An Ode to the Animals.

Dear Grandpa Chad,
We’ve been through a lot together. And you’re a nice guy...as far as friendly house spiders go... Your hunting habits keep my room insect free and your gimpy leg reminds me of Finding Nemo...But if you keep splaying yourself out by my closet (or on my toilet paper) you’re gonna meet my shoe.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Goat,
Please look both ways before crossing the road. This will prevent any further instances of being caught between three speeding motos and my oncoming bicycle. My brakes don’t work and I don’t have the money to pay for you if I run you over.

Dear Mr. Cow,
I’m not quite sure which end of you is safer..the front..or the back..but since I have chosen the front, please do not buck me off my bicycle into the well.

Dear Mr. Cow’s Brothers,
Please stop chewing your cud in the spot where I park my bicycle. You’re in my way and I’ve got to get to class..my students are waiting.

Dear Christmas Goat,
I’m sorry we ate you. Although you were delicious. I just wish I hadn’t walked into the kitchen that morning to see the young boy clutching your severed head...and I wish equally I hadn’t eaten severed goat head sauce two days later.

Dear Very Pregnant Goat,
You look like you swallowed a tire.

Dear Momma Duck,
Please keep your ducklings in line and out of the road. I couldn’t bear to run one over with my bicycle. They’re very cute, but they remind me too much of my pet duckling Zaccheus that Kassy and I rescued from the suspension bridge last year. Kassy killed him with her laptop and I can’t bear another tragic duckling death. It’s just too soon.

Dear Camel Herd,
Please limit your road crossing to days when I am not taking a bus trip. Going from 60 to 0 in a middle row jump seat isn’t good for me when I’m folded over sleeping...or for the guy sitting in front of me that I head butted.

Dear Mr. Rooster,
I will not feel bad about eating you. In fact, I can’t wait. STOP CROWING OUTSIDE MY WINDOW...IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AFTERNOON...WHEN I’M TRYING TO TAKE A NAP!

To the Over Abundance of Flies,
I give up.

A Visitor from the States.

In January Dad bought a plane ticket...and last week he came to Tchad. It was a crazy colliding of worlds...something that I still haven’t completely wrapped my mind around. But he was here. There are pictures to prove it.

I went to N’djamena on Thursday. Dad arrived on Friday night around 9:30, and after some strategic talking and friend making at the airport, I made it to the back where he was and got him through customs with no problem. We took the bus to Moundou the next morning. Which was a pretty uneventful trip (especially in comparison to his bus trip back...but you can ask him about that one.) We arrived in Moundou around 3:30 in the afternoon and were greeted at the bus station by my brother Roland and sister Larissa. A moto for me, one for my Dad and a moto taxi for my dad’s two suitcases and we were home. Over the next few days we went to church, went to school, visited the market, visited the artisan shop (where I met a new friend and had a sitar made for my Dad in two days), walked around town, ate lots of food, and of had a lot of good time to talk...in the moonlight...because the power was cut the whole time he was here. It was a great visit. Dad stayed well, got to meet my family and friends here, and got to see Tchad. This year will be hard to explain...it’s not something that is easily put into words...so I’m grateful that someone has at least spent a few days here and seen it for themselves.

Tchad is more like a desert than one would expect. There are camels. There is sand. There is dust in the air...and it sticks to you when you sweat...so...all the time. Now we are in the midst of the hot, dry season. The water is cut a lot. Everything is dry. But there are the mango trees. Mango trees amaze me. They bear fruit in the midst of the drought. Right now they are heavy with mangoes...almost ripe. And they’re everywhere. I don’t have any philosophical meditations on the desert and the mango trees. No insights to share. Just an observation...and a window in the world I find myself in at this point and time. Last week http://sacredspace.ie’s homepage had a meditation on the desert. I enjoyed it so I’ll pass it along.

The scholar John L. McKenzie SJ describes how the roots of Christian (and Jewish and Muslim) faith grew in ‘the desert wastes of Syria and Arabia, which seem to stretch into infinity’. The Chosen People were in those wastes for forty years. Jesus himself recapitulated that experience of his people, by going into the wilderness for forty days. And Christians, following him, starting out on the forty days of Lent each year enter that desert experience too. But, in truth, our own day-to-day mundane lives often have something of that desert reality about them. What happens out there, in the real, or in the man-made deserts of today? Between the desert floor and the desert sky, life is stripped of all its artificial props, brought down to its essentials, in the effort to remain alive and avoid death. Vulnerable and exposed in that setting, we might also feel particularly threatened or tempted, as if surrounded by malignant forces in the swirling windswept sands. Such was the actual desert experience. But, more than this and above all, it was the place where the Chosen People experienced God: at Mount Sinai they were drawn into a Covenant relationship. They could never forget that. In the desert - our illusions taken away, leaving us exposed and vulnerable - we find, not nothingness, but the living God. God before us, God with us, the God of fidelity, and truth, and love. ‘Lord, you have found us in the wilderness, you have surrounded us, lifted us up, and kept us as the apple of your eye’. (cf Deuteronomy 32: 10)

I love you all.

Time measured in a Doxy bottle.

Time is a funny thing. It passes. Quickly. Slowly. Bit by bit. I’ve been watching my time in Tchad pass through the lens of my Doxycycline bottle. Doxy by Doxy the days go by. It’s actually been a nice, tangible measure of my time. Two bottles. Half a year in one. The other half in the other. I’ve been watching, and anticipating the day that I would finish bottle one and move on to bottle two. Not that I’m waiting for my time here to pass, but half a year is like turning a corner, finishing a chapter, and turning the page.

It turns out that half of a year of Doxycycline was more momentous than I expected. And in fact, I will never have the satisfaction of finishing the single lonely pill that is left in bottle one...and bottle two will never be touched. But I digress.

I got sick on Wednesday. Well not really sick sick. But I came home after my evening class with a headache. Nothing too concerning. Just annoying. Thursday morning I woke up with a headache. It was a little worse...so I took some advil and went to school...and the pain continued. By Thursday evening my head was pounding. Thursday night I didn’t sleep much. And Friday I found myself at the local clinic for a malaria test. I was convinced that my pounding head...unlike any headache I’ve felt in my life...had to be cerebral malaria. And then the malaria test came back negative. But sometimes tests are wrong...so I was started on a malaria treatment. And then I got worse. Painkillers really didn’t do much for my pounding head and I started vomiting anything I ate. By Saturday the powers that be decided it was time to take me to N’djamena. So a vehicle was rented and Sunday morning Rose and I left Moundou. Unfortunately, the doctor in N’djamena couldn’t give me a diagnosis either. But he said...sometimes Doxy can cause headaches...and he’d look into it.

So I waited. And I actually started feeling a little better. Turns out, Doxy can cause headaches. And in rare cases Doxycycline can cause intracranial hypertension...or increased pressure in the head. Symptoms: headaches, nausea, vomiting. We’ll never be 100% sure but it’s the only thing that seems to fit. Intracranial hypertension can also cause vision loss. So I am blessed and grateful it did not get to this point. So I stopped poisoning myself, continued to get better, and returned to Moundou. My head’s not normal yet (not that it ever was!) and I am now on day 17 of my headache. It is MUCH better, but pray that we have solved the problem and that there is no chapter two to this story.

In spite of my unfinished Doxy bottle, half a year has passed. Half a year sounds like a long time. And it is actually a little over half of my time here. Sometimes I feel like I have lived in Chad much longer than that. And sometimes I feel like I just got here. But like I said, time is a funny thing. In the past 23 years of my life, my body and my mind have grown accustomed to measuring time by the change of the seasons...and for the first three months in Chad I was busy trying to convince said body and mind that we’d made it out of August. Rose and I always joke about what month we think it is now...in January we had almost made it to October (because the weather cooled down a bit) but now it’s hot again. So I’m not sure if we’re back in August or if we’ve jumped ahead to May. Regardless of my seasonal confusion, time is passing. And it is bittersweet. I miss my life, family, friends that I’ve left behind and I look forward to the day I will see them again. But at the same time, I feel a bit rushed...trying to soak up every minute, every experience, every interaction because I know my time here in Chad is limited...and growing short.

I hate the questions...when are you coming back...and...why don’t you stay two or three years. They’re becoming more and more frequent topics of conversation. One year in a place is long...and yet so short at the same time. I want to explain that I would love to come back someday...if I find an extra 2000 dollars lying around. Or that I would love to stay...if it weren’t for my friends and family that I miss and would like to see again sooner than that. I just don’t quite know how to answer these questions...or what really to think about them...sometimes they make me feel very selfish...

All this to say, I have less than five months here. To live. To learn. To love. To teach. To experience. I have present and I will think about future later. Pray for the rest of my time here. Pray for my health. And pray for stability and peace in this part of the world.

Love you all.

Dust Settles.

Things can change quick. Day to night. Health to sickness. Hot to Cold. Wet to Dry. Plans change. Peace changes to lack of it. Discontent changes to anger. And anger to violence.

This morning I find myself sitting in the yard with a change of plans. Yesterday began like any other Monday. Wake up. Set the table. Cut the bread. Prepare the eggs. Eat. Lesson Plan. Get dressed. Bike to school. Saluer my colleagues. Print exercises. **yelling and shouting in the street** **students running in a cloud of dust** **get inside** **shut the doors and lock the windows** **rocks, fists, and rage hit the building** Dust settles. Close the school. Leave the bikes. Rides with friends on motos. Get home.

What began as a typical, busy, school week is now a week with three days off. All schools in Moundou have been shut down until Thursday because of the student riots that happened yesterday.

In the French school system all students must pass the baccalaureate exam...or more simply, the bac...before the end of their schooling. Without it...you can’t do anything. Yesterday at “Lycee Abdou Douala,” the biggest high school in Moundou, the list of students to take the bac this year was posted. Many students did not find their name.

It’s hard to get a straight story. Everyone has their own version of the events...and why a list of names can turn into a violent “manifestation.” But somehow it’s a combination of corruption and politics and miscommunication. Students who had already paid the fee were being told to pay again...an exorbitant amount...that they don’t have...and so the riots began.

I heard stories of students jumping out of windows, jumping over walls, fleeing from the sudden outbreak of violence. I witnessed a friend and co-worker instinctively and worriedly shut and lock doors and windows, and I read the concern on a University student’s face as she hid inside the office with Rose and I. I’m told that this year the “manifestation” is not too bad...that the last time this happened, people died.

Here I find myself in the company of people who have lived through war....people who have an instinctive reaction to violence. Time after time the subject of war comes up in English class. “Write a dialogue” ends with “where will you go when the war starts?” “I will go to Cameroon.” And “write about a childhood memory” recounts the time that a student hid in the bush with his family for a year because it was not safe to be in town. And yet life goes on. Today really feels no different than yesterday or the day before. Life happens and continues to happen. The dust settles.

But the dust can rise again. And one person’s anger can set it off. Mob mentality can prevail. And anger can change to violence. And the inequality and inaccessibility of resources...or in this case, opportunity...will teach children that one only gets what one can take. And so people will continue to take. And we will take until we are taken from. And violence will break out again.

OR--

“Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.” We can seek peace in the face of violence...give when we are taken from.

“Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” We can put a check on our amassing of resources and greed...our contribution to unequal opportunity...even if sometimes the repercussions happen halfway around the world.

And we can pray for peace.

Things can change quick. Night to Day. Sickness to Health. Cold to Hot. Dry to Wet. Plans change. Dust settles. Discontent changes to thankfulness. And anger to joy.

A Birthday Party.

On December 31, 2010, I celebrated my 23^rd birthday. Twenty-three still sounds too old to me. Not that the age itself is old in the grand scheme of things...but that I am twenty-three. I feel like I’ve finally made it to the age where I am a 20-something. Not 20, 21, 22...but a 20-something...like this is the point where you kind of stop counting...it’s all the same until 30, then 40. The years are moving quickly but I don’t think I’ve been paying enough attention to check them off as they go by. I think I measure in broad time chunks rather than years...and my chunks haven’t quite made it to 23 yet. Maybe I’ll just feel young forever...I don’t think I would really mind that...

I hadn’t really planned on making a big deal about my birthday. I thought maybe I’d mention it the day before or the day of...maybe have a coca to celebrate...but it had come up a few months ago and my host family remembered. That’s the thing about having a birthday in the midst of the holidays...people remember, they’re free, and in the celebrating mood...so celebrating just kind of happens. The first mention of my birthday came from my host mom. About a week before she asked me, “so what are you going to cook for your birthday?” To which I responded... “je ne sais pas!” A few days later she informed me, “you are going to make Chebudjen” To which I responded, “what’s that?” And she told me, “you will see.” A few days later she asked me, “You are going to invite people aren’t you?” To which I responded, “I should invite people?” Then she told me who to invite.

The guest list: Pastor Sem (my boss) and his wife Eunice, Dr. Regis (a family relative and my student) and his wife, Benedicte (my older married host sister) and family, Rose’s host parents, two friends from the choir, and of course...the guy that my host family seems to want me to marry...a young Uncle of the family...Uncle Ben... as I call him.

The 31^st arrived, Rose came over early in the morning, and we kicked off the day with some birthday pancakes. It’s always fun to cook American food for my host family for two reasons...it’s something new, from my culture, for them to try...and it helps to show that I am not completely incompetent in the kitchen...I just don’t know how to make Chadian food! So we made some pancakes. Half plain, half with the dried blueberries Rose had received in a package. They were delicious...other than the fact that they tasted a lot like Nido (the powdered milk we used in the batter.)

After breakfast we started cooking. My host sister busted out the BIG kettle and got to work preparing three chickens, a massive assortment of vegetables and potatoes, and enough rice to feed an army. I helped as much I could. Cooking for me means a lot of sitting around...I cut up vegetables and helped with small things but I am very incompetent at cooking Chadian style. That’s the thing...Chadian girls grow up in the kitchen...everything there is very second nature, and everyone cooks the same foods the same way. So, it’s hard to realize that, for me, everything is completely different....from the types of food right down to the method of preparation. I would love to help, but I need to be shown how. In time. So we cooked the repas.

The party was supposed to begin at 14:00. So naturally everyone showed up at 15:00. I welcomed everyone, passed around some cocas, fantas, and tops, and to my surprise...opened presents! Now, I don’t think birthday celebrations and birthday presents are really a cultural thing...but TV changes everything...and western images of presents, cakes, and candles have made it here to the heart of Africa. I received four new dresses (and ironically the dress from Uncle Ben came wrapped in “congratulations on your marriage” wrapping paper), some jewelry, and some beautiful decorative wooden spoons.

The day was very special. That’s really all I can say. It’s a hard thing to describe...but being so far away from friends, family, and “normal” life makes small things even more meaningful. Each text message, card, e-mail or wall post is a treasure...so a whole birthday party, from people I’ve known for less than five months, is almost overwhelming. I was and am still very grateful to find myself here among people who make me feel loved each day.

Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday from the states via card, facebook, text, e-mail...you are all very special to me and I love you so much!

*Just a note*

I do have one Christmas/birthday wish. I would love a visitor from the states. You know who you are, Dad! But the plane ticket is expensive. So we can all pray that he finds the means, or comes to his senses and decides it’s worth it to visit his only daughter the whole way over here in Tchad!

December.

So it’s been about a month since I’ve written a blog entry...sorry about that. I’m still alive...doing well...but a lot has happened since thanksgiving. So I guess I’ll try to recount the events of the past month as best I can...

Le Paludisme.

It finally happened. After almost four months malaria free, the little mosquito transmitted, blood infesting parasites decided to bid me welcome to Moundou. Now...to those of us from the US of A, malaria sounds very serious. Not to worry. I’m fine. In fact, most of my friends here could not believe I had never had malaria before, and did not know there was no malaria in the states. I did, however, have quite the eventful first malaria experience. I got sick on a Monday. Fever, fatigue. I tried to wish it away, took some drugs, and taught my class that evening. Unfortunately, you cannot ignore malaria, and the next day I found myself at the local clinic for a blood test. The test came back positive, I was given a prescription for medication, and spent the next few days at home. The medicine I was prescribed is supposed to work in 24 hours, but 24 hours later I was still running a fever of 102. By Thursday I had added the runs, and a rash to the list of symptoms. Friday I went back to the clinic. This time the doctor wanted two things: a typhoid fever test, and a stool sample. Blood tests are fine, but giving a poop sample was something I had hoped to avoid in my life. But you do what you have to do. I made my way to the lab at which point the lab tech told me to go get “feuille de mangue” and to use for my stool sample...at which point I laughed, thinking he was joking. Now for those of you who don’t speak French “un feuille de mangue” translates to a mango leaf....and he was not joking. He proceeded to hand me a mango leaf and explain how one gives a sample, folds the leaf, and holds it together with by piercing the sides with two small sticks found somewhere on the ground. So I surrendered to my mango leaf fate...unfortunately mango leaves don’t work very well when all that’s coming out of you is liquid (sorry for the graphic details) ...and left the clinic. And after all that, they didn’t really find anything. By Saturday, I was on the road to recovery. So that was malaria for me...a five day fever, the runs, a rash, and a mango leaf. Quite a story though.

Final Exams and a Visit from the President.

This past month also brought the end of our first teaching term....which of course means final exams. Having been a student for my entire life, up until now, it is odd to be on the other side of things...giving and grading exams rather than studying and taking exams. Now, final exams would have been pretty uneventful save teaching my students (who have probably never seen an American style test in their life) how to take a test with multiple choice and fill in the blank questions....then the president decided to come to town. When the president comes to town everything shuts down, you really shouldn’t open your business, and shouldn’t be out walking around...unless you’re on the street to welcome him. That being said...he came in the middle of exam week...and to make things more difficult, half my students work for the media. He was supposed to come in the morning...but morning turned into afternoon...and around 4:20 Rose and I found ourselves on the street waving to the president as he passed by greeting the crowds through the sunroof of his vehicle. So...I arrived at school half an hour late, found a few students waiting for the exam, and no power, or generator, to print the thing (which I would have done in the morning if the building had been open.) So the exam was pushed back to the next day. Scheduling Chadian style. I still have a few students who haven’t taken it.

Christmas.

Saturday, the 18^th, Rose and I took a bus to N’Djamena to spend some days with the Enns (an MCC family) before Christmas. It’s always wonderful to see the Enns and spend a few days in a “North American bubble” in the middle of Chad. We took advantage of their oven, cooked festive foods as best we could, sang Christmas carols, and met Bekah and Joshua...their children who are visiting for the holiday. On the 23^rd we returned to Moundou to experience a real Chadian Christmas. It was an interesting Christmas. Not bad. Just really different. Rather than being at home with family everyone was out and about...celebrating with singing and dancing and friends. As far as my celebration went...I ate goat. Went to church...several times. Watched “Muppet Christmas Carol” with Rose on my computer. Gave a handmade card and candy stuffed in an Ethiopian Airlines complementary sock (makeshift stocking) to my host family. Received a Christmas text message from my grandmother. And had a wonderful Christmas phone call from my family.

I love you and miss you all. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! JOYEUX NOEL!!! Christ est né!

Thanksgiving pie.

A Thanksgiving without pie is simply no thanksgiving at all...even when you are half way around the world. While I didn’t get to eat pumpkin pie, or watch David Letterman guess which pies his mother made this year, or dress up like a Pilgrim or Indian for Thanksgiving dinner, or reenact the slaughtering of the Thanksgiving turkey with my Aunt and cousins, I did have pie. Delicious pie.

The original plan was to cook a Thanksgiving meal. That fell through the cracks when Pastor Sem and his wife Eunice told us they would be traveling the week of Thanksgiving...they are the only people we know in Moundou who own an oven. Plan B: get creative. On Monday, Rose and I found ourselves with some unexpected free time in the morning and got to talking about Thanksgiving. After some brainstorming, and a trip to Cybersat for some googling, we decided to try our hand at papaya pie, sans* oven.

Our first task: trip to the market. We visited the grande marché early Tuesday morning. Unfortunately it was a little too early in the morning and most of the vendors were just opening up shop. In spite of the hour we checked farine*, sucre*, beurre*, and noix de muscade* off our list. Wednesday afternoon after class we stopped in at the petit marché down the road from my house. Here we picked up l’huile*, and visited the poultry section...aka...the shack full of chickens, for des oeufs*. We also searched in vain for brown sugar...and when Rose returned to the grand marché they had just sold the last of it...so we made do with yellow sugar instead. Cannelle* came from Naomi in Ndjamena via Levy mail (Levy is our MCC country rep who came to Moundou for a visit) and the ever important papayas came from the trees in my yard.

The only problem with celebrating a foreign holiday is simply that...it’s foreign. No day off. With little free time during the day, Rose and I decided to veiller* to cook the pies. For Thanksgiving pie you do what you gotta do.

We started cooking around 21:00. Around 21:30 the power went out...and didn’t come back on. We cooked by headlamp. ** Peel papayas. Mix with sugar and spice. Simmer. Mix with egg. ** Sift flour. Mix with butter, oil, salt, lemon, water. ** Press crust into frying pan (the only round metal thing we could find.) Pour in filling.** Bake for 1 hr...or 2½hrs with a make-shift metal pot oven over charcoal with a frying pan pie suspended on rocks inside. ** Delicious. ** At 3:00am we had successfully made two papaya pies...one of which we ate for breakfast the next morning. The other, we shared with our English students in the afternoon.

Campfire pies...Thanksgiving miracle number 1. If there is a number 1 there has to be a number 2. Our second Thanksgiving miracle came Thursday afternoon. Luck would have it that Levy was in town and planning a visit to two villages with my host Dad and his organization BAOBAB (BAOBAB is one of MCC’s partner organizations who works with food security in rural villages) and asked Rose and I to come along. What could be more appropriate than talking about food security on Thanksgiving...a holiday with its roots in sharing resources and food. We greeted one another, chatted food security, visited the fields to evaluate the growth of manioc, tomatoes, peppers, etc. and then shared a meal together. And the first thing on the menu?? Wass in Ngambai or melon in French...whichever language you use, it’s the closest thing to pumpkin you can find in Chad. Pumpkin...Thanksgiving miracle number 2. We shared our pumpkin, sugar cane, chicken and boule from a communal dish...across cultures...with an abundance of gratefulness for the food and company we have to share. This year in Chad, Thanksgiving was well kept.

Farine: flour

Sucre: sugar

Beurre: butter

Noix de muscade: nutmeg

L’huile: oil

Des œufs: eggs

Veiller: to stay up