The Last Part Where the Exciting Stuff Finally Happens

Photo helpfully posted on Facebook previously by Moussa 

Finally the end of the saga, and if you made it this far -- nice work (I know it's you, Mom)! To remind you: we had just bought a new-to-us spare tire, and we were back on the road with another 350km to go at 5pm with an hour left of good daylight and the only good bit of road behind us.

I told you it is pretty out here.

About an hour later, I was braking for potholes or goats or something, when I felt the brake push all the way to the floor. I am not a car person, but on the giant Land Cruiser trucks that I have been driving, when the brakes are working, you push a little on the pedal and feel the catch pretty quickly. In this case, the catch wasn’t there, and I had to push all the way in, like how much you have to push the clutch in before there was any catch (pretty much all the way to the floor, which means Sister Short Legs here is almost standing), and it wasn’t a strong catch. I knew it was probably the back brakes, which we had just had fixed, but likely they hadn’t been fixed as well as we had hoped. A car person gave me his theory as to what happened because it has happened to him before--possibly someone forgot to tighten the thing when he was fixing the other thing and then the thing fell off and didn't do what it was supposed to do. I really appreciated his efforts at the explanation, which actually made sense at the time, but unfortunately all that remains of his attempt to educate me are that the thing wasn't tightened. Anyway, we were in the middle of nowhere. There was nowhere to fix the brakes or re-tighten the un-tightened things. There was nothing to do except convince myself to drive more slowly, which, along with remembering names of car parts, is not one of my stronger skills. I told myself to stay in 4^th or below, but you can go pretty fast in 4^th too. I told Nesie what had happened, and I asked him to pray.

About 20km outside of the last town before N’djamena, it was almost dark and hard to see. It was too light for the headlights to help much but too dark to see very well. I really wanted to get to Massaguet (the last town) by 7:00pm because it was a stupid goal that I had set for myself. From Massaguet there are only 80km left before N’djamena. I was hoping to get home by 8:30, and I remember thinking to myself, if anything happens, it will be way after 8:30 before you make it home, so try to drive carefully!

The aftermath. You can see that I had the lights on, but it's still light-ish out.
At this point everyone was really worried about me, but I was really worried about the chickens.

Clearly I don’t listen to myself because when I swerved to miss some tire-killing potholes I saw at the last moment because it was hard to see, I lost control of the car, it slid across the road and flipped on its side landing in the grass. I remember lying there for a moment listening to Nesie pray and Antani scream my name thinking, “Yeah, we aren’t getting home by 8:30.” And then I told Antani I was OK. And everyone else said they were ok. Two young men walking by who had run for their lives when I lost control of the car and it looked like I was heading for them, ran over to help us. They broke the passenger side window and helped pull us out of the car. That’s when I noticed my dress was ripped and my left shoulder and arm were dripping blood. My right hand was ripped up too, with one nail broken in half. Fortunately, no one else was injured. I did what I always do when I think I might need medical help: I called Claire.

I was pretty upset and not very coherent. We were attracting a crowd. I genuinely had no idea what we should do and how we could get out of there. Claire told me to get to Guinebor Hospital (where she works) if I could and they would help me get stitches (it was clear that I needed them) and clean the wounds, but that was another 100km or so away and we had no transportation. I looked over and found that a crowd of 15 men lined up by the truck and “one-two-three” pushed it back upright! Fortunately I got that on video because say what you want about Chadians, but this is the night before one of the big Muslim holidays, and they’re all dressed up and off to festivities, but they happen upon a tipped over car and they say, “Hey guys, let’s fix this!” They flipped it back over and went on their way like it was no big deal. Then a Chadian military car stopped to check out the situation. They were on their way to Massaguet. The “Captain” (the other guy called him that so I assume that was his rank) told us to get in his car with his driver and he got in our car and they drove us to the “hospital” in Massaguet, dropped us off and then headed on their way to their festivities. The Captain said, “The car works, but the engine seems to be getting really hot so you should probably fix it here if you can.”

My efforts at posting the video of the guys pushing the car back up.

Another effort in case the other one doesn't work. Likely neither one will work.

Meanwhile, I was ushered into the “hospital” by my very concerned passengers (none of whom had even a scratch) who had been traumatised by my stupid driving but were all mostly concerned for me, as I was dripping blood all over the floor. It’s ok because the floor was already covered in mud and bugs. I use quotation marks around the word “hospital” because it was one room with a man in a lab coat, a table with some medicines on it and a few beds pushed around the corners of the room. One light bulb lit the room, and that wasn’t sufficient to see the wounds, so one of the ladies standing around who was presumably a nurse, but could also have just been a friend of the guy in the lab coat, whipped out a nokia phone and held the tiny flashlight over my arm. Another lady helpfully snipped off a chunk of my dress, along with a bit of my hair, so that I could pull my arm out. The doc and another kid in a lab coat start rubbing down my arm with betadine (?), which I think is iodine in English? (Red stuff that burns.) They dug the cotton swabs in my wounds and marveled at my ability to speak Arabic. In between my groans I told them my life story, and they were excited about all my time in the Arab world. Then I noticed the doc grab a large syringe, and I figured things were going to get worse. He poked the needle down into one side of my jagged elbow wound, then twirled it a bit and poked it up out of the other side of the wound, like he was trying to sew it shut. At first I thought he was starting the stitches, and then I realized it was the local anesthetic as he squirted the liquid all over the outside of the wound. Then the young kid in the lab coat popped over and started sewing. I’ve been told that proper procedure is to give the local anesthetic a bit of time to start working before sewing up the wound. Also, I’ve been told that usually it’s given before they start swabbing out the gashes with burning red stuff. And I think that generally when medicine is administered by injection, it is supposed to go inside of the body and not be squirted on the outside, but I'm no medical professional. Anyway, I definitely felt the stitches, but later while I was sitting on one of the beds waiting for Urbain to show up, I noticed that there was a bit of numbness in my arm.  I also noticed that the guy who wrapped the bandages around my stitches did not wear gloves, though the others had, and he also tore strips of tape and gauze with his teeth. I don’t want to blame him for the infection I developed later, but he is on the suspect list.

They have gloves on!

It’s 80km from Massaguet to N’djamena, as I’ve mentioned previously. It took Urbain nearly 2 hours to drive that distance to come pick us up, which is not because the road is terrible (it isn’t great, but it is not terrible), but because he doesn’t drive fast at night (a lesson that some of us should take into account, I realize), and he didn’t crack 60kmph even once. Covid curfew at the time was set at 10pm, but we had a doctor’s note from the doc in the lab coat, clearly the most official person present (so why did they let the kid intern do the stitches?). He wrote a nice note on fancy doctor paper, declaring that I needed an xray ASAP. It is possible that he really believed that. To me, a non-medical person who does not own a lab coat and has been known to use candy as medication and the power of positive thinking to cure headaches, it seemed fairly clear that no xray was needed, but whenever we were called upon to produce that permit to drive after curfew (3-4 times actually), the fact that I hadn’t been given any actual pain medication this whole time and the fact that my dress was covered in blood and blood was soaking through the bandages as well, really sold the medical emergency. It did not spur Urbain to faster driving, which is probably good, though I was pushing the gas pedal for him in my mind.

Don't say I only post photos of me when I look good.

We made it to my house at 1am. Because they wouldn’t have my pained facial expressions to convince police that we were ok to be out after curfew, everyone stayed over at my house that night. The men slept on beds and mattresses in Henry’s house (since Henry is back in Kenya now and Victor was in Dourbali), and Antani slept on a mattress in my house. The next day, everyone headed to their respective homes, and Claire came to pick me up, fill me with drugs, drive me to her hospital (about 20 minutes out of town) to have me checked over by Dr Tom of Guinebor Hospital, bought me lunch and escorted me to an Art Show with Tea put on by the Guinebor Kids (so classy are these multicultural little TCKs), and then drove me home and then went back out to Guinebor. If you have a friend who is that caring, selfless and wonderful, you are pretty blessed, aren’t you? I know I am.

Claire told me that she looks serious in this photo because this is serious business.
She helpfully wrote out everything for me about the meds
because I did not pay attention when she was talking. 

Dr Tom was actually fairly impressed by Kid in a Coat’s stitches, so I felt bad for doubting him. He did say that he should have stitched up the cut at the top of my shoulder though. I don’t blame Kid in a Coat for that—the nokia phone light was just not powerful enough, but that could have been a cause for the infection too. Fortunately, due to double doses of antibiotics from Claire, Pharmacist Extraordinare, that didn’t last long. It maybe lasted a bit longer than it would have since the pain meds made me barf up everything for two days. Claire drove in AGAIN to bring me anti-nausea meds, which I later misplaced, and when I couldn't find them, I immediately assumed that the dogs ate then (which was unfair to them, but they do cause a lot of mayhem and destruction in my house). Later I found them in my bag (where I had put them and promptly forgotten), so it was all good, as I was really worried that the dogs had eaten them, but I would never find out because they wouldn't be able to barf them up--because anti-nausea. Claire is very kind to put up with me. I will say that a convenient thing that happened this year is that I have learned how to throw up. It took me a long time, but it is amazing how much better you feel after. All it took was a year of consistent trauma, pain, and frequent medical issues to help me re-learn a skill I presumably was born with.

Doc Tom and I in our super-cool Chadian facemasks.

A fun thing about being in an accident or in hospital for any reason here, is that people will come to visit you and check in on you. When you are alone, as I am, you are then responsible for dragging yourself out of bed, sitting in a chair and smiling awkwardly while hoping you have something in the cupboard to offer them. Fortunately, I always have cookies, and since I wasn’t eating due to nausea, there were still plenty to offer to my guests.

Céline came by to fix my bandanges.
Yes my house is unorganized and the couch cushions are like that
so that the dogs don't mess them up and the mattress is in there
because Antani slept there and I couldn't move it out with only one functioning arm.

Observe the beauty and order of Claire's house in contrast to mine.
She only has one cat. Also she's better at interior design than I am.
Also I have no interest or abilities in interior design.

Moussa showed up with Victor on Saturday to pick up some supplies and check in on me. He took some videos and photos, which he diligently posted on Facebook on my behalf (thus informing many surprised people who I'd not told that I had been in an accident). He also tried to give away my dogs because he says there are too many. He is right, but I haven’t given any away yet, though I have locked them out of my house a few times. He actually called Emelie and told her to come take the one he calls Kakilé, which I actually decided officially to call Kwach in honor of Henry, though in reality I still call her Puppy even though she's now bigger and fatter than both Flip and York because she is a glutton. Anyway,  Emelie knows me too well and didn't follow orders to pick up her new puppy. She does want Kakilé/Kwach/Puppiko (that's what she calls her) though, and I'll probably cave and give her the dog, but right now Antani's kids and myself love her too much.

How can I give up this puppy who so graciously steals my laundry
off the drying rack and then wears my bra around her neck because she knows it makes her look good?

Moussa was so proud to help Nadji cut the bandages for me.

Nadji and Céline (both nurses from Guinebor and friends of mine) came in alternate days to change my bandages. Nadji insisted on doing it even when I thought it could wait because he was worried about the infection.

Gross photo also courtesy of Moussa

And finally the end to the saga: Céline took the stitches out. She invited me over to her house for lunch and stitches removal (Claire was invited too). Lénaëlle (Céline’s daughter) put on a “spectacle” (the Guinebor kids are artists and performers for sure) and decorated the table with flowers in honor of our visit. Stitches came out fairly easily. I do not have to drive out over the bumpy dirt road to Guinebor for a while, though I can now because I have a big truck. And I did the next weekend to make cinnamon rolls with Claire. I had to learn the trick of turning the key, warming up the car system (turn key to light up dash but not start engine, then wait until the squiggle on the dash goes out), and get the horn fixed (I cannot drive in Chad without a horn), and fix the windshield wipers because it’s rainy season. I also learned that in order for the driver’s side door to stay shut while you’re driving, you must lock it (see the last post when I nearly took out a motorcycle driver when my door swung open while I was driving). Anyway, all’s well that ends well. And I’ll be off on another trip soon, and this time I will drive a bit slower. And bring more food. And leave as early as possible. And refuse to run any more errands for passengers. And make sure the brakes are working.

Stitches are out grâce à Céline and flowers in my braids are grâce à Lénaëlle.

And I was back later that week to make cinnamon rolls with Claire!
While they were baking we took many timed geography quizzes online
 because we are nerds who know how to have a good time.

They turned out well, don't you think?
Not pictured: cream cheese icing

Oh-and one important thing I forgot to mention: the chickens survived the crash! And then somehow they survived the night in my compound full of dogs--they are truly impressive creatures that will probably taste really good when Antani cooks them up.

  

This is not a photo of the chickens that survived,
but this is a photo I took on a previous trip to Bitkine
when we stopped to buy some chickens to bring back to N'djamena.
Clearly chickens here are tough birds.

This is Africa and Other Stereotypes

This is what the translator does while
the doctor is making notes--photos with happy kids

Did you know that Africa is not a country? I hope so because it seems to be something that many people haven’t figured out yet. Those are the people who think life in Africa is grass-roofed mud huts and starving children.  Somewhere Bono is singing and warlords are fighting and a UN convoy full of white saviors is carrying unwanted food generously donated to flood the markets in Africa with cheap grain. Some of that really is my life, and I wish the market midnight music thumpers preferred Bono to Celine Dion, but he hasn’t donated any sunglasses or free digital music to the peoples of Mundri yet, as far as I know.  But even as we fight the stereotypes that malign the lives of the people in the country of Africa, that whole “This is Africa” comment still comes.  Khawajas living in Africa (including myself on rare occasions) say it to encourage ourselves that our lives aren’t inconvenient, just adventurous.  And visiting khawajas say it with awe, a bit of trepidation, and a sigh of relief that they’re going home after a few days. But even Africans from various countries across the continent will say it with a small shrug of apology, a throb of pride and a dash of smugness—“This is Africa, and you weaklings who are not from here will never get it and we will watch you flame out and run home crying, and it will be hilarious.” Rememberthe guys who fixed our tire with a rope and then patted me on the head saying,“You are a khawaja, you don’t know about these things, but we are African. Weknow about these things”? That is one example.

The car. Bars added to hold long pipes. Bars not properly
welded to vehicle. Bars bounce and bang loudly,
making the ride even more exciting.

Anyway, there is a point to this rambling. I had a “This is Africa” day the other day that I will eventually get around to telling you about.  I don’t usually call out Africa on days when things get exciting because I am loyal to my continent Asia, which can also get exciting, and I don’t think Africa should always get the credit for crazy times. And I didn’t call my day a “This is Africa” day either—actually an African friend of mine did. I’m just agreeing for the purpose of this blog post title.

The day started out dreary and rainy—not at all like the day Simba’s dad held him up over the cliff and yelled, “AHHHHHHHH CHI BAMBA!” or whatever it was. The thing was, I had specifically asked God to give me a dry hot day to drive to Karika over notoriously bad roads, so I felt personally affronted by His refusal to grant my wish. I also felt personally affronted that Repent did not show up at 8am, as we agreed, when he had been doing it all week for the other khawajas. Usually, I don’t care if we leave on time. But today we had to get to Karika (a 2 hour drive away) to help with translation for a medical clinic. Along the way, we had some of our own work to do, checking out some hand pumps we drilled in the area, and talking to communities about our up-coming visit. We needed to stop in 4 places AND visit Repent’s mom. We decided that since we had driven the motorcycle the day before to Mbara (a 2+ hour drive on the bike one way), that Repent should have a rest and we would find alternate means of transportation. I agreed to ask someone if I could borrow his car, but I was pretty sure that he would say ‘no’ and we would have to find another way to hitch a ride with someone else. But the guy said ‘yes,’ which meant that I had to drive because Repent doesn’t know how.

Waiting for Repent

Here’s the thing: I do not love driving. As I have said before, I will pretty muchlet anyone else who wants to drive take the wheel, from my 86 year old grandfather, legendary deer murderer, to my 8 months pregnant sister.  I also do not love driving manual transmission because I am lazy and I like to be able to stick one foot up on the dashboard while the other one mans the gas and brake. And finally, there is a huge responsibility that falls on the shoulders of the person who is driving a large expensive piece of equipment like a car, especially if that vehicle is not actually yours. I just knew I was going to be THAT girl—the one that got the car stuck in the mud for a month, thereby securing her reputation as untrustworthy and a terrible driver (since we are talking about stereotypes and women are supposed to be bad drivers). Incidentally I did once get my car stuck in the snow while I was in grad school because I thought that it was just a beautiful myth that one could get stuck in the snow. All I ever knew about snow I learned from cartoons and when I found out that you can’t make a giant snowman by rolling a piece of snow down a hill, I thought that all the other stuff I’d heard about snow (how you can make it into ice cream, squish it into a snowball, get one’s car stuck in a heaps of it that was shoveled off the driveway so as not to get one's car stuck in it, etc) was all part of that beautiful myth. But it is true that one can get one’s car stuck in snow. Fortunately for me, the kindly neighborhood mailman dug me out. Then he asked me out for coffee, and I said yes because seriously, he spent an hour digging my car out, and that was very kind. So I spent an hour having coffee with him and not laughing when he started off our conversation by talking about aliens and the art of spray-painting cars. Anyway, that totally paid off my debt to him.

But to come back to South Sudan and driving and mud—one can also get deeply stuck in the mud. And the last time I’d been on the road to Karika, we’d had to turn back because there was a giant hole in one side of the road and a truck stuck on the other side of the road.

“How long have you been stuck here?” kindly inquired Moga of the EAM drilling team.

“36 days,” said the sad truck driver stuck in the ground like Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel.

A true life portrait of a
truck driver in Karika.

So between snow, alien-loving mailmen, and Mike Mulligan in the hole, I was nervous about driving the road to Karika. And it did not help my fragile nerves that Repent was late.

We finally hit the road around 9am, bouncing, banging, splashing.  I had initially put my seatbelt on because I heard that story about how Princess Diana would be alive today if she had worn hers, and her driver was probably way more skilled at his job than I am at mine and I’m also very princess-like. But every time I hit a bump, the seatbelt locked and 5 bumps in (approximately 28 seconds in the drive) I decided that the risk of me choking to death on the seatbelt was greater than the risk of me crashing into reckless paparazzi, and took it off. Then I had to suffer through a minute of seatbelt alarm bells, but I won the battle of wills with the car’s inner safety monitor (a useless little prig, just like safety monitors almost always are).  Then whenever I hit a bump, I would fly up in the air with my short little leg stumps kicking the air, flailing around, trying to find the clutch. In this manner we managed to reach our destination at the medical clinic in Karika.

Kid with malaria who fell asleep in my
arms while the doc was getting his stats.
I tried to wake him up to make him
drink, but he was comfy.

I could probably tell you a lot of stories about translating for medical clinics, but it has all melted into a blur of “What sickness is troubling you? Do you have diarrhea? Have you been vomiting? Do you have fever and night sweats?” By the end of 10 days, I was tired and delirious and falling asleep to the rhythm of “her chest pain is worse when she is eating but she is not having diarrhea only headaches and night sweats” and dreaming of translations from English to Juba Arabic and back again. The last day my translation skills involved me telling someone to go ahead and drink the water bottle the doctor gave you because she put blood in it and it will help you. Of course, I meant ‘medicine’ and not ‘blood’ and was alerted to that fact by the look of horror in the patient’s eyes. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that I can diagnose malaria, reflux, UTIs and migraines now. But I didn’t get to do any of the exciting stuff like digging spiders out of children’s ears or drilling a tiny hole through a toenail to drain out pus. So we will move on back to the driving part of the story.

Bonus photo: Malaria boy's bro and sister wanted to take
a fun photo with the khawaja to celebrate this occasion,
and because if your brother is miserable, that is always hilarious.
Siblings are the worst.

New baby

I had always planned to leave the clinic early because Repent and I had to do some of our own work on the way back.  Repent’s mother came by for her visit to the doctors and then we agreed to take her home. I thought that would be a quick “drop off and hug goodbye” scenario, but I was wrong. She had cooked food for her boy and we also had to come see the new grandbaby (Repent’s niece). We oohed and ahhed an appropriate amount of time and then she served us up a nice meal of bugs and blob. I ate a small amount as quickly as possible and then spent the rest of my energy telling Repent to hurry because we had to get back on the road! He is good at ignoring me, though, so he just finished calmly, hugged his mother, and headed back to the car.

“Wait,” called Mama. She ran out of her house carrying an opaque jar full of something. “Here. You take this honey. You are not married and you are like a daughter to me. So this is for you.”

Quick reader poll: Does that speech plus the gift mean that

Tasty bugs. Said my nephew:
"I would NEVER eat that."
I ate it.

A)   She feels sorry for me for being unmarried at my advanced age, so here’s some honey to make me feel better?

Or

B)   She is concerned that I am unmarried so here is some honey that will help me catch a man?

 Anyway, it is really good honey with hardly any bug pieces in it at all.

We started to head back to get our work done, but had to stop off back at the clinic to pick up something and drop it somewhere else. Then when we got to Somewhere Else, we had to go back to the clinic for something else and then back and this repeated several times until I yelled at Lexon, “I AM NOT A DRIVER AND WE HAVE THIS CAR BECAUSE WE HAVE WORK TO DO FOR REAL AND WE HAVE TO DO IT BEFORE DARK.” That worked when I promised to go back to the clinic one more time to tell the head nurse that she had to shut down NOW and get on the road because it is a dangerous road to drive on because mud, inclement weather, Dinkas and their car had no headlights. I also told a few other people while Lexon squeezed my hand gratefully for helping him out by yelling at khawajas, something he felt bad doing because they were his guests (also, he doesn’t really yell at people much, but yelling is one of my skillz).

First driving selfie by Repent. He's learning.

Finally we get on down the road. Remembering my vow to help out stranded travelers any time I have a car, in honor of the people who have helped me out when I’m stranded, I was a very generous driver, and kept offering to take people on down the road. Repent did not love this, but he agreed to let me stop to pick up pedestrians because we stopped right by some boys selling a petrified leg of goat that he wanted to buy.

Road to a hand pump. Note the mangos and the angle of the car.
Authentic. It's just like you were there with us.

We kept heading down the road—me, Repent, Leg of Goat, passengers, and 3 mangoes, which Repent cut up for us to eat while driving. I only dropped one piece in the floor, but I ate it anyway after Repent fished it back up for me. Dirt is full of healthy minerals here.

He's a fast learner.

Finally we dropped everyone off and had finished all our work stops but one near to Mundri. We decided to have fun and take some videos of us in the car. *Calm down, Mom.* Repent did all the videography, I was carefully driving with hands at “10 and on the shifter thingo.”  We were laughing at something in one of the videos, when I noticed a strange hissing sound. I shushed Repent and the video to make sure of the sound, and we decided to stop and try to determine the source of the sound. Fortunately, it turned out to be quite easy, which was convenient because while I did take autoshop in high school, another one of my skillz is to trick teachers into letting students watch videos during class, and we spent most our time watching old VHS tapes (yes, whatever, I’m older than you) of Junkyard Wars. That was pretty legit because our other class-time option was working on junk cars that weren’t likely to ever transport people or objects ever again. 

Repent was mesmerized by the sight a a girl changing a tire.

But it turns out I had punctured a tire probably by hitting a hidden rock in one of the deep mud ponds I’d driven through. But guess what—my dad taught me how to change a tire a long time ago (thanks, Dad!), and yes, it’s pretty intuitive, but maybe not for people who haven’t grown up with cars. While I was climbing around the back of the truck unscrewing the spare tire, Repent was digging around behind the Leg of Goat looking for the jack. He found it, and the hook to turn it, but he didn’t find the handle that screws on to the hook, allowing you to turn the hook and raise the jack. If you have never changed the tire on a Land Cruiser truck, you may have no idea what I’m talking about, and that doesn’t matter at all. But once I’d finally heaved the tire over the side to Repent, I found him hunched over under the car trying to turn the jack with his fingers. I laughed at him, and he went off to find a tree to pee on while I found the other piece and jacked up the car and then started unscrewing the bolts. He came back in time to finish turning the jack (he was so excited to learn how) and then film me changing the rest of the tire. Girl power! But then I did use a little boy power to let him heave the flat tire up into the back of the truck. I maintain that I could have done this if I had been alone and had to do it, but I know how sensitive men are about being involved in stereotypical “man’s work,” so I wanted to include him.

I took this photo (I've had years of practice),
but I love two things about it the most:
1. Repent's face
2. Repent turning the jack with his fingers.

Oh Repent...

I could totally have lifted that tire in the
air with one arm.

We made it back to Mundri just before dark, covered in mud and car goo. I was met by the medical team buying ingredients to make a mango pie, which I’d told them I had done in the past. Since it was one of the ladies’ birthdays, they wanted to make it to surprise here, but since I am the only one with an oven that doesn’t run on coals that they didn’t know how to light, I was going to be the one to make it anyway. So I buckled down for some stereotypical women’s work, baked that pie AND some brownies too. And it was a happy birthday for the 4 people who managed to stay awake for the pie. And as for me, I got accolades, which you know is something I like, and the only reason why I ever cook for other people.

So there you go—late start, rain storms, muddy roads, leg of goat, free truck rides, punctured tire, mango pie. This is Africa. Or anyway -- this is Mundri-to-Karika, Mundri West County, Western Equatoria State, South Sudan, Africa, Planet Earth.

Francis, Enoch and Data eating mango cobbler because
I was too tired after the birthday pie for a photo.
And  the cobbler recipe is courtesy of Emily Genius Seymour.
She texted it to me while waiting for her son to be born.
She is that awesome.

EMILY IS THE GREATEST IN THE WORLD!

Jurassic Park 3

Last July Benji and I somehow convinced his wife-my sister to watch Jurassic Park 3 with us. This masterpiece of cinematography is probably familiar to most of you due to the multiple awards it has won and its great critical acclaim. Joanna, afraid of dinosaurs in spite of the fact that they don’t exist anymore (some people argue that they never existed) was not easy to persuade. I guess we must have led her to believe that there was some swashbuckling romantic action or maybe she just didn’t have the energy to argue with us after chasing her son around all day. Anyway, I’d already seen JP3 on a train in China, and its main draw for me was the idea of wandering around in an abandoned museum-ish thing (modern ruins if you will), and, of course, dinosaurs whose existence I continue to believe in faithfully. So I wanted to watch it again for those reasons and also because I like to convince other people to watch dumb movies, something that Marian and Josh can attest to.

So why am I bringing up Jurassic Park 3? Because of the stellar acting? To revel in my powers of coercing others to do things they don’t yet know that they don’t want to do? To convince you that dinosaurs exist? In fact, it is none of these things, but my actual logic may be hard for you to grasp. Today I finally traveled back to Kharaz after much begging, pouting, and generally making a nuisance of myself in order to convince people to let me go. The trip from to and from Kharaz always reminds me of JP3. First, there is a large abandoned (well, technically never completed) hotel resort area that we pass by on our way out. The part that we can see is a large pink wall that stretches on for miles. This wall is the exact shade of pink that is most often the background for a Hello Kitty face. It is surrounded by dead palm trees in varying stages of decay. The door is wide and welcoming, but blocked by a pile of sand. I don’t know what is behind the wall. I know it was built by a foreign businessman (some say Emirati, others say Japanese) who dreamt of providing rich Gulfies with their own all-inclusive resort. All inclusive which is including an amusement park (see my blog entry about Fun City), a golf course, a 5-star hotel, and the beach. Apparently he built the wall and ran out of money. I guess that pink paint is expensive. Some people say there is the beginning of a hotel deep inside the compound, and I like to think of it existing, infested by wandering camels and evil crows. Camels I find to be reminiscent of dinosaurs, the brontosaurus kind of dinosaur that eats grass and has a long neck. You know, the kind made famous in the plethora of Land Before Time movies which were created to drive babysitters crazy. Later the Barney market developed-- another attempt to further discredit dinosaurs and torture childcare workers. But Barney is a mutant psycho T-rex who lures in his prey with a façade of family-friendly kindness. At least he is not a Teletubby, the most terrifying of all creatures conjured up for childhood entertainment.

So back to the journey which connects to the dinosaur theme by virtue of the fact that the car that we were driving could possibly be carbon-dated back to the Jurassic period, offering more proof that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. I would offer to try to discover its origins, but as far as I know it remains broken down by the side of the road where we left it. I’ll definitely look for it on my way back to Aden later.

Because recently the villagers decided that shooting at NGO cars and/or hijacking them is a fun way to get free transportation, ADRA has decided not to drive our cars into the camp for the time being. Because I whined and moaned, they agreed to hire one of the refugee cars that drives refugees from their summer homes in the urban slums of Basateen to their refugee homes where they can collect free rations and live in a tent. I’m usually not allowed in these cars because they are not “official” and I would be stopped at police checkpoints, but some papers were drawn up and I was approved for travel. The power of a good temper-tantrum. Abdullah, a coworker whose awkwardness has driven many a foreign female to extreme lengths, was to choose “a good car” for our journey which also included one other Yemeni of Indonesian descent (cool, huh?!) colleague named Khaled Jawi (Khaled the Java person). Sadly, Abdullah made that fatal mistake common to man and immortalized in many a cliché: he picked the one with the best paint job. In this case, judging the book by its cover brought us to a sputtering standstill a few miles past the pink wall, maybe half an hour into our journey. While the men worked to fix the car, Abdullah and I wandered down to the beach. When we came back, he was pressed into service as a car pusher, and my services were refused. I jogged alongside shouting encouragement instead. A convenient handle on the side of the car should have helped Abdullah guess that this car was meant for pushing. But in spite of the enthusiastic efforts of the men and a nearby friendly car, the engine refused to be coaxed into working. Much pushing and hacking at the inside of the engine went on for quite some time. I went to the beach again and sat down to work on my ankle and wrist tans. They will be golden-bronze in no time.

An hour and a half later, we gave up and Khaled and I crammed into the friendly refugee car built to hold a maximum of 10 people which was now holding almost twice that, plus baggage that couldn’t be tied to the roof of the car. Abdullah, as punishment for choosing a bad car, was designated as the person who was to stay and watch the stuff until the rescue car arrived. They wouldn’t let me stay even though I didn’t want to cram in the car with a bunch of people who had already been forced to wait for us and now were going to be forced to squish in their seats (which they paid for) next to a couple of foreigners (Khaled is a Jawi after all). As my foot developed a cramp and sweat dripped down my back and sand flew in my face and crunched in my teeth, I hoped that we would not clip one of the many large sand piles that were creeping into the road and tip over. I didn’t really want to die in a refugee car on the way back to Kharaz—not while there’s still a chance I might get to evacuate Yemen by boat.

Anyway, I’m back. I might go to Sana’a this weekend to get more pages in my passport as I’m a bit worried about having only one page left, and what if I have a long layover somewhere on my way back to the US and I can’t leave the airport because I don’t have enough pages in my passport? But I might stay here if it looks like I can’t get back next week. With the uncertain situation in the country, and the lack of diesel for our cars, transportation is becoming a bit difficult. That’s why I’m voting for the UNHCR to purchase a helicopter for the use of their personnel and the IPs (Implementing Partners of which ADRA is one). All of their overpaid workers could donate a tiny percentage of their salaries and we could buy it right away. Then, if we did evacuate, we could just fly over to the nearest boat and head to Djibouti. And since Jurassic Park 3 is not a movie based on real events (Joanna), there is only the smallest of chances that we will get knocked out of the sky by a flock of pterodactyls.

Me preparing to hitchhike, but at this point it just looks like I'm giving the 'thumbs up' to the driver--"Good job staying on the road, Mr!" I did amuse myself by waving enthusiastically at all passing vehicles. I'm sure that they enjoyed having a crazy foreigner divert them from the monotony of blue sea, brown sand, camels, and shrubs.