So I can say I posted on the blog in 2023

It’s been a very long time since I have written on the blog. The only excuse is extreme laziness. People keep asking me about it. And some people have even said, “Oh this will end up on your blog for sure!” And I feel bad because nothing has ended up on my blog at all recently. This is concerning because I write the blog so that when people tell me to write my memoirs, I can just send them to the blog, but if there is no blog that means that someday I might actually have to write them. I guess I could just use the laziness excuse again.

Fun time in Kenya

Well, here are some short recaps on various things that have happened to me this year, which I’ve been told should show up on the blog:

My parents came to visit me! It was their first time in Africa, and they opted to fly via Addis Ababa, one of a few options on the way to N’djamena. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but it turns out we arrived right before Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas, which is just after not Ethiopian Christmas and not Ethiopian New Year. Ethiopian Airlines did not manage increased amounts of baggage well. One guy told me he brought 15 pieces of luggage with him. We each only had one suitcase, but none of them came for 3 days. My mom and I had decided to go for comfort over fashion for the trip. My dad drove me crazy in all the airports as he slowly and methodically took off his belt and shoes at each security check (fortunately this time he did not bring a pair of scissors in his carry on—he did forget his covid vaccination card again, but we had a photo so it was fine), but he looked decent in all the photos. Mom and I looked…comfortable but not fashionable. We were just about to go buy new clothes when all my contacts who I had roped in to help us find the bags managed to pester the right people into finding the suitcases. We got them the day before we went on to Chad, so that was lucky for us.

5am in the airport, looking as good as most people do at 5am in the airport 

Lost bags in Addis International

Other than the bag stuff, we had a great time in Addis, visiting my friends and trying the food. I forgot that injera is somewhat of an acquired taste and that my parents’ tolerance for spicy food has decreased with age and distance from Indonesia, but they liked most of the food anyway.

With Moussa and Alala in Chad

In Chad we crammed into my tiny house full of happy dogs and plenty of sand. I had so many friends to visit and we drove out to Dourbali to spend the night chez Moussa as well. My dad had promised to paint a mural on the wall of his church building. He’d spent weeks designing it and running it by Moussa who had opinions. The final design was chosen, my dad did an official picture, using all the good colors and framed it up nicely too for a present. When we got to Dourbali, he threw his back out trying to push the truck out of a sand pit even when I told him not to. Then he was in agony for several days until the medicine Claire prescribed fixed him up again. Fortunately, he was still able to get the outline of the mural up on the walls—with two of Moussa’s pastor friends holding him up.

Holding up my Dad as he draws

Not bad for a guy who can't stand up on his own

A local church member colored the mural. I have a full photo of it somewhere, but couldn't find it.

The other highlight of the trip for my parents (besides meeting a million people I talk about all the time, telling me how much nicer Claire’s house looks than mine, and eating pain au raisin at Amandines) was visiting the hippos in the river. Dad told me he really wanted to see some cool African animals and apparently Joe and Pika don’t count. We got to see a big group of hippos just a few meters away from us. Then we went to Kadessou’s house where his wife had prepared a huge feast and he gifted a giant Massa shield to my dad. It was an epic day for Dad who was actually walking around unassisted by that point, thanks to Claire Bedford, PhD (pharmacist Doctor). Mom was tough and feisty the whole trip and went on extra visits while Dad was convalescing in bed with Joe keeping him company and Pika guarding the door.

Taking photos of hippos, with Mom walking slowly in the background,
wearing my clothes.

Hippos!

Mom with Nadji and family, while Dad convalesced chez moi

With the Massa shield

I was a bit concerned about the Massa shield making it all the way to America. It would have been destroyed as toxic waste if my parents were Australian because it is made out of local grass and wood, but I was mostly concerned about they allowing it as checked baggage. Fortunately, due to my consistent presence in Hassan Djamous International Airport, people know me there and I talked my way inside (normally illegal without a boarding pass) so I could get it wrapped in plastic and checked with their other bags. 

My airport friends who like that I speak Arabic gave me their badge so I could go inside with my parents.

Supervising the wrapping of the shield.
It made it all the way to Nashville!

After that visit, I was traveling every few weeks: within Chad, Niger, Uganda, DRC, Jordan. and Madagascar. Madagascar was for fun…a friend who doesn’t want to be named and I needed a bit of beach time and relaxing fun. Fortunately, said unnamed friend is a wonderful organizer and all I had to do was buy my ticket and keep her going until she could get to the trip date because she was exhausted and overworked. 

I thought I would catch up the blog after my parents left, after the Niger trip, after the Uganda/DRC trip, after the Jordan trip, after the Madagascar trip, but it’s months later, I’ve been on the Kenya trip and the Cambodia trip and the Ethiopia trip, and I still haven’t managed to pull it off. 

Niger/Chad travels

Some of my favorite South Sudanese in Uganda

Rolex with Philip on the way to DRC

Sunrise on the Nile #nofilter

Went to Jordan for work, but got to see old friends and their 4 kids
(they didn't have the kids back when we lived in Lebanon together years ago)

Reunited with my Arabic teacher in Jordan
(2007 pics below and present day above)

Good times with my favs in Kenya

❤️

Zip-lining with the Chad and Niger guys in Kenya

Work hard/play hard at neverthirst

I did not get many photos in Cambodia.
Ok-I got a lot of photos, but most are close ups of food, not interesting for other people.

Ethiopia fun

I feel like I should call it a Year Off from Blogging because I am very unmotivated and also very lazy and always tired. I’ve accepted the fact that I am aging rapidly and my body is just not capable of all the activities that used to be so easy for me—typing things on the computer, eating 6 bags of gummy bears for dinner, not having back issues.

I did finally decorated my living room, thanks to birthday presents from friends,
 after all the pointed comments from my parents.

For my birthday we also went kayaking and ate lots of cake

I had all the best of intentions to write about each trip. I also meant to write about my kayaking birthday celebration, our new kitten, watching Biola and Bukola’s kitten for them for a few weeks, the river clean up project we started, all the fun adventures I’ve had with my new group of deaf friends who are patiently teaching me Chadian sign language. Fortunately Chadian sign language is closely related to American Sign Language since it was an American missionary who brought deaf education to Chad (among other African nations). I would tell you to go look up Andrew Foster on the internet because he was a very interesting man. Because I’m super nice, here is a link to his wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Foster_(educator).

They patiently help me learn new signs

Abiola and Bukola before they popped over to Nigeria for a few weeks. Kitten not pictured

We're paused for rainy season because the river is so high,
you can't get down to the shore anymore because the shore has come to us.

Road trip with Antani and kids and friends.
13 people in my truck!

Boat trip with Kadessou

Probably most of the funny stories would have been about our brain damaged cat, Ziguégué. We, using the internet in the way it was intended, have diagnosed her with cerebellar hypoplasia, which is literally brain damage. It means she walks like she is drunk, turns lots of accidental somersaults, and makes Manon and me laugh a lot. She also is deeply in love with both dogs, especially Pika, and loves to try to jump on her and attack her tail. Pika does not find this as amusing as Manon and I do.

We got her when her eyes were still closed and fed her
yoghurt and evaporate milk with a syringe.

Antani, Abiner, Joe, Pika, and Zig came with me to the airport for one of my trips.
I had Barka drive because he told me had a license. That is when I found out he doesn't
know how to drive a stick. So I yelled "embrayage" (clutch) when I needed him to push it with his foot
and shifted gears for him with my hand. Then I called Mariassou to pick them up.
I have high hopes that Barka will learn how to drive manual transmission soon.

I’ve also discovered that my Chadian friends do not respect the names I’ve chosen for my pets. For several years, Joe has been known around the neighborhood as “Gane Gueye”. Initially I thought they were calling him “Danaby” because of his beautiful tail (it's hard to hear on the street while walking the dogs), but they said they want to call him Gana Gueye because Joe is a cool dog and Idriss Gana Gueye is a cool Senegalese footballer. I’m fine with that because I am a fan of the Senegalese team. 

Moussa decided a long time ago to call Pika “Kakilé”, a Fulfulde word meaning something like “beware of the dog.” It does suit her until you get to know her and realize all she wants is to unconditionally love you and lick your feet or arm for about 20 minutes while you’re watching a movie (or Le Bureau des Légendes with Manon and me).

She did not appreciate being a fake wet nurse for Zig.
This may be partly why Pika runs away whenever Zig gets too close.

And Antani has been calling Ziguégué “Karambani,” which she says is Ngambaye for someone who is always getting into things (she thinks—she isn’t Ngambaye, but the Ngambayes are proud of their language and it has been incorporated into a lot of Ndjamena slang). It is apt. I’ve been told by others that it is actually Chadian Arabic. I think that is more likely as it is one of the 4-5 languages that Antani speaks. Ziguégué, for the record, is Chadian Arabic for a small gift or snack. People were concerned if we called her that then the dogs would think she was fair game to chew on, but they have never once come close even to biting her (though they’ve growled at her when she has bitten their tails/legs and tripped over them when they’re eating). This was unexpected because there is a cat that hangs out on our roof that they hate passionately. They’ve tried so hard to jump on to the roof, using the fire of their fury, and chomp its head off, but they’ve not managed that just yet.

She's a music lover

Zig and I like the stringed instruments

Happy playing together

And here I am, back from yet another trip since I started writing this but not having finished, and then Claire mentioned again that I’ve not written on my blog in a while (true) so I went back to read over when I wrote. And I’m thinking it’s good enough for now…There are things that happened that haven’t been mentioned, but if you want to imagine my life, bref—it’s crazy amounts of travel, visiting people and places I enjoy, eating all my favorite foods from those places (shekela tibs, rolex, klichi), having meetings that are sometimes productive, filming lots of videos for neverthirst donors… interspersed with a few weeks at home, working on the computer, taking Hausa lessons when the internet is working (as I write this it is not working, which is why I’m actually finishing this but how will I post it?), playing with my dogs and cat, watching French tv shows with Manon, helping Sabit and my deaf friends learn a bit of English, trying to speak better French so I can be nice to Manon who really appreciates when I bother to use the subjunctive tense, hanging with Claire chez moi when she needs to get away from the hospital, making Thai food with Antani during a rainstorm, running slowly around my neighborhood remembering when I used to be young and fast, plotting the downfall of the Cameroonian bar next to my house, which has started having weekend parties that go from 3pm to 5-6am (unacceptable), taking my friend’s kid to the French bakery near our houses and filling her up with chocolate ice cream, eclairs, and cake and then sending her home…anyway, it’s not a bad life.

I did not take this photo. It was in the news when a hippo decided to trot down the street,
and the military came out to make sure no one died.

I'm so lucky to have Manon as a neighbor because not only will she
pick me up from the airport, correct my French without laughing (sometimes),
get arrested with me when we go out looking for hippos on the river, but she also
accepts all the pathetic animals I bring home unquestioningly and even helps take care of them.

Pre-Eid visits with Pastor Moussa

My favs who I always visit on holidays.

I was Claire's plus 1 at the coronation party for Charles at the British Embassy

Post-spilling chocolate ice cream all over her dress, 
we played with Zig at my house.

Non-Massas at the Massa Festival

I should probably write a blog post about the cat next...

Defeated

A few months ago I had a day when Chad defeated me. It was miserable hot here. I know people assume that it always is, but there are different levels of heat and this was a top level. My AC doesn’t work well (some may say that it doesn’t work at all, but I get hopeful sometimes), so I had fans on me (yes multiple fans) and every time I got up to leave the vicinity of the fans, I felt warning prickles in my skin before sweat immediately started pouring. Also upon getting up there was always a puddle of sweat wherever I had been sitting, on the other side of my body from the fans. The power was rarely on for a full day and almost never on two consecutive days. We were constantly having to use the generator, which means we were constantly having to put fuel in it and also repair it because it was always breaking down. Our generator uses diesel, which was a problem because there were constantly diesel shortages around town, which also affected my truck because it uses diesel too. 

In my mind, I'm really tall. Then I see photos like this.

When you’re constantly hot and sweating and can’t get away from the misery of it, you’re often also cranky—not just us weak foreigners either, because no one is immune to these temperatures. So hot, sweaty, cranky and of course—covered in dust because this is the Sahel.  

There was one particular day when I needed to leave the house to go take a kid to the hospital for a surgery he desperately needed that I’d promised to arrange for him. He and his father had come in from a rural village in the area where we have been doing water projects. The boy had a tumor on his genitals that had been there for years, slowly growing. He’d come into the city to get help once, but it was when the hospitals were on strike. Disappointed and discouraged, the family had given up on finding help for him. Fortunately, hospitals are not on strike anymore. We were able to find surgeons who could help him, and they told me that the tumor was from a parasite similar to the Guinea worm (look that up if you want nightmares) and he got it from dirty water. This was a good reminder to me of all the secondary consequences of lack of clean water—not only thirst and dysentery but tumors caused by parasites. And I don’t have to look up horrifying pictures on the internet because Chadians, made of sterner stuff than I am, love to send me scary photos of tumors and stab wounds and infections, which I am totally unqualified to do anything about so I call Claire usually. Although now sometimes I ask Manon, who worked on an ambulance in France. She is my neighbor living in the other house in my compound, from France, but as anti-French sentiment is high here, we are telling people she is from near Geneva (true) and letting them assume she’s Swiss. She’s wonderful anyway, and Joe, Pika and I love to have her around. Anyway, all of that was beside the point…

This kid was so tough and stayed so cheerful.

I taught him to make origami frogs and jump them into cups.

Everyone loves Manon, especially Joe and Pika

Back to the story, I was hot, sweaty, cranky, and needed diesel for my car and the generator (because we had no electricity). I had to pick up the kid to take him to the hospital that evening and was supposed to give blood too (O negative for the win!) though that got canceled because they ended up having enough. I decided to go out and get diesel, but I had to go by the ATM to get cash first. So I loaded Joe up in the truck (he loves a car ride) and went out to go run my errands, but there were workers outside digging a trench between the paved road and the dirt road that I live on. In order to get anywhere from my house, I need to get out to the paved road because the other side of my neighborhood is a river. I asked the guys what they were doing and how long it would take, and they grunted something about an internet cable (which if it HAS been put in, I have not benefited from it at all) and that they have no idea when they would finish. I wasn’t very nice to them, and then I was mad at myself for not being nice when they were doing manual labor in the hot sun probably while fasting (it was Ramadan). I went around the block to get to another road out, but I could see them digging that way too, so I realized that I needed to finish my errands quickly or I would get stuck. I dashed to the ATM, but there was no cash. I went to another one. Also no cash. I went to the fuel station—no diesel. I went to another one—no diesel. I’m now very low on fuel in my truck and have no money and I’m still hot and sweaty and cranky and now I’m also worried about getting back into my house. I decided to run back to my house so I didn’t get stuck outside with Joe. I made it back in from one block further down. 

Pika knighting Joe as Lord High Defender of the Compound against the Roof Cats

I parked my truck and let Joe out and then vented to our guard about how I’m now stuck—no money, no diesel, no way out of the neighborhood and what am I going to do? I said to him, “Chad has defeated me today!” 

Great to have a brother like this guy!

But then because I still had to get stuff done, I called my people. I called Mariassou to pick me up outside on the paved road to take me to an ATM. He came. He drove me around. We found zero (0) ATMs with cash. He took me to the office where Kadessou loaned me some money. I called Djibrine who can always find any random thing I ask him for to bring me some diesel. He popped over to my house with a jerrycan full of diesel he got from God knows where and helped me fill up my truck. He had extra for the generator. I now had money to pay him. He also brought me a roasted chicken with fried potatoes and hot sauce because he knows I love it and he likes me. 

Djibrine, looking like he's posing for Chadian GQ

We visited on the Eid and had lots of amazing food and fun.

Later that day the trench was covered over and I was able to get out and take the boy to the hospital where the nurses were very kind and friendly to him and his father, both of whom are completely illiterate and couldn’t even read the number on the door of their hospital room. Nesie and I sorted food and blankets for them. While we were there, Abiner and Sabit took Joe and Pika for their afternoon walk, without which they annoy everyone by running around the yard barking all night. 

Sabit takes such good care of my dogs

Manon, treating a foot wound Joe acquired in his eternal fight against the roof cats.

Since this blog is usually about funny things that happen or adventures I get to have, I thought it might be honest to admit that, while I do love living in Africa, I’m not always as tough as I hope you think I am. But as I look back on the craziness of that day, and how annoyed I was at everything and how I felt defeated by Chad and frustrated with how difficult it was just to do basic things, I realized that even when life in Chad sucks sometimes, I’m lucky to be there because I get to be with my wonderful Chadian friends who are Family to me—picking me up, loaning me money, bringing me diesel and chicken, walking my dogs. And the truth is that life is hard—here and everywhere else too. I have no regrets living here, even when I’m just a weak, whiny white girl. I’m thankful for the people I have around me who are always there for me and I’m thankful that I get to be here for them too sometimes.

Chad

Antani loves Joe enough to let him come into her house when we stop by to visit.
And Joe expects nothing less because he thinks he is a human and why should he wait in the car?

Antani prepared food for Joe as an honored guest since he doesn't take tea.

Spoiled dogs owned by one spoiled nasara.
Anina jalhaneen! Nous sommes vraiment gâtés.