11/12/2004

Nescafé in the States is an entirely different breed of coffee in Chad than what we're used to. Normally you put, what, a heaping tablespoon or two into the cup before adding in the water, right? So when I went to the house of my Proviseur (Principal) in Gounou-Gaya the other night, and he passed me the coffee, I figured it was about the same. My, how misinformed I was.

Apparently the grains in the Nescafé can here are about three times stronger than what you find back home at Safeway or Publix. I was sitting in the dark (which isn't all that uncommon in a country where the only reliable electricity sources are generators), and I added in a good six or seven times too much. Now, I'm not much of a coffee drinker to start with- it's always given me a stomachache, but I think that I was permanently turned off to it after working for a year at Starbucks; you can only make so many decaf-venti-soy-no foam-caramel-raspberry lattes before it starts to get old. About an hour or so after returning to my house I was absolutely stricken by one of the worst stomachaches I've ever experienced, and literally spent most of the night with my fingers drumming on the mattress and my toes twitching– I guess I was thinking that if I kept moving, it'd burn off some of the caffeine. Nope. Between the insomnia and the nausea, it was a rough night, and there were points where I was really thinking, "two years is a really damn long time- is it worth it?"

Which made it all the more fun when the Land Cruiser showed up; it was the end of our weeklong Site Visit, and we had to make the 400+ kilometer journey back to Darda. The nearest paved road was 85 very bumpy kilometers away, and I was teetering on the brink of throwing up already. My stomach was too weak to eat anything more than a banana by then, and I was having nightmarish visions of throwing up for the next six or seven hours. Amazingly, I made it out to Kelo, the beginning of the pavement, and after that was able to nap, somewhat, for the next hour or two. Except for the chickens, that is. Mamadou, our driver, had a cardboard box with three live birds inside- he'd bought them in a village near Gounou-Gaya, saying it was cheaper to get them out of town than in N'Djamena. So, along with the regular bumps, and occasional clucks, I passed an unpleasant afternoon along the two-lane road constituting the highway. It wasn't like we plowed right through, or anything- we had to stop for the occasional herd of goats, cows, or children blocking the road, and Mamadou decided that as long as he had an air-conditioned vehicle at his disposal, it was as good a time as any to get his post-Ramadan shopping out of the way. Each 'rest stop' (basically a table alongside the road with women selling things) Mamadou loaded up on Taro root and sweet potatoes, until giant sacks were almost crushing our backpacks and mosquito nets.

I'd been in the car until now only with Mai, another trainee who will be living about 50 km from me, and between waves of nausea, we managed to compare notes. She really enjoyed her site, although she said she had a bit of a problem with her Assistant Principal (censeur, in French), that he was a bit of an alcoholic. Our next stop was Bongor, a large city on the Cameroonian border, and home to Josh, another trainee. We arrived at Josh's place, where he lives with a family that is extremely rich by Chadian standards- he lives with the mother-in law of President Deby. After discovering whom it was he'd be living with, Josh bestowed a new nickname on himself, which is even funnier if you have a sense of his personality. Josh is from New Orleans, and is very loud and very energetic. Since he will be living with a relative of the Chadian President, my fellow trainee is now unofficially...Little Deby.

But enough with the snack cakes, it was time for lunch. Bongor is legendary for its rotisserie chicken, and I was starting to feel like a little food would help absorb some of the excess caffeine. A pyramid of roasted chickens was waiting for us on the rock and wire grill, and as we sat at the table, we tried hard to ignore the swarming flies on the freshly killed birds in the bucket next to the grill, and around the table. Non-ex-pat Chadian 'restaurants' would have a hard time passing basic sanitation standards almost anywhere else; here, the disgusting is routine, it seems. We waited around while Mamadou went to visit his family- he wasn't going to stick around and have lunch; Muslims fast during the day for the entire month of Ramadan.

After lunch, our plan was to head 60 km to Guelendeng, home of Jonathan, where Mai, Josh and I would wait while Mamadou drove out to collect Aaron in his village of Ba-Ili, about 220 km south. The road there is awful, supposedly, and I didn't think I could stand four hours bumping along with the condition of my stomach. Mamadou let us out at the concession of Monsieur Abba, Jonathan's host father, making sure to deposit his box o' chicken along with us. We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening chatting with Jonathan, who looked relieved to have Americans to speak English with. It was probably a good escape for him– when we arrived, he was trying to teach several Chadian children to play chess, which didn't look to be going too well.

Jonathan's house is right on the banks of Chari River, and while we waited for Mamadou and Aaron to return we ambled along, taking in the view and watching dozens of children at work making mud-bricks. Apparently this time of year, at the end of the rainy season, is the prime time for forming and firing the bricks, as the soil hasn't dried out enough to be unusable, and the ground is no longer oversaturated. Little kids work for 12 hours a day, at times, digging, shaping, baking, and carrying them around, about the most labor-intensive and unrewarding job I can imagine.

Because the roads in Chad are so poor, Mamadou and Aaron returned late, well after dark, which is not a good time to be driving in north-central Africa. The 'highways' (a generous term) are rife with bandits, who would love nothing more than to stop a car full of nasarra, threaten them with automatic weapons, and steal everything. Many of these bandits are supposedly off-duty gendarmes, robbing unsuspecting travelers with government-issued weaponry. Rather than take any further chance, we decided that the best thing to do would be to stay in Guelendeng, even though Darda was just a little more than an hour away. Jonathan and his host family dragged a few mats out into the courtyard, and we settled in as best we could for the night; unfortunately plastic mats and hard ground are about as uncomfortable a combination as you can possibly get. I drifted off pretty quickly though, after my caffeine-fueled adventure the night before. Before I could fall asleep though, Josh (or Little-Deby, if you'd prefer), woke up most of Guelendeng, almost killing four Trainees and a Volunteer in the process.

Mamadou had pulled the Land Cruiser into the courtyard to protect against thieves, and the truck was facing us, several feet away. Josh had gone to get something out, and in the almost total darkness somehow managed to hit the panic button on the keychain, setting off the alarm. Not knowing what else to do, Josh shoved the key into the ignition and turned, without realizing the car was in gear. It lurched forward several feet, ending up less than five feet from where we were sitting, I imagine. We passed a relatively undisturbed and surprisingly cold night in the courtyard, making our triumphant return to Darda early the next morning. All in all, I'd call site visit a success- the road back was a little bit more than I'd planned for in many ways, but that's life in Chad, I suppose; the abnormal is normal, and the more you plan, the more likely things will be to turn out exactly the opposite. But hey, that's part of what the whole Peace Corps experience is all about right- roll with the punches; c'est la vie.

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