country the next day to attend
an important conference that Leif organized.
Note: I'm the one wrapped in all the blankets
because Leif is from Sweden and therefore impervious to cold.

Overall, the trip was fun. We hung out with some cool people, road in the car with a live goat given to us by a grateful community, visited our drilling team, had successful meetings that actually were productive, and made it home alive. Of course, we had to take the bus back, and that wasn’t ideal, though not as bad as it could have been, had we broken down half-way or run into a herd of cows or had to sit in the floor.

A great name for a menstrual product

A few hours into our 900km bus trip from Abeche to N’Djamena, I started thinking about how all the missionaries act like riding the bus is such a good time. “I just sleep the whole way. It’s so relaxing!” or “I can get so much work done. It’s great!” Our bus ride started before 5am with Arabic sermons blared through the speakers to help everyone think about their mortality while journeying together, probably. Being the hard-hearted heathen that I am (comparatively), I remained unmoved and tried to stick my earphones all the way into my head so I could hear my music instead. I was not very comfortable in a slippery seat with a bulge that should fit behind an average-sized adult’s head, like a pillow, but which fits just low enough so that my head couldn’t fit over or under it. I started to think that most missionaries just say they like it because either they want to see if they can convince other people that it’s great by the power of a positive attitude or maybe, once they get off, they are so happy, their happiness blurs over the pain of their recent past, so that they forget their sufferings and remember it as actually being a good time (It’s not Stockholm Syndrome, but it is some kind of official delusion, I’m pretty sure). I was happy to admit to myself that I’d prefer to go in our own little Toyota corolla, stopping anywhere there is a convenient bush if I need to pee and skipping the obligatory hour long lunch break in Mongo while everyone eats a pile of greasy roasted goat meat. Though, to be honest, we rarely skip that stop and that meat is actually pretty good, as is anything you can cover in hot pepper.

A candy dispensing toy, naturally sold in an area where
there are still refugee camps because of excessive violence in the
area. Chosen by a cool TCK living in the area. I brought her
and her sisters some candy to make them like me. It
must have worked because one of the sisters said:
"We like you because you are nice and you brought us
candy but also because you are strong."
I appreciated the feminist compliment, though I'm
not sure how I earned it. I don't remember
doing anything particularly strenuous on the trip.
I guess I just exude strength.

But the second half of the trip they started playing the customary violent Thai movies. Last time I saw a movie about Thai gymnasts who save their village from evil gangsters, using back flips and uneven bamboo bars. Many people died horrible deaths, but we all learned the importance of gymnastics in combat. This trip the movie was about a young boy raised with elephants. His best elephant friend carried him to school every morning and let him practice Thai martial arts while jumping all over her back and doing pull ups on her horns. How do I know that she is a girl elephant? Spoiler alert: She has a baby. Actually, this whole paragraph is going to be a spoiler alert so stop reading now if you don’t want to know the entire plot of this movie, whose title I can’t remember because I don’t speak Thai. Also, if you recognize this movie as one of your favorites and I’ve gotten things wrong, I’m sorry. I was still listening to my own music and not trying to hear the dialogue, though I did hear a few of the French dubbed lines including: “Où est mon éléphant?!” Because, sadly, the mother elephant is killed by poachers and then later in the movie the baby elephant that the main guy raises from childhood is stolen by these same evil poachers who take him to Australia (because they are evil Australian poachers, of course). It actually took me a while to get that it was in Australia because I stopped watching for a bit in the middle. I was wondering why there were so many white people involved in this movie, and especially intrigued that the chief of police in Thailand was white. But when he finally frees his elephant and they walk past the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, I figured it out. I would have figured it out sooner if there had been more kangaroos. That’s a tip for setting the stage next time, Thai movie makers. Anyway, the main guy DOES defeat all the evil Australian poachers, using the power of martial arts and also elephant bones. He frequently uses this move where he traps someone’s arm under his crotch, twists his hips and the crunching sound effect signals a broken appendage. Since the guy himself doesn’t make the traditional high pitched scream indicating pain to his favorite body part, I’m assuming that is what the crunching sound meant anyway. At any rate, it always vanquished the enemy.

My new toilet paper. Probably made by an Alanis Morissette fan.

While tracking down his elephant he also comes upon a Chinese establishment (in Sydney’s Chinatown) where they are selling illegal animal meat. There is a very sad part that Sarah McLaughlin should never find out about where the audience is shown many miserable endangered animals in cages. The Main Guy also thinks his baby elephant has been eaten, but of course, he is wrong. Additionally, it seems there is a sex slave trafficking ring happening out of this place too. He uncovers that, but seems less concerned. The audience is left to assume that the police guy who is with him handled the situation while he went off to go save his baby elephant. Baby Elephant, meanwhile, has been kidnapped by a Chinese witch who has a decorative skeleton of an elephant in her office/lair. Main Guy immediately recognizes it as the skeleton of his friend and calls on her elephant powers to help him beat 3 extra-large evil Australian wrestler-type guys. I’m think if you’re too big for a surf board in Australia, you probably just become a thug because what else can you do? These guys are beating him until he is thrown into the skeleton of his old friend and he remembers the power of elephant bones. He then grabs some bones and starts beating on people with the bones. They cannot withstand the power of elephant bones no matter how many steroids they have taken during the course of their Australian Wresting Careers so the Main Guy wins. He stands over them triumphantly yelling “Où est mon éléphant!!!” Anyway, he is ultimately reunited with the elephant baby, the evil Australian poachers are dead and his original elephant friend is avenged. The only loose end left for us to wonder about is why weren’t there any scenes of Australians eating endangered animals dipped in vegemite? I mean, how about a little realism, Thai movie industry, ok?

My new neighbor. Can you see him?
I am feeding him whenever I'm home.
Eventually we will be best friends.
It worked with the TCKs. I'm nice and I'm strong.

After the Thai movie, they showed a few Jackie Chan movies (he speaks great French, did you know?) And we ended up arriving before 3pm. And NOW I understand why the missionaries like the bus. Because I’ve never made that trip so fast. Corollas have to slow down for the potholes and buses don’t (or they don’t have to, but unofficial studies have shown that you still lose time changing punctured tires). So we made it in record time, and now, looking back, bathed in happiness as I’m no longer on the bus, I think it was such a great time. I didn’t sleep and I didn’t get any work done, but I watched some epic films and I got home early. That is a WIN in my book.

So Urbain and I check our mailbox after several months,
and I find this letter with my driver's license and ID badge
that were in my stolen wallet. It seems the thief who got my
wallet, crushed by guilt, and maybe also concerned for me (there
was not much in that wallet and he saw my groceries), spent 250CFA to mail me back my ID
cards, which he could do as our P.O. Box info was on my
business cards, which were also in the wallet.
I take this as a positive sign of his rehabilitation.
Also, if you were worried that I didn't black out the info
on my driver's license, don't be. It's all old or invalid information,
except for my birthday, which you should all know anyway. 

Luck of the Irish (but will it stay with me when I move out of her house?)

There are moments in my life where I’m suddenly overwhelmed with how lucky I am to live this life. Those moments do not involve me sitting in a white-picket fenced house surrounded by adoring children. Nor do they involve me doing something impressive like accepting the Nobel Peace Prize (that’s for later). Usually, it’s when I’m doing something most people would be perfectly happy never to experience in their lives—standing on the side during a wedding, sweat dripping down my back and heels teetering precariously under my tortured feet or squashed into the middle "seat" between the driver and our American guest who we hope to partner with to do some water projects as we bounce down the road to a remote village. People sometimes think I’m doing something heroic living out here in an under-developed nation in a sweltering desert climate without the luxuries of paved roads or functioning political systems (hey-do you really have that in YOUR countries, though?), but I’m not really. If I hated being out here, but I was doing it anyway because of my deep Mother-Theresa-like love for the people, then maybe you could make a case for heroism. But I really like being out here, and that may actually be more of the draw for me than the suffering people, if I’m going to be perfectly honest. Because one thing I’ve learned about the “suffering people” is that, sure—they need some basic things that, yes, we can and should help with, but also, they have a lot of things that we “privileged advanced people of civilization” do not. And if I were to suddenly find myself in a white-picket fenced house surrounded by adoring children, it would not ultimately make that much difference to the “suffering people” out here. Someone else would take my place—maybe a much better qualified person who is actually from here. So for the time being, I’m just going to enjoy my life—even the crazy uncomfortable adventures and spontaneous plan-ruining detours. I’m lucky, privileged, blessed—whatever word you choose, I recognize that I had very little to do with the doors God opened for me, but I really appreciate them.

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Here are some photos and stories from my lucky moments:

Wedding time! Emelie invited me to come to her friend's wedding because, as she said, "You've never been to a Chadian wedding before. Come see it!" In true Chadian style, she arrived at my house about 2 hours after she said she would come (after initially saying the wedding would be at 10am and then saying it had changed to 1pm, and we left around 2:30pm). No worries, though, for Asia Girl. Jam karet, as we say in Indonesia. Upon arriving at the wedding (late), everyone was already seated, but someone ran around trying to find a seat for the poor foreigner. I refused it because I don't think a wedding crasher deserves a seat that should be reserved for friends and family. Then I had a crisis of conscience, and asked an African friend from a neighboring country who lives in the West for her opinions on whether or not I should accept the gracious hospitality of the people here or stand against remnants of the colonial mentality that the white person gets a seat. Later, after standing 2 hours in heels through the various sermons (church wedding), I did accept a seat during the gift/offering time after many people had left or gone to get food maybe. Just like in church, each aisle danced up to the altar in their turn and put money in the basket or their gift on the table. I did have a photo of women carrying blankets and cooking utensils on their heads and dancing to the front of the church, but I forgot to upload it.  Too late now! Enjoy the post-wedding car selfie from me and Emelie.

I shared my wedding food with this cool girl.
She graciously agreed to eat all my bananas and we toasted
the bride and groom with our sodas (mine's pineapple and hers is grape fruit).

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(The above line signals a change in story. Should be obvious, but I know my 2 readers. Sometimes they need extra explanations.)

Can you observe what is happening in the following photos? Yes, a woman is selling live chickens, hanging down from the pole over her shoulders. We bought 10. We stuffed them in the back seat of the truck where they clucked and crapped for the next 5 hours. 

I've since learned that whenever I pass through Mongo and/or Bitkine (two towns on the main paved road that stretches from N'Djamena to Abeche--fyi, Dad, who loves to look up these places on the map), I will almost certainly drive home with chickens. This happened with Emelie before too, if you recall.

Further proof of the Mongo/Bitkine Chicken Theory: we picked up this guy in Bitkine. This time, having a full car, we tethered him in the back. Actually, it was a girl. She laid an egg in the back, but we didn't know until we stopped to buy watermelons, and by that time it was already smashed.

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It is so nice to have a boss and colleague who will come over to your house on the weekend and fix your toilet. I'd been pour flushing for so long, it felt really luxurious to have a button flush, thanks to Leif and Kandos.

And while they were fixing the toilet, I was also doing some home improvement. Be impressed. I fixed that light cover (below) all by myself. The cat had been using it as a jumping off point to get on top of the cabinets and it was busted off thanks to that Fatty, and all the wires were poking out. How do you know when to call in a professional? When you can't fix the thing with tape. Believe me, if I could have fixed the toilet with tape, I would have done it already.

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This is not a story--but I think it fits with the theme of how my life is lucky. How cute is that gummy penguin? Definitely not too cute to eat, but certainly cute enough for me to force all guests coming to my house to eat one.

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Speaking of eating--this bread, fresh out of the mud oven in Guereda was mumtaz. Our drilling team has been staying right next door. While we were over there picking up some PVC pipes before heading out to the drilling site, this lovely lady was baking bread with the help of a couple boys from her family. The smell was incredible so I had to buy some. She was going to give me a piece, but this bread deserved to be bought. And I did. And it was SO. GOOD.

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An older photo with a cool friend I met in France. We were watching the sunset over the Chari River. Yes, I made her eat a penguin. She loved it.

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New clothes, thanks to Kandos, who brought the cloth back after his vacation. Emelie and I went and had dresses made together. She did not like hers. I like mine, though I'm pretty sure I asked the guy for a full skirt. That skirt is NOT full. And this guy is from Ghana, and I was speaking English... Well, it's hard to walk in, but it looks good (according to Emelie), and that is all that matters.

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Below are some photos of me actually working...kind of... Herve had the camera. They are from our impromptu 1000+km trip to Guereda. We had put it off waiting for funds and the end of the project. Then on Monday we realized that we had to go, so we went on Wednesday. Herve had initally planned to drive all the way to Guereda in one day. I knew when he showed up at my house at 7:30am, instead of 5am (my suggestion), that this would not happen. We stopped 900km in at Abeche and drove the rest of the way the next day.

Talking to Emmanuel, our Kenyan Drilling Chief. This bore hole was dry (observe the piles of sand),
but they got water at the second location.

I decided I wanted to ride this donkey. So I asked the guy (his sleeve is pictured on
the left), and he said OK. He handed me his solar panel and machete, which are tucked under my right arm. Then
I tried to find a graceful way to plop my ass on the ass (sorry, Mom, I could not resist). I did not find a graceful way,
so Radwan, our local partner who is installing the pumps onto the bore holes, reached one of his beefy arms over the donkey,
grabbed me under the armpit, and deposited me on the back of Abagash (donkey's name, so I was told). Radwan is not really tall, but his arms are the size of my thighs (which aren't small--I'm a runner). 

The installation team! We have fun.
Herve and Radwan (the team leader for the installation team) were telling me about
how women can't usually take it being in the field. I gave a small choking feminist scream of indignation,
to which they replied, "Pas toi. Toi--tu es très cool." I was mollified because as long as my ego is
soothed, who cares about the reputation of women in the field? At least, I'm très cool.

Spreading knowledge of selfies around Chad.
I like taking selfies with people because they get a huge kick
out of seeing themselves in the phone.

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I got back from Guereda with one day to rest before hitting the road again. I spent it in the pool at the Hilton until I had several phone calls informing me of other stuff I had to do. There's not much rest for the wicked, but fortunately for us Wicked People, we are often good at taking rests even when we don't really have time for it--I'm particularly skilled at ignoring my work if there is a pool or some other body of water nearby. 

Trip two involved 2 Americans and their Chadian partner and me, and after we got to Bitkine, my awesome Chadian partner, Job. We spent lots of time bumping around in the car, and I spent lots of time translating French for the one American who did not speak French and Arabic for the locals who did not speak French. And Brain was tired.

I love camels. They are so cool. When I'm driving, I hate being impeded by obstacles that should not be on the road,
including but not limited to speed bumps, cows, donkeys, goats, motorcyclists, pedestrians, other drivers, and the like.
However, if it's camels, I'm totally fine with it.

The pastor's wife had a sheta/piment/hot pepper garden.
It is what heaven will look like. Beautiful firey peppers.
I ate 6 or 7 just walking through the garden, and
people were freaking out.
Hey--I grew up in Indonesia. I like my food to burn.
(That's Job with me--he smiles with his whole face. I love him.)

Seriously, though, how gorgeous are these chilis?
I love them. And my new friend gave me a huge bag of them.
And she gave me a bag of peanut butter that she made, which
was also So. Good. I've almost eaten it all in less than a week.
It was just smashed peanuts and a little salt, but WOW-it's the simple things in life.

A cool village elder and his bow and arrows.
Backstory, one of the Americans was a young hipster guy. Naturally he resented being labeled as a hipster, but he had a beard, wore plaid shirts and fitted pants and is from Oregon. Also, he made himself a pair of shoes and is in the process of making his own bow and arrows in the US. So...you tell me. But he wanted to shoot a bow and arrow in Chad, and I told him that I could make all of his dreams come true (he'd also wanted to try Chadian peanut butter, which I shared with him). So I asked Job to find me someone with a bow and arrow for our foreign friend to shoot. And this guy came. He passed me the bow, which I handed over to Isaac (who was très happy) and then handed me the arrows. I started to pull one out to give to Isaac when everyone freaked out at me. Apparently some of the arrows were poisoned, and they didn't want me to pull out the wrong one. That would have been awkward, and possibly would have really put a damper on the whole trip if I'd accidentally stabbed our potential donor with a poisoned tipped arrow. Close calls like this one are part of what makes my life so exciting.

A shooting lesson.

As usual, I was the only girl on this trip, which
of course is nice for having my own room, but I try to make sure to
talk to the women in the villages so I don't forget how to be a lady.
Also, they are the ones with the most relevant water information anyway.

I am fascinated by the cattle watering holes. It's hard to grasp how many hundred of cows, sheep, goats, donkeys, camels, horses, and humans drink from these ponds. And when they are all clustered around, it just looks cool.

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Herve's wife had a baby! This happened on Monday while I was driving out to Bitkine. I got to visit the new little Beautiful on Friday.

Emelie and I were so excited to visit her. Since we don't have our own kids, we love on other people's kids and get more sleep at night (well she does anyway, I still have the Cat). I showed this photo to Kandos and he said, "Why are you afraid of the baby?" So I am also putting on another photo of me actually holding the baby to prove that I am not afraid of them. If they are not mine.

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So I convinced Neverthirst to work in Chad too, which is great because now there are some parts of my life that overlap a bit. We are doing a pilot Biosand Filter Project in a town outside of N'Djamena. Herve is helping me with the project, and he is loving it because he loves trying new things. Also, the people are loving it so far, which is really exciting. I love it because I get to go on bumpy road trips, but come home at night to the house of the lovely Naomi (the very tall Irish leprechaun who is giving me her luck while I watch her cat for a few more days until she gets back and I move again). Herve said to me, "You like adventures, like me!" And this is true. And whenever we are bouncing over unpaved roads after dark, he laughs and says, "Well, it's an adventure!" 

This most recent trip to the village, we got stuck in the sand after we were already running late. And we got stuck in the sand when we were trying to avoid the sandy part of the road. Herve was driving. His idea was to go down a short but steep incline to a lower less-sandy road. As we tried to get off the sandy road we were stuck. We called some local farmers over to help push the car. I got to be the driver in charge of getting the car down the steep incline, while not running over the gardens growing along said incline.  I somehow managed to do this with my eyes closed as I screamed and gripped the steering wheel and careened over the edge and down to the slightly more level area resembling a road. "It's an adventure!" said Herve. Fortunately one that did not end with our car flipped over on top of me.

No dotted lines because this next part is actually relevant...wait for it...

Have you ever played with one of these? My surrogate grandparents had one I used to play with before we moved to Indonesia. You use a magnet pen to move hair onto Bald Willy's head. Endless fun. The iPad of the 20th century. The pile of magnetic sand in the bottom of the plastic window is what our car windows looked like as we were driving through real sand.

It's hard to tell, but see the sand gathering in our window? If the we had had time (we didn't, we were already an hour late of course), we could have stopped when there was a larger pile of sand so I could have taken a better photo, but I actually leaned over Herve as he was driving to take this photo out of his window because Safety First.

Ha. I love these kids.  They loved the camera.

The ladies. I gave a short training in French about the biosand filter, while
my colleague translated into Ngambai. I didn't take many photos because I was
busy talking, which involves much hand waving on my part, and snatching up various babies
that were not afraid of me, amazingly.

Herve made me take a photo with everyone before we left. Can you find me?

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In conclusion, it's a pretty good life. Join me next time if I have time to write about my trip to Uganda, which is happening très soon (two days). But when I get back, I'm moving into my new apartment and making several trips to the field and probably buying a ticket to go see my family for Christmas. Asks my mom, "When are you coming for Christmas?" Responds Amanda, "December." She did not think it was as funny as I did.