N'Djamena Marathon

 

Jesse wanted a photo of us under the sign that said "Marathon de la Paix"
What a marathon it was!

A few days ago I saw an ad on Facebook for a race to be held in my city on the weekend in solidarity with Sudan put on by Sudanese youth living in N’djamena. It was advertised as a “marathon 5k.” I figured the distance would be 5km because Chadians usually say “marathon” to mean a running race of any distance, but you never know. The advertisement was sufficiently vague on other information as well, but it had a start and end location, a beginning time and a date. In the comments people were asking for more information about how to run, and the response was being sent a screenshot of the same advertisement that we were all already looking at. I decided to send a message, and I was sent a phone number to call. I don’t like calling numbers I don’t know, so I sent a text message. I got no response and I forgot about it until I had a call later that night. Usually I don’t answer numbers I don’t recognize, but I did for some reason. Our conversation was as follows:

Me: Bonsoir Salam Allo (because I didn’t know what language to speak when I don’t know who is calling).

Him: Bonsoir.

Long pause….

Me: Uh..excuse me, but can you please tell me who is calling?

Him: Mohamed Idriss. (This doesn’t help me much—including being the name of our current president, it is a very common name here). Who are you?

Me: Uh…yeah…but you called me?

Mohamed Idriss (not the president): Oh yeah. I’m calling about the marathon.

And then the rest of the conversation was about how to register (give name, age, and contact number) and also he mentioned that they had met a guy who is really great at organizing races and the race was going to be 10km. I signed up and signed up Jesse, my friend from Nigeria who has run with me a couple times. The first time he ran, I was thinking he was going to be miserable and stop early because last time I had guys tell me they wanted to run with me and that it would be no problem because they play football a lot, they died after 1km. Jesse had said he wanted to run and 5km was no problem because he plays football, but he is also a good runner, so he was fine, and I had to keep up a faster pace than I wanted to the whole time to make sure I didn’t embarrass myself. I did also try to remind myself that he is 10 years years younger than me and that helped sooth the ego a bit too.

Hissein, Jesse, random vertically challenged nasara, Tresor

The night before the race, my evil Cameroonian neighbors decided to have a loud drunken orgy that made everyone miserable. They were still going, screaming and drunk singing and peeing all over everyone’s houses when I left at 6:40, and I was not in a great mood. I knew there was no point in getting to the race on time, but I did anyway. My friend Tresor who is a great runner and runs all the N’djamena races told me that it was for sure 10km and he had gotten there at 6:30am and was already texting me about it. 

Jesse and I got there and found a group of people looking for their race numbers. At one point a line formed but then the organizers started yelling out names (Mohamed Idriss, Mohamed Abdullah, Mohamed Issa, etc) and the line system fell apart quickly. Eventually we found our numbers—pretty quickly actually: we were 002 and 003 because I was one of the first to register for the race. We were also given a couple of little vest top things, which we were told were for advertising. Jesse had “American cola” (a local coke brand) and I had “Planet” which is also a type of beverage. We asked about pinning the numbers on our shirts, and were directed to the guy with a stapler, who was stapling numbers to people. Two minutes later, the stapler was broken. Were there any spare staplers? No. They started breaking off bits of staples and handing them out so people could pinch them with their fingers and mold them into pins to hold the numbers. I was not good at this and Jesse and Hissein helped. Hissein agreed to run in Steven’s place because Steven wasn’t feeling well, but he’d told me he would run. Steven, Hissein, and Tresor are deaf friends of mine who are all great athletes and helping to film a dictionary for Chadian Sign Language. (We want to make a dictionary app, so if you know anyone who can help make apps, please tell me.) Tresor is well known in the running community because he is an excellent runner and he trains people. Hissein and Steven prefer basketball to running, but wanted to come along for fun.

Stapling by hand

At 8am, the race still hadn’t started and it was getting hotter. By 8:30, just before we lined up, an announcement was made: this race is not going to be 10km. It is going to be 2 kilometers 300 meters. (According to my watch, it didn't even end up being 2km, and I didn’t cut off the corners like other people did.) 

Post-race with Tresor and Hissein laughing as they bent down
to be in the same photo with me and Jesse.
Jesse said he bent down too to have some self-respect,
which is why it looks like we are the same height when actually he is taller than me.

So everyone is lined up, now ready for a short sprint to Place de la Nation, and the start line happens to be right next to the city morgue. So as people are jogging around and pumping each other up, cars are driving up full of mourners with photos of the deceased precariously perched on their roofs. It was an awkward juxtaposition. 

This is the starting line where we kept having to move over
to let mourners through

The guy who informed us of our race distance change clapped two wooden blocks together and we all sped off. While there were a couple of policemen at one corner, the other roads we were on weren’t really blocked off and motorcycles and cars dodged us as we dodged potholes and it was all very exciting. 

The beautiful and amazing Fraida

We crossed the finish line and went to chat with Tresor and Hissein who were way ahead of us (note that Jesse and I are also half their height) and unfortunately they didn’t win. Our friend Fraida (not deaf but still very cool) who also runs in our neighborhood won for the women—not at all a surprise. She is a badass runner who has run in competitions around the world. She went to train in Kenya a few months ago, but told me it wasn’t worth it because it was too easy for her. We took a lot of photos, and as the only nasara, I was invited to be in many photos. I was also asked to do an interview for a radio station in Arabic. I specified that my Arabic is a mishmash of multiple accents and grammatical patterns, but they were happy. I refused to answer a question giving my honest opinion about the current president (Mohamed Idriss) and his Sudan policies because I am a foreigner and I don’t want to get kicked out of the country. I was able to say how great the organizers did (I mean is it really important to have decided on a route before the race day?) and how I’m sure they will do other great things. I should note that there were some Chinese guys there as well. I chatted a bit with one of them, but they don’t usually speak French and so people don’t often try to speak with them so I doubt they got too many interview requests. When I told this story to my friend Naomi, she said it reminded her of the time I was interviewed for Chinese TV when I accidentally joined the communist party, which was funny because I was remembering it too. I always managed to look really gross and sweaty when I’m interviewed for the news and usually have nothing important to say either. I don’t think I wrote about that for the blog because it happened before I started blogging, but I have it in a journal somewhere. Maybe I’ll publish it one day.

All miked up and waving my hands around for a radio interview, as one does.

Anyway, we planned to leave after Tresor, Hissein and Steven left to go to work. But the nasara effect worked against me and I was stopped by a sweet young Sudanese girl who asked me please to stay for the presentation about the desire for unity for Sudan and Chad. I didn’t feel I could say no and Jesse graciously stayed with me. He was really fun to have around because we could joke around in English and he was very careful to take lots of photos of me in awkward moments. 

Post-run with Jesse

Our lovely Sudanese girl found a couple of t-shirts for us, which was nice. Jesse got one in French and I got one in Arabic. Then we were handed bottles of red soda (Planet brand!) and little boxes of food while speeches started. They were long and flowery and I enjoyed the heckling from some guys sitting behind us, one of whom I’ve also run with in my neighborhood.  He’s actually caught me at the end of a couple of my runs when I was planning to stop early and dragged me home. Finally speeches were over, and it was time for awards. They handed them out to the 3 fastest women and the 3 fastest men. The average time to complete the race for them was 5 minutes something. 

Then they announced two more winners: the veteran category. This was a nice way of saying the winners for the two oldest competitors in the race. Guess who won for the women? That’s right—I won best geriatric woman runner for the Marathon. A truly remarkable achievement. I’m sure you’re all very impressed. And if any of you are slightly older than me, pat yourself on the back because anyone could run 2km and if you ran and were old, you won. 

Surrounded by the press who were there to note my achievement

With the Veteran Man winner
whose face shows how honored he was to receive this award.

Finally we were able to leave after the awards. Jesse dragged me away saying I talk too much, but I mean, I was an award winner. People wanted to be near me to bask in the glow of my success. Jesse and I decided just to walk home, as my house is not far from Place de la Nation. I think in all, including our 2km race, we didn’t even go 8km by the time we got home. And also—while Jesse was taking photos of me getting my award, people took our food. Oh well—they can never take my Veteran Medal from me. I earned that. By being old.

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.

Dusty Travels

I just got back from a really lovely relaxing vacation with two close friends where we wandered around old cities, swam in the sea for as long as we could take the cold, and boated around really pretty islands. I’ll share some photos, but not too many so you won’t get jealous. If you do get jealous, remember that I had to take 3 planes to get there and it was very long and tiring and more expensive than I had originally planned for it to be. And on the first plane a lady tried to put her feet in my lap and sleep. I said no. Then she put her head in my lap, but got up when I kept accidentally (probably) poking her whenever I moved.

But don't forget I had to endure this first:

I pushed her feet off my lap with my bag
and then a little while later she changed positions.
I'm sure she slept fine on her trip to Dubai.

And then, after all the relaxing good times, I got to come back to Chad, where I do want to be, but getting here can definitely take a toll. For one thing, no one knows that Chad exists outside of Chad so airports are often very confused about where I’m going. They never give me my boarding pass early enough. 

I had 14 hours in Athens, but I also have free lounge access, and l do enjoy lounging in airport lounges when they have good food and everything is free (Athens lounges have good food). But Croatia to Greece is Schengen so I had to leave the Domestic Terminal to go to the International Terminal, and couldn’t get back to the lounges until Ethiopian Airlines decided to open their check in (which they don’t do until last minute). I wanted to go out and wander a bit in Athens but I wanted to come back before dark and lounge it up. My flight was at 2am. Fortunately, after many emails and help from the wonderful Anurag, travel agent extraordinaire, I got my boarding pass early. I then wandered down to the port in Athens, which was actually fairly boring because it was only cruise ships and shops. I already did Athens tourist stuff 15 years ago (to the day!) with some cool friends back when we were young and spry so I wanted to do something else and it was not the best, but I did get some fresh air.

I mean, it was a nice little walk, I guess...

The flight from Athens to Addis was uneventful. Then I boarded my flight to N’Djamena, which is where everything started to get tense. First, the lovely Anurag pre-booked my seats. He knows I like the aisle. But he put me in the front of the plane, which I avoid when booking for myself for many reasons. The reason that is now the most important to me is avoiding the very entitled Chadian women who are rich enough to go to Dubai to stock their businesses for their families. When I first saw these gaggles of women on my flights, I tried to be compassionate, thinking that their pushiness was just nerves on their first flight. I have now come to realize that is not the case. They’re pros. They’re also pros at using their inability to speak English with the Ethiopian flight attendants and their inability to speak French with non-Arabic speaking travelers to do whatever they want on the flight. One lady in particular insists on taking a specific seat, even if it is not hers, and will be very annoying until people give up and give it to her. I’ve seen her do it many times, but I was not in a mood to take it, and I do happen to speak both French and Arabic. She was in my seat. She tried to refuse to move. I showed her my ticket. She motioned to the middle seat. I said no, you are in my seat, and you need to move to yours. Where is your boarding pass? She said, “I lost it.” (Unlikely, as she would have had to show it to get on the plane.) I said, “Look, airplanes are not like busses. There are rules.” She yelled that she knows everything about airplanes and flies all the time. Then she moved to her seat, but she poked her elbows and knees into me most of the flight and leaved heavily into my seat (she is a hefty woman). I ignored her, and settled into the flight.

Memories of the good times keep you going during the tough times,
aka when someone is jabbing you with her elbow for 4.5 hours.

Everything was mostly fine until we started to land in N’Djamena. The pilot circled a couple of times and then sharply pulled up like we were dodging a missile or a flock of birds. Immediately the Italian Catholic priest across the aisle from me whipped out his prayer beads and on the other side of my All-Knowing Seat-sharing traveling companion was a Muslim mullah from Saudi Arabia who whipped out the Quran app on his phone and began chanting surahs loudly (wearing a 15th century outfit, but with 21st century technology). Finally the pilot gave a whispered announcement I couldn’t hear as Chadians loudly asked what the guy was saying and those of us who speak English tried to tell them to be quiet so we could hear. I flagged down a flight attendant who told me that we were going on to Kano (Nigeria) for an undetermined amount of time because of a dust storm in N’Djamena that messed up visibility. Then I passed the news on in French and Arabic until everyone understood. I wanted to go back and pass it on in Chinese too, but they seemed to get it and the aisles were fairly blocked. 

We landed in Kano, and before the plane comes to a complete stop, the commerce ladies are up, in the aisle, with all bags unloaded. The flight attendants are yelling sweet nothings to them about staying in their seats with seat belts fastened, and they are studiously ignoring them. Finally they understand that we are not yet leaving the plane. Everyone settled back in (bags strewn about on the floor still) and we started to get acquainted. I was happy to meet Sharon, an English missionary doing Bible translation on her way back from some months in the UK. Oscar in front of me is an Italian hotelier with African Parks going to the place I really want to visit in Chad but haven’t yet gotten to see. I connected him with the Italian priest and hands were flying as they chatted in their native tongue. I texted Anurag for an update and found that there was a new guy named Sameer coming from India to join their travel agency. It is his first trip to Africa and I should try to say hi. I saw an Indian guy not too far behind me and thought—that must be him! So I went over to say hi and it was not him at all. It was another very nice and now very confused Indian guy named Anees coming to Chad for work completely unrelated to Satguru Travel. When they finally let us go into the airport to sit in chairs that were almost as uncomfortable as the airplane ones, I met Sameer and let him speak on the phone with Anurag. He was also initially very confused that a strange white lady greeted him by name and also knows where he works and where he is coming from, and it will probably take a while before he wants to be my friend, but I’m sure I’ll win him over.

Note the juice box is as long as my thumb.
I do not actually have extra-long thumbs.
It did not quench the thirst.

Eventually they took our passports and sent us off to hotels for the night. I sympathized with the poor Nigerian airport workers as the Chadian commerce ladies imperiously demanded things from them, pushed past them and generally caused more mayhem and confusion than necessary. None of them spoke Arabic or French either. Eventually, they put me with the business class people (because I have Gold status on Ethiopian Airlines), and things were a bit calmer for me for a few hours. Still no one really knew when/if we were going back to the airport the next day. They said we would get a 5am wake up call and leave at 6. Then they said we would leave at 7 so we could have breakfast first. Then they gave everyone a 5:20 wake up call for reasons unknown to anyone. None of us were late, and everyone was very nice to everyone else. I would like to point out that there WERE Chadians in the group, but none of them were Commerce Ladies. I did hear one of the commerce ladies screaming that she had platinum status (which I would believe because they seem to be on every single flight I’m on), but she was not taken to the business class hotel probably because “you catch more flies with honey.” (Though in Chad, you can catch flies simply by existing so she probably doesn’t know that expression.)

When you take the stairs in a hotel, you never know what you might stumble upon.
I found this room of Christmas decorations. I can't decide if Santa is smoking a pipe
after decapitating one of his more recalcitrant reindeer or if someone sent him a message,
Godfather-style, and he is contemplating his John Wick-style revenge.
(Note: I have seen the Godfather, but not JW.
Because of my TCK trauma, I stay fairly up to date with pop culture
so I can know what I'm fake-laughing at. I believe JW is Keanu Reeves taking down evil people who killed his dog. I could get murderous if someone messed with my dogs, so the plot seems believable,
but I have chosen other films to watch on long flights because I don't watch movies where dogs die.) 

The next morning at 7am sharp, we head back to the airport. We arrived before 8am, which is, incidentally, the time that the airport actually opens. Something that you would think the organizers of our Nigerian tourist experience should have known. Everyone plonked down on the sidewalk in front of the airport, no problem for Chadians, even commerce ladies, but some of the nasaras were looking around for chairs or leaning against the walls. When they finally let us in the airport, again it was mass chaos of pushing and shoving (Commerce Ladies) and the English missionary (who speaks excellent French and Chadian Arabic) trying to tell everyone to stay in the queue! She was ignored and I’m really worried for her in Chad while she tries to lose her British love for waiting patiently in lines. I sympathized, really I did, but there are some battles you have to accept that you cannot win. 

Another angle on vengeful Santa.

We make it inside and are eventually forced into a line that is inching forward. We are close enough to the front that we can see a very harried and confused bunch of Nigerian immigration officials fighting with the crowds to stay calm and wait for their passports. Women screamed out their names at the poor men who were trying to differentiate between Fatima Abaker and Fatemeh Aboubaker Hadje and Hissein Ali and Ali Hassan and so on. One of the business class men I’d been chatting with told me I should go help because I can speak to everyone. I said that I didn’t want to be “that know it all white girl” but he dragged me there and offered my help to the Nigerians and they said, “Please, yes, please help!” Next thing I knew, I was in the immigration booth behind a stack of passports, sorting names and yelling at women to wait in line and then verify that we had handed them the right passports before moving on to the next people. I also helped the official sort out babies who didn’t have passports (one of them was so young, it might have actually been born in Nigeria the previous night) and the one Chadian lady who didn’t have her passport because she had been in jail in Saudi Arabia and they had confiscated her passport, given her a boarding pass and sent her back home. We also had an issue with one man coming through and saying his mother was still sleeping back at the hotel. Someone went to get her. Finally there was only one passport left, and it was another guy also sleeping at the hotel. I don’t know how they do it, but they must have slept through wake up phone calls and door pounding. The harried Ethiopian Airlines Kano-based official, a very nice Ethiopian man who was very grateful to me for my help and very appreciative of my appreciation for his country’s food (we had a little conversation in the midst of the chaos), told me he found the guy crying at the door that he was going to miss his flight. So that was sorted. 

Eventually we got on the plane, flew the 1 hour flight to NDJ, and we were home! Poor Sharon, though—the Commerce Ladies charged through the plane the minute it touched down as it was still moving towards the terminal, throwing bags down no matter whose head might be in the way. My lady, who was much nicer to me on the last flight and even kept her elbows to herself, climbed over me before I even got my seatbelt off. Sharon was pushed out of her seat and standing in the aisle while the plane was still moving, which she was not happy about at all. The commerce ladies forced themselves into the business class bus, ignoring the protestations of Chadian airport officials who they definitely understood, and I heard later, really annoyed the business class passengers who had paid for their expensive business class flights. I was happy that most of them weren’t in the commoner immigration line with us upstairs because it was much calmer without them. Also the airport now has line dividers up that really work against line cutters. I did have one older commerce lady come out of no where and try to cut in front of me. I said, “you need to wait in line.” She whispered conspiratorially at me “we’re together, ok?” She was cute and old and so I let her stay pressed up behind me, telling me to put my passport on the counter while the guy in front of me was still getting his electronic fingerprints processed. I told her I would wait until he was done. When we got downstairs, we still had to wait in piles of luggage until our bags came off. With 3 planes arriving and leaving at about the same time, it was packed. 

This guy told me that they watch movies during slow times,
but he had to pause the one they were watching when things got
too loud on screen and we couldn't hear people screaming their names at us.
It was a good 10-15 minutes after I joined up, so I'm thinking maybe they
watch all the time, even we we are in long lines, and maybe if they watched
films that were a little less exciting, immigration might go a bit faster...

Manon had been planning to pick me up on my original arrival day with Sabit, Joe, and Pika (we don’t let Zig in the car anymore as she always tries to jump out the window or stand on the driver’s head), but she couldn’t come, so Anurag picked me up when he came to get Sameer. Pretty handy to be friends with your travel agent—especially if he has an Indian chef and sometimes the Indians invite you to dinner…

I have since received many messages from one of these guys,
assuring me of his undying love for me and proposing immediate marriage.
It's not the worst marriage proposal I've ever had, but once again, it was done over the phone.
I told him I am too old for him, but he said age is not important.
More poetic than the Chadian guy who asked me to be his second wife.
I told him that I was too old, and he said, "Mais non! Tu connais Macron?"
(TCK tip: if you want to know why Sabit and I laughed til we cried over that,
google French President Macron's wife.)

She's so cute. Still recovering from being spayed on my coffee table
(I am too), but mostly back to normal. 
Joe and Pika refused to be photographed for this blog post.