Airport Blogging for Claire

Hanging with the ladies--you can't even tell which one is me.

If Claire told me to jump off a cliff, I probably would do it. I mean, she (and Debbie) asked me to bring an envelope with pieces of humans in it to mail to their pathology guy in the States, and I’m doing that. I have a cool letter about it, and they were telling me that if someone gives me a hard time about it, just to leave the envelope, as it’s not worth getting in trouble for. Apparently no one who has done this for them has ever had anyone ask questions, but I hope I get some curious TSA guy with a weak stomach. The perks of being friends with hospital people! (Also, sometimes they give me free meds.) But anyway, Claire said to blog while in the airport, so that is what I’m doing.

Moussa in the background taking photos of me,
and that is why I have so many photos of me in this post.

When you try to take photos of a group of women who are not prepared

Clearing no one but Ashe is paying attention

These last few weeks have flown by, trying to finish up work stuff, entertaining visitors, making short trips to the field, ordering lots of food from the restaurant near my house that delivers because I’ve become friends with the owner and I haven’t had much time to cook these days. I’ve also been invited to several American embassy parties because of Joe, who is currently staying with various Embassy people while I’m gone because they have nice yards and he is irresistible. I’ve also had a few visits from the vet, once after Joe was attacked and bitten by a mean dog in the street and once recently when Joe has been sick with what I think is a cold. A coughy, sneezy, snuffly dog is a sad dog. The vet came late the last visit because he was outside of town vaccinating a bunch of sheep.

Joe sitting inside the gate, the guard putting his hand in to pet him--
I told you he is irresistible!

This is me when I'm sick too. 

Another culture shock moment for Jack-sugar cubes,
"Amanda, what is this? It's like candy! They put it in their tea?"
Apparently sugar cubes are not a thing in Jack's Kenya.

My most recent trip to the field (two days ago, I think, but time is a blur) also involved sheep and camels and goats and herds of cows and that one donkey I almost hit because he would not move out of the road. I headed out to some villages outside of Dourbali to check on a few projects and meet my namesake. She’s called “Amina,” which is my Arabic name. Originally it was my Somali name, but I changed up the pronunciation to use it here. It’s now more widely used than my actual name whenever I am walking with Joe around our neighborhood.

Amina and Amina

Irrelevant to the blog, but I love this guy,
he's been a great supporter of our work,
and he is a wonderful father who adores his daughters,
one of whom is also called Amina, but not after me.

This chubby baby ran up to me and put up his arms, speaking of irresistible!
Kids usually run away from me screaming, so I was pretty excited,
had to commemorate the moment with a selfie, as you can see in my glasses reflection.

I always like to go to the field and spend time with people in the village and hear their stories. I like hanging out with the women, forcing them to let me help with basic tasks that I know I can do (shelling peanuts-yes, making the peanut butter-no), and playing with the babies that aren’t afraid of me. I was happy to meet baby Amina, but I really rushed the trip. Initially, I’d planned to spend the night in Dourbali with Pastor Moussa, which would have given me a whole day to visit 4 projects out in the bush, but I had to get to the Christmas party for IAS staff that evening. I couldn’t leave the day before because I had to take Jack and Emmanuel to the airport at 5am the next day. So I decided to drop Jack and Emmanuel at the airport, meet Nesie at the roundabout near his house, and drive on, beating traffic, which I noted last time is not as bad as Nairobi traffic, but still the probability of accidentally (or on purpose) killing someone on a motorcycle who jumps in front of you at the last moment increases during certain times of the day.

Camel guy thinks we're weird in our car

Guy on a horse thinks we're weird in our car

I really wonder what we are all looking at,
but it's more likely we are all tired of squinting at the sun.

The car I was planning to take arrived in from Abeche late the night before. I had checked in with the driver while he was on the way to ask him to please put petrol in the car THAT NIGHT because the stations aren’t open before 6am and I wanted to leave before 6am. He promised he would, but then I arrived at the office and found out he had forgotten. It was 4:55am at the time. I did not make much of an effort to hide my annoyance. Anyway, at 5:30 while driving to pick up Nesie, consoling myself with the fact that it wasn’t too long to wait for 6am and trying not to think about the fact that this isn’t a country dedicated to on-time store openings, I saw an open petrol station! I was able to fill up the truck and save myself about 15 minutes of time and an entire day of being annoyed with people who did not keep with my plan. Luckily, I had another chance to be annoyed with someone for not doing something I had asked to be done last week at the IAS Christmas party later that night. And again, it ended up ok. It’s nice when that happens. People will often let you down, and it doesn’t always end up with no one getting hurt.

Camel attack at dawn!

And now the sheep, who were likely vaccinated by Joe's vet

Always the cows blocking the road

One of the best parts of my job is seeing the joy and hearing about new life in a community with a new water point. I love the smiles and the stories. I’m humbled by the generosity shown to me, whether it involves naming your seventh child after me or serving me your best food (though I do try to avoid eating goat intestines and termite stew, if it is possible—I had the goat intestines this time).  But it’s hard to get requests for more help like building a school or a health center in the area, knowing that the need is huge, but that’s just not what we do. There are a lot of needs out here, but it’s a privilege to work with Pastor Moussa and others around Chad to identify needs that we can address.

New hand pump is already hard at work

Best part of the job!

It’s also pretty fun driving around, off-roading it—as long as there is no traffic and I’m in the truck. I do not like off-roading it in the corolla and I don’t like driving in town where my competitive instincts resent cars trying to pass me. The truck can connect to my phone (so high tech!), so I can play music, and that is fun. I was entertained by the contrast of the road I was on and the Rend Collective song “My Lighthouse,” which I downloaded to learn for a few weeks ago when I was helping David lead worship for their TEAM conference. I guess Northern Irish musicians will stick together (he had a few Getty songs in the repertoire too), and it was nice of him to invite an American to join him because it’s fun to play with good musicians, and I don’t get to do that very often. Anyway, the Rend Collective people are singing on a boat in the middle of the sea while we were driving through sand, dodging camels—basically the same. The other entertainment was me asking the guide which road to take. When you’re driving in the Sahel, there are scrubby bushes all around, a few trees of differing sizes, and various types of sand, which turn into various types of mud in the rainy season making many roads impassable. You look for the most defined tire tracks and try to follow them, even though most of them are probably from “chariots” (we call them horse carts). People drive wherever they want and you don’t always know which way is the right one. I’ve definitely gotten lost on roads like that so I kept asking the guy which road I should take. He kept saying, “Don’t worry about it! They’re all going the same way!” I believed him, but then when driving out of Moussa’s house later on our way back to N’djamena, I was concentrating on avoid trees and bushes and I wasn’t really paying attention to the direction I was going (because “all roads go to the same place”) and I hear Moussa in the back laughing saying, “Why are you taking the longest possible road out of here?” And then I looked up and realized I had veered a bit off course.  I need the desert equivalent of a lighthouse, I guess. When I finally arrived home, having taken a few other extra-long roads to avoid potholes, there was less than an hour until I was supposed to be at the Christmas Party. That’s when I discovered I’d left my house keys locked in the corolla, and the keys to the corolla were locked in the office, but Emelie came to my rescue.

Following a "chariot" on a very obvious road

IAS Staff Christmas Party

So I made it to the Christmas party and I had just enough cash to pay for everything. Then I packed the truck with several of my colleagues, dropped them all at their homes, and went back to mine where three friends of mine holding an all-night prayer meeting in the empty house in my compound. A few months ago, Pastor Moussa posted a photo on Facebook of a meeting we had with a former minister in Dourbali about the submersible pump project. Some FB friend of his commented along the lines of “I guess you had to wait for the little white girl to come help you” and “You know that if the white people give you anything, you will be in their debt forever.” I saw the comment, and I definitely know where he is coming from. The legacy of “the whites” in Africa is well-known and almost entirely negative. And plenty of “little white girls” have done a lot of damage over the years, and I know that this “little white girl” has made plenty of mistakes. But I can say right now that Pastor Moussa and others here, even just over the last few months, have given me more than I could ever repay. Their support, love, and faithful prayers have been life to me. I’ve often been annoyed that I see Jesus in my mind as a white guy with blue eyes and flowing light brown hair, even knowing how historically inaccurate that is, but years of Sunday School flannel boards and exposure to anachronistic medieval artwork is really hard to undo. But lately I’ve noticed that, while still historically inaccurate, Jesus has Moussa’s joy (and definitely his smile!) and Nadji’s gentle warmth and Gabriel’s fire and Antani’s servant heart and Emelie’s unshakeable faith and Nesie’s passion to help everyone in need who happens to wander into his path from a prostitute living in the street with her newborn baby and who is now living in his house, to his neighbor’s daughter whose school fees he is paying because he believes girls should get an education, to the street boys he buys bread for when they're coming down off their drugs, to the prisoners he visits in jail. I am amazed that I get to be a part of their lives and that because of Jesus, we are Family in the truest sense of the word. And that’s what I told mon petit frère on Moussa’s Facebook. And when I think of how exhausted I am right now and how little sleep I’ve had over the past few nights, I remember that Moussa and Nadji have had even less—because they’ve been awake, praying for me. So in conclusion, support the Africa projects for Neverthirst so I can keep trying to even the score with them because while they did like trying pizza for the first time, I feel like we could do more with a solar pump or two. Bonne fête à vous!

Moussa and Nadji try pizza for the first time,
and then they ate the leftover cold pizza for breakfast the next day!
Pizza initiation complete!
(Note: I also bought them fish, which they enjoyed much more, I think.)

Quick question: should I make an instagram account for Joe?
I'm not on instagram myself because social media is a Job,
but I feel like Joe is ready to become an Influencer.

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.