Weeks of Happenings, Part One of However Many Parts I Decide to Make This

Ready to road-trip

Sometimes I sit around the office, writing, reading and doing emails and wasting time on the internet before going home to a pack of dogs that I really need to do something about (I have too many!), and chatting to friends and family on whatsapp/messenger while entertaining myself in various ways before finally falling asleep early so that I can wake up early and run before the streets are too crowded. It’s not usually very interesting to write about, so I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be too interesting to read about either, so I try not to bore people with that stuff. Other times, I get to travel around or do various projects that let me leave the office or just experience regular life but with a nice twist that I think is unique to where I am. Then, if I can have fun writing about it, I hope that someone (hi Mom!) will enjoy reading about it.

I don’t always have those types of experiences, and that’s why they are noteworthy. I think life for most people settles into a routine or monotony sometimes and nothing seems exceptional, though to others not living your routine it might be. Those times I don’t feel the urge to write, and also, it’s been a tough year for me, so some things I might have written about had I been in a better place, I don’t write about because I don’t have the energy to enjoy them as I have in the past. And after that long, mostly unnecessary introduction, I will say that I’ve had a pretty eventful few weeks here—not always pleasant events, but definitely interesting ones. Events you have to recover from usually count as interesting, and if stitches are involved…well, there will be A LOT of medical consultations happening, but maybe that is because 50% of the people I hang out with here are in the medical field, and they insist upon it? Anyway, a few weeks ago I hopped in the car to drive 700km or so to do some reports. It happens to be one of my favorite places in Chad, and in the rainy season, it’s green and beautiful and I took a lot of photos.  I wrote down the events of the whole trip, but I don't know how to tell a short story, and it is oppressively long. So I've chopped it up into smaller pieces, and I'll share them over the next few weeks if the internet works. This first post will be about the beginning of the trip, and it is mostly an excuse to show off beautiful places around C had, a country that is not known for its beauty because not enough people know where or when to look for it.  

I wish the kid were not cut out of this photo...

 I started off the trip badly. I’d heard that in the direction where we were traveling, there had been some hijackings of vehicles. In the direction where we were traveling, but further on than we were planning to go. Still, I thought it might be prudent to leave my computer at home, and I thought I would send a message to the IAS Regional Director to let him know what I wouldn’t be in contact about the application we were working on that week. But it freaked him out and he contacted all the people with various stakes in my well-being, and they all freaked out and I had to download a map and use my impressive photoshop skills to draw where the attacks have been and where we are going, and then I had to complete a risk assessment, and then they all calmed down, and I brought my computer anyway.

Enlarged to show details: We traveled the green road. Red dot is hijacking area.
You can see Mongo and Mangalmé and Bitkine too if you look closer.

When I finally convinced everyone and finally left, I brought along Antani, who is my house helper and dear friend, along with her two nieces because the halfway point of my trip is her hometown, and she wanted to visit her mother. Her nieces were going to stay and visit their family for a while, and she wanted to bring her uncle home with us so he could go to the hospital in N’djamena for an eye problem he has been having. The trip was mostly uneventful, but the girls were miserably carsick the whole way. The road is paved for 900km across the country to another town called Abéché. We were only going to Mangalmé, which was 666km from N’djamena according to the sign. I don’t think that number was a bad omen because most of the trip was really good, but we did have the devil of a trip home (haha). There are various parts of the road that are riddled with jagged potholes. Tire-killing holes of death. It’s like a game with me to see how many I can avoid. I alternate between being really good at it, and somehow hitting every one in a row, so you can imagine how someone prone to carsickness would struggle. But really—swerving to miss holes gives you motion sickness, bouncing through holes ALSO gives you motion sickness. There was no good option for those girls. As soon as we arrived in Bitkine (their hometown), they were out of the car and said they would not be getting back in anytime soon. I was glad they didn’t have to return with us. They were glad too. Gladder now after what happened. Anyway…

This is the seat I sat in for many many hours.
It was not comfortable.

Stopped to get soda in Bokoro (it's on the map).
That's Antani smiling behind me-the girls were outside puking.

We dropped off Antani and the girls in Bitkine and picked up Job, who is one of my favorite people in the world—lover of Jesus and everyone, servant of Jesus and everyone, always smiling. He and Moussa have similar lovable personalities and are great friends. They met up once by accident in the IAS office in N’djamena and I always describe it as “an explosion of joy.” Their backgrounds and tribes are completely different, but both speak about 10 languages (each, not cumulative) that they’ve learned to be able to share the Good News with people in their own tongue, and both of them are passionate about helping those in need around them. And of course, both of them are always smiling, in spite of the difficult things they’ve gone through in their lives. I’m hoping that will rub off on me some day because I haven’t always been able to keep that joy this past year.

Job with one of the village chiefs

Antani's neighbor kids coming to watch the unloading.

The whole trip Nesie kept marveling at the beauty of the Guera Region (which is where Bitkine, Mongo, and Mangalmé are located, towns that I will talk about a lot in this post like you actually know where they are—my dad will look them up online and enjoy gazing at some nice maps, and you can too!), and I kept trying to get him to get photos we can use for social media posts. The Guera Region is a rocky mountainous area that is extremely difficult to drill in—and very expensive. Almost no one wants to do water projects in the area because it is so difficult. IAS has done the most of any NGO that I know of. But this trip we were reporting on 4 bore holes that had broken down, which Job and his organization had rehabilitated.

More unloading

Cracked windshield photo by Nesie of our fellow travelers on the Chadian  highway.

Everything went relatively smoothly for the reporting—the first two locations were outside of Mangalmé, not far from where Job lives with his family. He has 6 children and one niece who has lived with him since she was a child and her parents died. He said, “She’s really like one of my own children.” He has an adorable chubby baby who is thoroughly spoiled by everyone in the household from dad and mom to each sibling who all dote on her and bow to her every whim. I am the first nasara she has seen, and she allowed me to love her too. She was not terrified by me at all, unlike Repent’s youngest daughter in Uganda who can’t stand the sight of me. The older kids who aren’t in school (thanks, Covid) wanted to come along with us to the villages, and I said, “Hop in!”

With two of Job's daughters

Habiba is rocking my sunglasses. Incidentally, I don't think they made it through the accident.
I can't find them.

She is too cool for school.

Job's kids coming on an adventure!

I let the oldest boy shift gears in the truck for me, and he LOVED it.  I had remembered Aunt Jenny Townsend used to let Zach and Jarod do that for her when we were all growing up in Bandung, and I thought she was so cool for doing that and my mom was so not cool for not letting me. But gender stereotypes aside, Zach and Jarod were probably more naturally inclined to catch on quickly to the shifting, and I would have been distracted by changing the music in the car or trying to convince my mom that the air conditioning was too cold. And I’ve met so many American soldier boys out here who never learned to drive stick before coming to Chad, and I am shocked that we let people like that try to protect our great nation, but most of them seemed to catch on fairly quickly because they had no choice. Fortunately, Chad is great for learning stick—if you stall out in the road, people will honk at you and then go around you. They won’t line up behind you patiently, watching and judging you as you try to move your car like people would in the West (come on, you know you would). Of course you can also be a hybrid like me, who drives around someone while judging them and giving them annoyed looks as you pass by.

I will finish off this section with a few more photos of the beautiful Guera and the people who live there:

This is the village we visited the next day, but I got mixed up putting photos on,
and it's pretty, so it's staying.

Grace and Habiba in Portrait Mode,
thanks to the neverthirst social media team,
I now know that Portrait Mode exists.

Chief on his land

The lovely Hawa, who really wanted me to take her photo.
She kept saying how wonderful it is that their pump has been fixed.

I love all the colors, the strange rocky hills, and the current greenery all over.

Giving the Chief a ride, while Job's adorable kids sit in the back.

Kwaheri Marafiki Wangu (Swahili from Google translate--I did know the Kwaheri and the rafiki parts)

I just sent off two of my three Kenyan colleagues for the long, roundabout, UN flight that will finally get them home after nearly 7 months of Chad. We never meant for them to be separated from their families this long, but they were so gracious about it and patient as we waited for an opportunity to get them home.  

 I’ve worked with Emmanuel a long time, as he is our drilling chief here in Chad, and he is just a wonderful man of God with a servant’s heart. He works so hard with very few breaks, and his work is hot and dusty and sweaty and he never complains. He’s a hero to many across Chad who have water because of his hard work.

Old friends. 

Wearing the neverthirst Uganda shirt I gave him
a while ago, but standing in front of the majestic
flag of Chad!

Henry is a new friend and we’ve been stuck together pretty closely for the last 6+ months. He lived in the other house on my compound, and we hung out a lot due to lack of other company and proximity. He does an embarrassingly accurate impression of me driving, and he taught me Swahili insults to yell at the other drivers in my way so that I use less English profanity. He’s also been sucked into my hobbies a bit, now running 3 times a week and building up from being a non-runner to running 10ks on the weekend. He’s also taken on the most American thing about me and measures his runs in miles instead of kilometers. And he's thinking about getting a dog someday, after joining me most afternoons to walk Joe and/or one of the other dogs. They will all miss him. 

Giving them the leftover bones from dinner

Personally, I was a failure as a swimming student. I thought that the water was too cold and at least the last teacher I had that I remember the most was not a stereotypical Canadian nice guy (some Canadians CAN ruin lives, even if most are wonderful people). But it turns out that I’m a really good swimming teacher and Henry went from dog-paddling to breast stroke to front crawl to diving for coins in the pool. We discovered a mutual appreciation for the classiest of all film genres: the action comedy. If you laugh a lot and something blows up, it’s a superior movie. He made chapatis and mandazi for me. And I made pizza and chocolate chip cookies for him. I took him to the hospital to get some tests done when he was ill and he let me cry on his shoulder after a particularly hurtful day. And I will miss him, but I’m so happy he gets to be back with his wife and children. He was so excited to finally be leaving that he was giddy about it. But I appreciate that it is not because he doesn’t love Chad (he bought a Chad t-shirt and we did a photoshoot in front of the biggest national monument before he left), it’s because he loves his family so much and really needs to be with them. Long distance work away from your family is fairly normal in many parts of the world, but I hope we can find a better system next year if we can get Henry back that will allow him more time at home. (Prayers for this appreciated!)

Final photoshoot before leaving Chad

Waiting for tests at the hospital

Roadtripping to get photos and videos for neverthirst

With la belle Emelie who is also a wonderful friend

In other news from here, rainy season has arrived. My front yard has a perpetual giant puddle in it that the dogs are loving. Speaking of dogs, I’ve now got 4. I’m hoping to be back down to three in a few weeks if the Americans come back. Puppy/Kwach/Kakilé is no longer a Tiny Puppy. She has fattened herself on 3 pairs of my shoes, one pair of the guard’s shoes (I reimbursed him for his loss), a chunk of the sofa (I promise to replace it before I leave this house!), all of York’s chew toys that were brought from America (I’ll call it payment for all the food that I’ve bought for York this past month+, and York has helped with the chewing). She’s currently working her way through a baseball that I hope was not of sentimental value. I did not know what was inside a baseball. But now I do. It’s all over my house.

Should I have named Flip "Dobby" or "Wile E Coyote"?

Joe and Flip insist on coming to work with me every day.

My pack of dogs

I’ve also had some fun bringing trucks back from the field to N’djamena. Victor (our last remaining Kenyan who we hope to send home soon) and I were the nominated drivers. He would drive one truck, and I would drive the other. I told him I would drive the truck that was worse because he is a slow driver and I wanted us to stay together. If I drive the car that works well, then I will inevitably leave him in my dust. This is a joke we have about Victor driving versus Leif or me driving. Victor is slow and methodical and doesn’t even pass old lady drivers. Leif and I get competitive about how fast we can go, Leif doesn’t notice bumps until it is too late, and I pass anyone who dares to be in front of me.  I’ve been teasing Victor about this for some weeks, and I noticed that he started to tell me about all the times he actually did drive fast. Apparently he used to have a bad reputation for killing cars. Anyway, I apologized for teasing him too much, and he said he wasn’t bothered, but when we drove back together from Dourbali with the cars, he left me in his dust (rainy season hadn’t started yet). I had to follow the plume of black smoke that poured out of that car. In the end he had insisted on driving the bad car, and having recently driven that car after we had it “repaired”, I’m very grateful that he did, and I’ve sent it to be REPAIRED again. Anyway, Victor CAN drive fast, but he prefers not to in town. Noted. I remain grateful that traffic is a rarity in Chad, and road rules are optional--pass anyone anytime you like! And I will, while yelling "mjinga wewe!" at them. 

With Henry and Victor at our favorite Lebanese restaurant for Covid-pick up of course.

Emanuel telling me what was wrong with the truck
once I got it home and couldn't make the steering wheel turn anymore.
Apparently it's the hydraulic something.

And finally, we’ve completed a bunch of wells, rehabilitations, and biosand filters in all the Neverthirst Africa countries, and that’s been really encouraging to see in spite of the corona-restrictions. In one location that I can’t specify for security reasons, the villagers were desperate to see water in their village. People had tried to drill there before and all had failed. We didn’t know it at the time, but they took measures into their own hands to assure our success, calling witchdoctors to pray verses from their Holy Book over the drilling site, sacrificing chickens, and burying one near the location where we were going to drill. And soon EVERYTHING went wrong. The machines broke down for no logical reason. The water tanker hired to bring water to location would go to the water source and there would be no water, but when they drove away, the water came back. There were ferocious rainstorms. After drilling a borehole that he was sure would be successful, the driller was shocked when we found that the borehole was actually dry. He could think of no reason why there would not be water, and in his 20+ years of experience, this had never happened to him. We asked others for their opinions as to why it didn’t have water, and still no answers. Our local ministry partner prayed and then he found out about the sacrifices and the witchdoctors. So he prayer-walked the whole village. He preached from the Bible, and prayed over the new site. And our drilling partners drilled again. And this time we got a bore hole with a 7m3 yield  (very high yield) and the people in that village are saying, “Wow! Prayers in the name of Jesus are powerful!”

biosand filters

water from a new bore hole

If we hadn’t failed on the first attempt, the people would have credited their witchdoctors and sacrifices with the success of the borehole. But because it did fail and we drilled again, they got to see the power in the name of Jesus, which they would not have seen otherwise. It encouraged me to know that sometimes things that seem like epic failures in our lives might actually  be a part of God’s plan to amaze us with something that we never would have seen if our original plans had gone the way we hoped they would. We don’t always get to see the reason why hard things happen to us in our lives. Sometimes everything sucks, and it hurts, and we only ever get to see the mess this side of Heaven. But sometimes we get the Joseph moment, “What you intended for evil, God meant for good.” And I wanted to share that with you because sometimes we have to hold on to other people’s moments when ours aren’t coming, and trust that God is still good even when we aren’t seeing Him answer the deepest, hardest prayers of our lives. If we can’t see it in our lives, seeing it for others can be encouraging.  Honestly, in the ugliest parts of my heart, as I pray the hardest, deepest prayers in my life, there are some blessing stories that don’t really make me feel so much encouraged as resentful, but seeing the marginalized, the vulnerable, the forgotten people get a high yield bore hole in the middle of a dry and weary land, THAT is a story that I will hold on to. And you can hold on to it too, if you like.

OK-that’s my sermon done. Now I will inflict you with many photos of my dogs and my friends and my work.

Henry wanted to make sure to stop and get photos
of the town names in between N'djamena and Dourbali
to prove that he has been to Senegal!

And sometimes Joe made Henry sit in the back because he is spoiled.

Does your face mask match your dress?
It should!

Henry tries camel milk for the first time

Hanging with the men around the bowl of camel milk,
just before I started to feel miserably sick.

Even our nicest paved roads crumble

Thanks to Henry for this photo of me and my friend Fatima

I just really liked this guy!
He's got a cool hat and a great smile.

Another friend who drove us out to the village,
by that I mean that we followed him on his motorcycle
because there are no roads.
And he's holding a guinea fowl we brought back for Henry and Victor to have for dinner.
Tastes like chicken!

Antani and her beautiful daughters,
they are only a tiny bit screamy around Joe.
They liked Kwach/Kakilé though.

Emelie and Amanda Chad monument photo!

Emelie drove me and the boys home after work one day.

I let Henry drive the unpaved part of the trip back to N'djamena.
You can see by his expression how excited he was about this.
Note: we do not drive on the same side of the road as they do in Kenya
so it is even more impressive.
Although, having said that, when there is no road, the side doesn't matter.
But the stick shift is on the opposite side and it can be tricky to switch that.

I'm not sure what Moussa and I are gesturing wildly about here,
but thanks for this action shot, Henry!

Henry and the Dar Salam of Chad

A sprite that we found at the store
that is meant to be sold only on airlines.
I guess they had to sell it to stores with all the cancelled flights.

When there is no power in your office,
it helps that your HR/Finance Manager is an accomplished electrician.

Got to celebrate this wonderful woman's bday.
She is one of my favourite people in the entire world.

Another Henry photoshoot classic

I took Kwach swimming today. She scratched me in the face.
I thought since she insists on playing in her water bowl that maybe she would like it.
I was wrong.

The excited greeting of Joe on his return from the office.
Kwach loooooves him.