Can't Think of a Title About Traveling I've Not Yet Used

It’s been a while since I’ve written. If I hadn’t written that last post about breaking my arm, I could have used that excuse, but I think traveling and life has kept me too busy. Also when I’m traveling, I’m staying in hotels with good wifi so I can use Marian’s netflix account and mess up her algorithm by watching reality tv shows about people on boats and documentaries about crime people getting caught and once even a serious show about a woman escaping her emotionally abusive partner and trying to navigate complicated and inadequate social services because she has no one else she can lean on, which made me glad that I have people all over the world that I can lean on.  And speaking of the world...

This is how seriously I take my job*

I’m currently in Pakistan visiting some partners we are hoping to work with to bring clean water to some vulnerable people here. I’m excited that I got to make this trip because technically I’m the Africa Programs Director and Pakistan, I hope you know, is in Asia. It’s a good chance for me to pull out my rusty Hindi and visit my first ‘Stan (though I’ve plans for a few more hopefully in 2022!!) and of course I mostly came for the food. Just say yes to curry. Always. And throw some more chilis in there too. 

We stopped by the Indus River on a busy highway 
because I've long been interested in it since learning about
the Indus Valley Civilization in Hrappa as a kid.

It was a stupid long trip with unfortunate connections. As always, I follow my strict policy of arriving at the airport in Chad early to avoid lines of people who don’t normally travel by plane who often casually push in front of you and wave you off if you say anything. Note: I never say anything, I just give POINTED LOOKS. Chadian and members of nearby African nations flying alongside me however, will sometimes say things. Once there was even a fistfight. I try to stay out of all of the fights anyway, but I inevitably feel guilty whenever I get huffy with a little old lady in traditional clothes, traveling maybe for the first time in her life, who is very stressed and really doesn’t know what she is doing. I rarely remember to have compassion until I’ve already been rolling my eyes, and then I feel bad and try to make up for it by helping carry one of their 25 plastic bags full of various and sundry necessities up the stairs into the plane. After doing this for several women, I read an article about how sweet looking old ladies, who are actually drug mules, get you to help with their bags so your fingerprints are on them, and you are implicated in their crime. Clever plot and those bags are always super heavy so a few kilos of illegal substances likely wouldn't be noticed. I’ll still probably help them, but here is me going on the record saying I am not complicit in drug trafficking! If I’m ever arrested for that it was because I was trying to help a little old lady who I’d previously huffed at for elbowing past me in line, and I felt bad about it.

Eating a local hot chili as everyone around me says it will kill me.
It did not. It was not even the hottest one I've eaten, so I think I got a dud.

I don’t mind helping when I’m traveling. The places where I travel in the increasingly inter-connected world where we live often have people walking around with confused expressions on their faces, and speaking a few languages as I do, I can overhear conversations, and I am not too timid (and not good enough at minding my own business) to jump in and help. At the NDJ airport last, I heard the posh clipped tones of a fancy Brit who’d spent a brief amount of time at the new British embassy and the UNDP and was wondering which gate she should be waiting at in the airport. I helpfully informed her that though technically it does say that there are two gates, only one is ever open at a time and you are hustled out the gate to the waiting bus through various bag checks (though your bag has already gone through an electric scanner twice by this point), and been frisked (though you’ve already been frisked and been through an electric scanner once by this point), and had your passport and ticket checked anywhere between 4-6 times (though they’ve also already been checked by 4-6 people previously). After waiting on the bus, now festooned with signs calling for social distancing and covid prevention, for a varying amount of time as they stuff it full of people wearing facemarks under their chins, possibly with the AC on, more likely without it, you’re then driven about 50 meters to the only plane waiting on the tarmac. When the doors of the bus open, you’re caught in the current of the crowd, swept up the stairs, tripping on robes and smacked in the ankles by roll-y bags, before making it on your flight. It’s really impossible to get on the wrong flight or be at the wrong gate.

Taking notes, apparently about something funny.
I think Sunil is probably making a joke.

Once on the plane, you may have to negotiate for the seat written on your ticket. This is where I start offering my services to flight attendants, speaking French or Arabic to help those around me find their seats, get a blanket, order the chicken. The Ethiopian flight attendants are always really grateful, but they’ve not yet been grateful enough to share injera and tibs with me at dinner time. Leif says he once charmed them into a plate full of shiro and tibs. I’ve tried but I don’t think I have his Swedish charm.

Cannon pose with Nadeem on Umerkot Fort

Once in Addis Ababa International Airport, also festooned with covid prevention signs, I obediently sat at the end of an empty bench that was quickly filled up with a group of other ladies. I made small talk with a lady from Niger, commenting on her croix d’Agadez earrings and assuring her that we had plenty of time before we needed to get in line to board. While I was in line boarding, I overheard a young man who was trying to figure out why he was pulled out of the line. He asked some other francophone Africans and they all said, “I don’t know, man. I can’t speak English.” So I offered to help, and I got things sorted for him. When he got on the plane and walked past where I was sitting, he smiled and thanked me again. In the plane I Arabicked some men into understanding that they were in my seat and their seat number changes on each boarding pass so even though they were in 26ABC on their first flight, now they were in 43DEF. In Dubai I then helped a Burkinabé guy on his way to Glasgow where his very limited English will likely be quite useless to him and finally made my way to the fancy airport lounge that I just found out I can access for free due to my insurance. I’m not gonna lie, as a generally healthy person, this is the most I have ever gotten any money’s worth out of an insurance plan. Plus there is no way I could have convinced myself to spend $800 on a hotel room. Apparently sometimes they have $300 rooms available, but I wouldn’t pay that either. So I skipped sleeping in a bed and dedicated myself to the consumption of lounge food and beverages (free!) and wifi and reading documents I should have read last week but didn’t.

Signing the visitor's book in the village with the beautiful Sonia

When I finally got to Pakistan, in spite of being stopped at boarding because my ticket said my point of origin was Ethiopia, which is on the no go list for Pakistan (I convinced them I originated from Chad using boarding passes and the Pakistan travel health app), some nice English-speakers made sure that I knew where to go to get a rapid PCR test, required on arrival, and then got my boarding pass stamped before getting the results back because the stamp was the important part. At immigration I was helped through by a Pakistani American guy and later a Pakistani Brit chatted with me as I waited for my suitcase. Karma! Or it would be if I were going to India, but I was told while in Pakistan not to talk too much about being in India. I’ve found that to be mostly impossible, but I have tried not to be too loud about it.

Walking down from the top of Umerkot Fort.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying being back in Asia, having food made with multiple spices, all of which I love, buying brightly colored clothes with Kehkshan so I could be culturally appropriate, visiting museums with scary-looking mannequins dressed in beautiful traditional clothes beside plaques detailing classical tragic love stories from across the country, the incredible generosity of people I’ve only just met showering me with gifts and kindness and chai. 

Taking a video of my fav kid Dilip who was too cute

I’ve been thinking, “It’s so nice to be back in Asia. I would love to live in Pakistan, probably because it feels like home to me from my childhood on this continent.” Then I remembered that I had also thought, “I would love to live here” when I was in Djibouti, and I’ve seriously contemplated moving to Ethiopia (though I hate traffic, being a road-ragey kind of person who thinks no one else should dare be on the road when I’m driving). Also, recently while in Switzerland I thought, “It’s so lovely here. What a nice place to live!” And when I’m back in Chad it feels like home too with my dogs and my friends and knowing people in the airport. I didn’t want to live in Dubai though. But I was very impressed by whoever does the azan for the Dubai airport—his voice is beautiful, haunting, makes you feel like you’re in a real Arab country and not a fancy building built by underpaid overworked migrants. Anyway, here’s to Pakistan—first time I have ever visited, already want to live here for the rest of my life until I visit another country, and I’m sure I'll want to live there.

This photo makes me feel like we are walking towards the camera,
getting ready to burst into song and dance like we are in a Bollywood film.

*All photos taken during the Pakistan Trip, after I started writing this blog, before I finished it. Blogs without pictures are boring.

Women Drivers

Teaching after giving up on the headscarf

My life isn’t made up entirely of traveling. Sometimes I do other things too. Recently I helped train 50 women in central Chad on community organizations and management of money. Fortunately, I did not have to make the powerpoint, though I did make sure to insert photos and pictures on each slide because these are illiterate women and powerpoint words aren’t quite as exciting to them as they are to the rest of us who can read. Or maybe they are just the same level of horrible…

It was my first training in French, though I had a translator speaking Chadian Arabic. The thing about Chadian Arabic is that I understand it fine, but people who aren’t familiar with the Sudanese or Levantine or Yemeni mixed-accent that I now have, don’t always understand me. This is especially true for village women who don’t speak Arabic as a first language anyway. I had wanted to do the training in their local languages, but then we would have to have about 5 translators, so we decided to stick to French and Arabic. But the poor Arabic translator on the second day was really terrible. He stared off into the distance and spoke in a monotone, and he did not translate the way I wanted him to. Just a head’s up: if you translate for me from a language I know into another language that I know, I will make sure you use the right words or I will stop the training and show you on my phone dictionary the exact vocabulary I want you to use. I also get annoyed when you don’t translate my jokes. I am funny, dang it. The women will laugh even if you have no sense of humor. Anyway, after the first tea break, I waited until he left the room and then changed to another guy who is a very charismatic translator who finds me hilarious. He also approved the activity I made up for the training involving candy. Is there a point in having a training if there isn’t an activity involving candy?  I don’t think so.

The candy part of the training

So the training was successful, but my brilliant money-saving brain decided that we would drive to the town and in order to save even more cash, I would drive instead of hiring a driver. Partly why I wanted to do this is because I did not want to take the bus. I don’t love loud music and violent Thai movies that are the accepted form of bus entertainment here, and also I feel like I have a whole lot of living left to do. Though you might not have known it from the way I was driving.

In the days leading up to the trip, I kept telling people that I would drive slowly.

“I’m a good driver,” I said, making sure to stand in an area where lightning strikes are rare. “I will just take it slow and let others pass me, if they want.” (If I were Catholic, here is where the priest would assign me 75,000 Hail Marys to atone for my lying ways.)

Pre-trip selfie with Antani's beautiful niece who came
along for the ride to their home town, which was on
the way.

I also had to prove to Emelie that I know how to change a tire because she doesn’t read this blog and she didn’t know about the last timeI changed a tire by the side of the road in South Sudan. “What if we get a puncture?” she asked. “Would you even know what to do? We probably need a man with us.” This did not sit well with me, as you can imagine, and I was even more determined to drive and not bring ANY men with us.

Since the road is mostly tarmac all the way to Mongo, I really wasn’t worried. And really, I did think that I would just drive along slowly like a big haired old lady in a Cadillac on the way to church. I had forgotten about my debilitating strain of competitiveness, and I was not prepared for the exhilaration of hitting 160kmph and beating Leif’s record of 150kmph and the glee I derived from the looks on the faces of the drivers I left in my dust.

Post-trip to Mongo car

Keep in mind, I was driving a little Toyota corolla—a short-tired car with automatic transmission.  While it is nice to be able to put my left foot up on the dashboard and slouch back in the seat, I actually prefer a bulky, manual Land Cruiser for traveling in Africa because even though the road was tarmac, the first third or so of the trip was filled with jagged potholes. This type of pothole can usually only be withstood by tall fat tires such as I did not have. But let me just say: never under-estimate the strength of the Toyota corolla tires. While I got good at dodging potholes, sometimes you had to go through them—for example, when a large truck is already driving on the smooth side of the road or when a camel train decides to commandeer part of the road or when you HAVE to pass that fairy princess driver mincing along at a paltry 120kmph. Our car banged through plenty of road shrapnel with NO PUNCTURES. Maybe because every time we crashed down, I patted the dashboard and apologized sincerely. I was also fortunate to be driving with a non-English speaker, though when she tried to practice the new words she heard me repeat many times, I had to sincerely apologize again and ask her to please never say that word again in front of nice, Christian English speakers. But her pronunciation was spot on.

It was also nice to be traveling with another girl because we could keep a lookout for places with convenient tree coverage to serve as bathroom breaks. It is not always easy out here in the desert. But it was Emelie who had the brilliant idea to bring a couple of chickens with her back to N’Djamena as egg producers since Cameroonian chickens are currently suffering from some chicken virus that is making eggs very expensive here. “Will they die if we put them in the trunk?” she asked. “Probably,” I said confidently, having no idea. And that’s how we ended up with two chickens in the back seat. I don’t actually know if they were noisy, though. About a quarter of the way into the trip back, the car started making a horrifying noise that we discovered we could not hear if we put the windows down. So we could also not hear the chickens if they were protesting their transport.

Teaching while holding a participant's baby.
Good times.

I’m not exactly sure how the car acquired the noise. Maybe from the time I was calmly driving at 135kmph and a donkey appeared in the middle of the road refusing to budge. You know that children’s clapping game “Going on a bear hunt…” At some point the song says, “Can’t go over it, can’t go under it, gonna have to go around it.” Or something like that. In this case, we couldn’t do any of those things. I leaned on the horn and slammed the breaks. Screaming and squealing, the tires burned to a stop. I know they were burning because I happened to look in my rearview mirror and plumes of black smoke were rising from the ground.

Or maybe the sound came from when I tried to drive into Job’s driveway and instead sank down into a hole. The car came to a crunching halt. I was wondering what to do about this because the last time I got a car hopelessly stuck, I had to wait for the mailman to come dig me out. But this time I was able to drive forward and backward and inch by inch work my way out of the trench. It WAS impressive. But it also dislodged a piece of the front of the car, which was graciously replaced the next day.

Chickens getting all cozy.

Camel train crossing

Bitkine--one of my favorite places here.
I love these interesting lumps of rock masquerading as mountains.

I think it was that latter incident, but between the noise and the racing incident on the way to Mongo, I decided that I should drive more carefully on the way home. On the way to Mongo, I passed someone who then passed me and slowed down (I HATE THOSE PEOPLE) so I passed him again, and he kept catching up and slowing down and I let him pass once (I’m so magnanimous!) and he slowed down again, and that was it. I passed him and he ate my dust. Unfortunately, he caught up when I had to stop at a police checkpoint. If the police had just said, “Show me your travel papers” and let me go (like they do with everyone else), then he would never have caught up. Instead they wanted to see the travel papers and my driving license. Note: whenever I’ve been on this trip with Leif or Khaled driving they have NEVER, not once, been asked to show their license. It was just assumed that they knew how to drive. But get a woman behind the wheel and suddenly we are in Saudi Arabia and I need a male guardian to assist me. After convincing them of my driving ability (and--unlike Leif--my ability to stop at police check points), they decided to have a leisurely conversation that you can’t turn down because they have guns.

Must have notebooks at training, even if the majority
of the participants are illiterate.

“So,” he said, leaning into the open window, “You from France?”

“No,” I said briefly. I never volunteer information. It must be directly solicited.

He solicited. “Where are you from?”

“The US,” I said.

“Oh ok. So you come from America,” patting the window. “Well, ok, you can go, I guess.”

Naturally, the evil driver caught up and flew past us. I let him go because this part of the road was dirt and I had a short-tired car (he did not). But I did see him at the same gas station in Mongo where I had met a group of American militarians heading out for a safari in Zakouma (they have a look and it’s not a subtle one). I had been planning to go to that station (because it is the most reliable for petrol), but I decided it would not be a great idea to meet him outside of the car due to some of the hand gestures that I made when he slowed down in front of me.  And, in the interest of full disclosure, in spite of my very best intentions, I also raced people on the way back to N’Djamena. I kept telling myself to slow down and enjoy the ride, but I rarely listen to what anybody says, so of course, I ignored this sage advice.

But I think that the real problem is that I look like a very suspicious person to most Chadian security people. I didn’t realize this until after a day of airport trips in N’Djamena. With drilling stopping for the rainy season, we were saying goodbye to our drilling chiefs who were going home to Kenya to visit their families for a month or two, depending on rains. In order to get out of a particularly boring set of UNICEF meetings, I volunteered to be errand-girl for the day. I thought that would involve an airport run or two, but it ended up getting more complicated because we don’t believe in simplicity here in Chad.

'Do not wear the lifai when you teach
with your whole body.' ~ advice from Amanda
But on the other hand, you have no idea
I'm not African when you look at this picture.

Everything started off fine—I had excused myself from the UNICEF meetings, where I had been the only foreigner the day before (though I don’t think anyone noticed, as I was wearing my African clothes). I picked up the men from the office and headed towards the airport. The last day of Ramadan, security was extra-tight. Driving into the airport we were not just stopped and asked to show ID, but they also did the under-the-car mirror check. It was thorough. Finally we got into the airport, said our goodbyes, handed off luggage, and I left to go to the store to buy gummy Smurfs.

While at the store, I realized that I had not gotten my office key back from Jackson, who had used it while they were staying the previous night there. I called to see if by some happy chance he had left it on my desk. No such luck, but he agreed to meet me outside of the airport with my keys. I drove back in, ready for long security lines again. The soldier recognized me, “What are you doing back?” he said.

Baby Jafar--how cute is he? He loved me.

“One of my passengers has my keys,” I said, “and I need them back.”

“Fine. Just go on through.” And he waved me in without bothering to mirror my car again.

I drove in, Jackson was waiting for me with the keys, which he handed to me through the window. I wished him a happy vacation again, and I went back to the office.

I’d been at the office about 20 minutes when I get another call from Jackson. Apparently, even though he has a ticket with Ethiopian Airlines and the plane was not full and he was at the airport and had been for about 1.5 hours, they decided his ticket wasn’t valid because Leif had bought it from another website. To be fair, sometimes these Swedish itineraries are a bit confusing. When trying to change a flight in Khartoum, the lady had to confirm that my first name wasn’t “Hej,” the Swedish word for “Hi” (the email said “Hej Amanda Stillman, so you can see how difficult that is). But even though they could have told him this issue with the flight an hour before, they did not choose to do that for reasons unknown. But don’t worry—if you go to the Ethiopian Airlines office in town, you can get the ticket redone and he can still make the flight.

I got in the car and rushed back to the airport, having planned to spend the next day (a holiday) in the pool at the Hilton and not wanting that interrupted by another airport run. At the airport, I was once again remembered by the short-tempered security guard who was not fasting (I saw him take a swig out of the hose) but definitely suffering in the heat.

Baby Jafar's  half- sister.

“Why are you back AGAIN?” he demanded. “This is too many times.”

“I know,” I said, “I agree. But my colleague is having an issue with his ticket.”

“Open the car. This is suspicious behavior. You can’t come so many times to the airport in one day.”

“Well what am I supposed to do? I have to get this ticket issue fixed.”

“And you are wearing tapettes (flip flops) ! This is a serious infraction. A serious infraction. You cannot drive in tapettes.”

“OK,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I’m here now and this is an emergency and I have no other shoes. I am not trying to be suspicious, but I have to do this today. Are you telling me that I’m not allowed to go to the airport?”

“Fine. Just go,” he waived me through, glaring.

I picked up Jackson and we zipped over to the Ethiopian Airlines office, while I said horrible things about Chadian airport security officers and he tried to calm me down. At the office, I let him go in because of course there was no parking. I stayed in the car and drove up and down the street waiting for him as he, in true Jackson fashion, slowly and methodically strolled into the office, while I revved the car engine outside and responded shortly to people trying to sell me cell phone chargers I can’t use. To kill time, I called various people and ranted and raved, which made me feel a little better.

Jackson finally came out. “They are wanting 134,500CFA to change the ticket,” he said.

In spite of the fact that we were seriously limited on time, I took a moment to rail at Ethiopian Airlines customer service before giving him all the money I had with me (127,000CFA). “Just make it work, “ I said. “Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. This is their fault.”

About 15 minutes later, Jackson came out, ticket in hand. “I had to pay an extra 100USD,” he said.

“Did you get a receipt?” I asked.

“No, I forgot,” he said.

There was no time to go back and get it, so we zoomed to the airport, and I just now remembered that I was supposed to go back later when I calmed down to get that receipt, but I didn’t because I forgot about it the next day while I was getting really sunburnt at the Hilton. Sorry, Finance Department.

First selfie ever (for the ladies, not for me)

Finally, luck was with me. Cranky security guy was not at the airport. The other guys recognized me but were less angry with me. Also, I had driven there barefoot just so I could have an answer for them if they asked me about driving in tapettes, but they didn’t. They just said, “OK, this is the last time you are coming, right?”

“Right, “ I said. “I promise I will not come again today.” And I told Jackson that he could expect Urbain to pick him up if there was another issue, but fortunately there was not. Still, I have avoided driving to the airport again, and I will be avoiding it for a while. I’m trying to build back my credibility with Chadian security officers. As long as none of them saw me zipping around pot holes and zinging past princess drivers, I think I’m good. I made it back from Mongo in about 5 hours (500km trip), and Emelie was impressed anyway. And the chickens are still alive, so there’s that.

Photos of Em and me getting ready to go home to N'Djamena:

Packing up the chickens.

Ready to go! 

Serious selfie

Laughing at something--the chickens? Amanda's driving?

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!