Summertime at the Lake

This lake is not in Alabama

Once when I was in Alabama visiting the Neverthirst head office, I went with my boss and his family to visit the lake where they like to vacation occasionally. This was an interesting cultural experience for me involving RVs, fancy boats, and colloquial overuse of the past participle. I had fun swimming with my boss’s cool kids, though I felt a bit out of place since I’d forgotten to wear my American flag bikini with cowboy boots. For this most recent trip to Lake Chad, I again forgot my American flag bikini and cowboy boots, but I brought my hijab. Before leaving I was warned of the surrounding dangers by security people, who I’ve mentioned before often overestimate the dangers of certain places in an attempt to make their jobs seem especially relevant. I mean - but in fairness to them, it IS important to think about job security. As for me, I pay attention to warnings sometimes…when they don’t interfere with what I want to do. At any rate, I was encouraged to wear extra clothing, so I packed a long-sleeved shirt and my lifai/thobe (See, Mom—I can take advice!), but being the shameless exhibitionist that I am, I didn’t put the head-covering on until just before we drove into town. Once there, I noticed plenty of other women without head coverings and almost no one with long-sleeves. I took my cues from the natives and opted for shorter sleeves, helpful in the sticky muggy Lake side weather. I would have really appreciated an American flag bikini and a jet ski, but when I convinced some new friends to drive us down to the Lake shore we got in trouble with a local soldier. “This is a military area! Don’t you know?” (We did.) “You have to tell us when you are coming. We could have shot you!” (They didn’t.) Most of this conversation happened while we “yes-yes”ed him and continued to take lots of selfies. It’s important to use soothing words to people who carry guns.

Lake Chad--full of islands, at least on this side.

Herve's chosen pose with our driver, Ali Adam, photo-bombing.

The Assessment Team!

Lake Chad from behind where we were staying. You're not
supposed to be out after dark, so don't worry: we were just behind our
back yard.

The point of this trip was to assess the situation around Lake Chad, where there has been a large influx of displaced people, fleeing the islands of the Lake because of Boko Haram violence in the area. People are living in makeshift houses with some small support from various NGOs. Many of them are also suffering from recent rainy season flooding, which has destroyed some of the crops in the area. IAS would like to do some projects there (and possibly Neverthirst too), so Herve and I went up to check it out. (Now, when you’re reading this, I’m worried that you’re pronouncing his name like ‘Hurve,’ rhyming with ‘curve.’ But it’s actually pronounced ‘Er-vay’. It’s French, guys. Come on. And no, I’m not going to put that accent on the last letter because it takes too long, and I don’t feel like it.)

Sometimes camels ride in cars.

So bright and early Tuesday morning (“Definitely, I’ll be there before 7am,” said the driver who came almost an hour after that), we headed out. I love road trips and getting out of the office and visiting new places and large bodies of water, so I was in high spirits. The first part of the trip bumps over potholes and involves much dodging of livestock. I wasn’t driving this time, so I could just admire the fuzzy animals, but my most recent experience with donkeys has made me distrust them for life. I gasped once, à la my mother when my father is driving, after a particularly close shave with an unconcerned ass (literal use of the word, don't freak out, Mom), but after that, I just put on my seatbelt and stopped paying attention to the cattle, unless they were camels because camels are super cool.

Some photos from the various travels:

Riding camels makes people happy!
Or maybe being photographed by drive-by foreigners...

Run, run little donkey and you can catch up!

Love this father and son outing. :)

Camel butts.

Mirror selfie!

I also had a revelation: I should probably make it a point to wear extra sunscreen even when I’m anticipating a day in the car. Because often I will convince people to open the windows so I can stick my arm out and wave at the camels. Because of white girl privilege and Chadian chivalry, I’m usually forced into the front seat. I don’t mind this because I can see better where we are going and sometimes get good pictures. I usually end up with one arm slightly pinker than the other, though. This recent trip, I could have gotten really sunburnt if I hadn’t grown up on the equator, building up a resistance to prolonged exposure to UV rays. But even I can burn if I’m standing for hours in a pile of sand trying to dig out the car. Because since the second part of the trip involves off-roading it through deep piles of sand, that definitely happened.

I'd like to thank Herve for this photo of me taking a photo of the car.

Had to let some of the air out of the tires in an attempt to
wiggle free, but it didn't work and he let out too much, so we
had to change a tire when we finally got out.

Villagers and kind passerby stop to help push.

Posing for Herve.

While digging under the car with both hands, reminiscent of a dog in a flower garden, I managed to burn the top of my arm on the “something” part of the car that apparently gets really hot when stuck in the sand. Don’t worry: I’m not going to include any gross photos of bubbling skin, but here is a photo of my arm covered in toothpaste. “Why?” you ask. Because Herve says that’s what you do for a burn. He grabbed his from the top of his bag and squirted it all over my arm before I could protest. Not sure it made much of a difference, but the last scab just fell off yesterday and now I have only a shiny pink patch of new skin.

After I took this photo, I started helping.

Toothpaste heals everything.

Somehow, after dodging camels and potholes and scraping through the sand, we made it to Bol. We spent the next two days in meetings and searching for fish to eat (Herve’s request—he ate it for breakfast one morning too).  We popped over to Bagasola for a bit too and saw gazelles and monkeys on the way. I was hoping for elephants (Herve saw some back in February in the area), but I knew it was a long shot, as rainy season means animals don’t have to go near humans to find water.

Lake fish. This one was my favorite.
I think that is because of the chili powder.
Anything is good with that stuff.

I have eaten more fish in this desert country that I have in
my entire life, and twice I lived by the beach.
But these Chadians love their river fish--
or in this case, their lake fish.

I uploaded the wrong photo where you can't really see
the gazelle antlers, but it took me several hours to get these photos up,
so just look up gazelle antlers on the internet, lazy person.

We had some good meetings with other NGOs and UN agencies in the area. We also made sure to take some time to talk to the local population, including government officials and health practioners. My favorite time was speaking with local IDP (internally displaced people) communities. I took notes in three languages and learned a couple of words in local tribal languages. People love when you make the effort to learn something in their language. There was screaming and laughter, so good
times are possible even without a bikini and a jet ski.

Talking to IDPs, mostly in Arabic. Translating the numbers
into French for Herve, who speaks decent Arabic,
but gets confused with the chiffres.

Some of my notes. If you can't tell which is
Arabic and which is English or French,
that's normal. My writing is always terrible in every language.

The health center worker plus me. Thankfully the hijab is
hiding most of the car hair.

Herve and I spent our evenings being eaten alive by mosquitos and watching French dubbed movies on his computer until his battery died. We occasionally had moments of electricity during the day, but nothing during the night. We watched a movie entitled “Le Prince de New York,” which is the one where Eddie Murphy is an African prince looking for a bride. I have never seen it in English, though I know it is a famous movie. And I can’t remember the English title.  I do remember that Herve and I had a long conversation about how the female lead in the movie had a pretty face, but was way too skinny to be truly beautiful. “Amanda,” he said to me, “if you gain some weight, you could marry a Chadian man. We like to know that we are holding a woman when we have our wife in our arms.” So…I guess I better eat all of these gummy “sedans” that Leif brought me—Sveriges mest köpta bil! (Go find a Swede to translate.)

One of the evil spiders lurking in my room.
Fortunately, we had no electricity so I wasn't trying
to turn on the light. Herve killed him. Perks of traveling
with a man.

In conclusion, I was writing this in between writing the Needs Assessment and editing the proposal and discussing various aspects of the trip with Herve. Everything is done now but the question remains: will the internet be strong enough to post this?

Please enjoy the following photos that prove to you that occasionally my life is pretty entertaining:

Camel parking lot in Bol.

Flooding in village. Malaria is a huge problem right now.

Cool kid who rode up and insisted I take his photo.
I think it should be published.

Fortunately, Herve captured this whole moment on camera too.

Chad and America--international community.
People mostly like us here.

Selfie with the driller's daughter and niece.

My new friend, Paluma, a Kanembu IDP from the islands.

Firewood for sale.

This migrant village was moving to a new location.
We passed by them on the road and Herve bought some of the mats
they have rolled up on their heads.

I wish I could pull off this nose ring look, but the last time
I pierced my cartilage,  my ear swelled up and I had to get the earring chopped
out by a doctor. I really don't want to risk that happening
to my nose, which is already big enough.
Anyway, I like this Kanembu style.

Testing the water quality from some locally drilled bore holes,
no need for IAS machines, the terrain here is much easier to drill.
Sometimes the water is salty if not drilled well.
This water tasted fine to me--not salty at all.

Again, Herve photographing me photographing others.
But I like these little girls' smiles. :)

A funky new kind of hand pump, designed by an American man
who lived here for years, but caught some disease
and went back to America and died.
Legacy still strong in Chad, though!

I'm going to make this photo large because I love it.
I love how excited all these serious-looking men are to see their photo.
And I love that guy sleeping in the background.

Yeah. That's about right-Amanda talking to a bunch of men.

Herve to capture this important moment.

The final really important moment captured by Herve:
me picking the burrs out of my skirt after a bathroom break.
In the desert, if the only tree around has burrs, you still
squat behind it to pee because desperate times...

J'ai fini! Enfin!

IDPs and Rock Climbing and Consequences

This week I learned that it is possible to make unwise decisions even if one is almost 30 years old.  (Who knew, right?) What started as an innocent trip to an IDP camp to see if we would dig some wells there, ended with me hobbling around for a day—only a day though. I was back out running the day after that. Blistered feet can’t slow me down. Well maybe a little. Temporarily.

Bushrat for dinner anyone? We met this intrepid hunter in the camp.

So we were supposed to go to this IDP camp outside of Juba, where apparently 2000+ internally displaced people (IDPs—for my slower readers) were supposed to be living. We were supposed to go there with the commissioner for Mundri East County and his armed guard (probably the only reason the Boss agreed to go that close to Juba anyway), but at the last minute the Commissioner bailed, meaning his armed guard did too. We were on the road already, though, so we went on to the next town where we were supposed to meet one of the Commish’s deputies who also bailed. Then we went on to yet another town, meeting with the local administrator of that area who had not been informed of our coming and also could not accompany us, but he sent a pastor with us, so it was OK. God was on our side that way, I guess. He also (the administrator, not God) updated us on the situation in the camp, which is currently housing approximately 500 people since the other 1500 had gone on to stay with friends, relatives, or returned to Juba.

I drank this water, and I'm still OK.

We began to seriously re-think our plans to work in the area, but we did hang out with some Dinka SPLA guys and let them show us the river where the current IDPs and soldiers are getting their water. They bathe and wash clothes directly in the river, but they dig small holes beside the water and drink from those holes. I’m not sure of their reasoning on that one, but I took a swig, and I didn’t die or get sick, so I think they’re fine. But they are worried that the river will dry up soon (it’s dry season now and very possible), so we are still looking into helping out.  The thing about South Sudan is that often you can put a pump in what seems to be the middle of no-where, but when you go back a while later, a small town has grown up around the well. That’s the power of water.

The Gunfire Bridge

Anyway, we made it back to Mundri with only one scare, which was when a truck went over a nearby metal bridge and the Boss thought it was gunfire, but other that that, no issues.  Still, since we were traveling with a camera man, it took a while, as he kept wanting to stop and get this or that shot. He was talking about wanting a landscape shot, and I knew just the rock I had been wanting to climb up for a while. Since it’s dry season, most of the elephant grass has burned off and you can see up to the base of the rock and not worry about accidentally stepping on a black mamba and dying a horrible painful death. I find snakes and all reptiles fascinating, but there are other ways I’d prefer to go. But now would be the perfect time to climb up, so I suggested we go. And we did—well, the camera man and I did.  He followed me to the rock (he is definitely more afraid of black mambas than me, and probably willing to sacrifice my life, hoping to get my death scene on film for his Pulitzer. I know it’s not personal—he’s a camera man…) and started up behind me, but since he was wearing shoes and I was wearing some chunky flipflops, he went faster. I decided to ditch the shoes and go up barefoot. I got up really quickly, and didn’t notice any problems until all of a sudden I felt the skin separate from my feet—not because I cut it, but because large blisters had bubbled up under the front of my feet where I’d been climbing. Then I realized that getting down was going to be very painful.  It was.

I backwards-spider-man crawled down the mountain, using my heels and the palms of my hands—there’s really not a modest way to do that in a skirt. The Boss was concerned, and he even came out of the car to ask if I was OK. I think he thought I didn’t know how to get down the mountain. I did, but I was already testing the limits of my pain tolerance, and speeding down wasn’t an option for me. Anyway, I made it down and to the car, and spent the rest of the day and the next hobbling around. Before I doctored it up, I took photos. I’m warning you now because I’m nice, and I know some of you (my sisters) are a bit squeamish. But if your curiosity is stronger than your stomach, scroll down and down for the gruesome photos.  I’ll also include the photos of my doctor skills because the medical profession is seriously missing my bandaging creativity.  Scroll down if you dare.

Keep going.

A bit more.

You know you’re curious.

It’s not too late to go back up now.

Last chance.

NOW it’s too late to back.

Congratulations, Brave Reader. You have arrived.

 

This was the first attempt. I had to stick a bandage on because I was planning to go make some brownies in our oven which already had coals ready, and so I was in a hurry. Later I cut off all the extra skin and put on medicines and stuff. And now it's totally fine because I am a genius doctor.

Lesson learned:

Barefoot rock climbing after a day of 100+ degree weather is not a good idea. Even if the rock feels ok to your feet, there are certain temperatures that the sole of the foot is not designed to withstand. Yes, I could have let Camera Man go it alone, but he did seem to need my expert advice on where to go because he decided to climb up a big jutting rock with trees around it and couldn’t get a shot. I showed him a better place and he handed his camera down to me while he jumped down to get the view he needed. Also -- like I was going to let Camera Man get up the rock without me… It was MY rock in the first place! Anyway, I climbed my rock even if I paid for it all by myself with a little bit of pain and backwards-spider-man crawling humiliation, and next time I go up, I’ll bring my camera (phone not fancy video one) and I’ll wear flip-flops with better grip. Climbing in shoes is for sissy foreigners.

One more bonus photo from near where I work where someone just put up mine warning signs while I was gone. Who knew?  Good thing I didn't see a monkey or a shiny rock or something else irresistible over there before those signs went up.