Travel Update

Herve bought me meds

You never think about the days past when you don’t sneeze until you pass a week full of days, each of which had at least one violent sneezing fit. So this is my life now, I guess. I blame Germany, the sudden drop in temperature that caused me to develop a cold and probably malaria. I’m still recovering. Dr Claire prescribed antibiotics and when I’m miserable enough, I actually follow her advice. For the record, Claire, I usually follow it better when you actually bring me the medicine, but I did go into the pharmacy here and buy meds all by myself. Well, technically I tried to walk in the wrong door in a daze about 10 times before I realized that someone inside was yelling at me and pointing to the other door. The good news is that really proved how sick I was to the people inside and they gave me an antibiotic without evening asking for my prescription. Oh wait-they never ask for it here in the land of freedom, aka Chad. All you suckers in the West with your fancy doctors have to spend a day getting an appointment just to acquire the necessary paperwork to purchase life-saving medication. I just walk in the pharmacy with an illness my friend diagnosed over whatsapp and I’ve got meds!

Malaria test was negative, but malaria meds
stopped my fevers, so who knows what disease I had?

Anyway, I wasn’t intending to write about my illness. I had a few international trips to mention, Thanksgiving Cooking Proof Photos to post, and some news for the interested.

A few blurry weeks of sneezing ago, I was in Germany, staying with the parents of my lovely friend Rhyan, speaking at some German schools and churches and enjoying beautiful fall leaves, courtesy of German Autumn, excellent food courtesy of Marilyn, and exciting tours of Hamburg, Lübeck, and Wismar courtesy of Nils. I’ll post a few photos, but really—you know I’m a terrible photographer. Go online and find good pictures!

A selfie with Nils.
I was laughing because when I told him we
should take a selfie he said, "Ah. Ok. Ja. Zelfie. OK. Zelfie."
This is in Wismar

Another zelfie with Nils (Marilyn doesn't like photos)
at the violin concert they took me to in Hamburg.
It was beautiful.

Enjoying the Autumn colors for the first time in many years.

Shopping in Germany (Ok fine-this is how I always shop)

Pretty

Pretty

Marzipan!

Lantern in the cool old boat restaurant we went to
in Lubeck for Nils birthday.

IAS Germany with Tabea in Stuttgart!

At church with Pastor  Gertrude on the 100th Anniversary of the end of WW1-
very interesting experience. For people whose ancestors fought on
different sides of two wars.

Adorable dogs

Best Christmas decorations ever!
Too bad they weren't edible.

I used some cooking techniques that Marilyn taught me to stuff a chicken for my Thanksgiving party, which I had to have because no Americans invited me to theirs, and I like to eat Thanksgiving food. Even if Americans HAD invited me to their parties, I would have still had to cook my own food because I like my family’s Thanksgiving food, and I wanted to eat it. So in addition to stuffing a chicken, I made the following: dressing (Southern Style-because you can take the girl out of Tennessee but she will still make southern dressing for the children she raises in Indonesia, and after multiple hot and humid Thanksgivings trying to convince one of them to eat things besides the canned no-berry cranberry sauce someone graciously sent to them in Indonesia, said child might realize that she likes the mush in the casserole dish and eventually learn how to make it herself), cornbread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pecan pie, sausage balls (had to make the sausage and bisquick myself because life overseas!), cream cheese icing for the pumpkin bread, and peas because I thought we should probably have a vegetable and I like peas. Special thanks to Debbie W who brought cranberry sauce (without the annoyance of berries in them—perfect) to make everything that much better. Very special thanks to Claire who made whipped cream for the pie (since she disapproved of my spray whipped cream) and washed all the dishes while I was out walking Joe. She really is the best person in my life right now, without her I would be sad, lonely, sick, and still have a sink full of dishes in my house. She even spent the night with me in spite of the fact that a rat ran right by her mattress after Joe chased it into the bathroom. I then called the guard and had him come in a dispose of the rodent because Joe is not a killer.  Though he does love fighting with goats, even when he gets head butted.

Yeah, that's me cooking!

Chicken turned out GOOD.

Joe watches Claire make whipped cream

He loves to lick the beaters!
But this is me giving him one, and not Claire.

I made all this food!

Went to Bitkine with this cool chick for a couple of days.

I had a Christmas party for Antani's kids. I fed them
tons of sugar and then took them to see Santa at the Hilton.
They looooved him because he gave them candy.
Incidentally, that's also why they love me.

Lastly, I went to Senegal, got stood up for the first two days, but then Tim showed up finally, no thanks to Air Burkina, and now I’m engaged. But I’ll save that story for later because this post is long enough already. 

Reading my giant book on the Balkans,
by myself on Ngor Island

Ngor Island is cool.

Senegalese fisherman

Making fun of a girl who was doing this same
pose for her instagram photo. I did it in one shot.
She was posing and photo-ing for at least 10 minutes.
I just have natural instagram skills without actually having instagram.

Photos we sent to the sisters

If you want to know more, I'll probably write more about the guy later, after I get his express permission to publish all the poems I've written for him and the video he did for me of an Irish Riverdance, the traditional way to propose marriage in his part of Northern Ireland.

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!