NEWSLETTER 6 5 MARCH 2001
Dear All
Happy New Year!! (well…… happy almost the middle of the new year!) Paul has been needling me to write another newsletter and I finally have an opportunity. (I have made a deal with the kids that I can have a long turn on the computer today … ) It’s Tabaski (a Moslem holiday and a very bad day if you are a sheep or a goat – about 500 of them will be losing their lives in N’Djamena alone !!!!) and so the school is closed and here I am, FINALLY writing another newsletter.
A huge amount has happened since I last wrote in November: In December we went off to Amsterdam with the company and nearly froze to death … we had a great time although Amsterdam isn’t quite the same with two small children in tow. I was able to take the kids out to Zevenaar to visit Karen & Kurt and the boys ( Paul’s cousins) which was great! Thanks! Then we went on to London where we stayed with friends of Paul‘s ( thanks Chris & Gill) and managed to see Paul’s father who had made a special trip from the south of England just to see us (thanks for making the effort … it was great to see you) After a few days in London we traveled to Whittington Farm somewhere between Birmingham and Worcester for Christmas where we stayed with friends of mine with whom I grew up in Bulawayo! (thanks Nin & Guy , Charlotte, Isobel, Emily & Harry (and the rest of the Graves!!)… it was a real trip down memory lane for me and I had a wonderful time! I do hope that the foot and mouth currently making the news has not affected you too seriously)
We then went on to see Isy & Andrew in Hemel Hemstead (old Harare friends of Paul’s) where, the following morning, we were treated to snow ( and a rather uncomfortable 3 mile walk to the railway station with all of our now very heavy luggage) You see, the Brits were in such a state of shock over the snow that none of the taxis were able to get out of their garages etc etc. We were eventually given a lift by a very kind truck driver (who had previously been a farmer but, what with Mad Cows Disease and the expense of farming in the UK, had had to leave the farm his family had been running for generations!) His offer of a lift couldn’t have been better timed … Lauren had just sat down in the snow and refused to budge another inch!
Well, we eventually caught a train back to London and were on our way to Heathrow to catch a plane to Paris (which we were sure to miss as it was due to leave 5 minutes after we estimated we would arrive at the airport. ) Needless to say, some of the terminals had been closed owing to the snow and Air France’s computers were down (Air Chance, someone had said to me on the London underground…. I had decided that they obviously hadn’t experienced Air Afrique which I guess you could call Air No Chance!) Thank heavens we were traveling Business class … Paul was able to scramble over hundreds of angry, impatient and tired people, jump the VERY VERY long queue and get us onto the next plane. We eventually left London at 3pm (on the flight scheduled to leave at 8.30am) and arrived in Paris MUCH later than anticipated. We were collected by Florence, our very long suffering friend who had waited all day for us to arrive and we stayed in their Paris home for a few days to rest!! (Thanks Florrie & Arnaud, we had a wonderful time)
By the time we returned to Tchad, we were exhausted … next Christmas, after the MSI meeting in Amsterdam we plan to find a beach in the Greek Isles or to sit on a boat on the Nile River in Egypt …. As long as we don’t have to charge around the countryside with children and luggage every three days!
Returning to N’Djamena wasn’t so terrible .. the weather in January and February is really rather civilized (22 – 26 degrees C) My class has been changed from Grade 2 & 4 to Grade 1 & 2 which is a far more sensible mix (although I’m not sure that I am at all cut out for this age group!) Anyway, it is a lot easier for me as I can do a lot of things with both grades and I have more free time as the whole class goes off to French together!! I am, however, counting the days (6 weeks until the spring break and then another 7 weeks until school breaks up for the “summer “ holidays. I have officially resigned and will not be teaching next year (although there is a lot of politics going on at the school and I may have to volunteer to run the school if the current director does not return !! I am certainly a better (less frustrated / less intolerant) administrator than I am a teacher)
That’s next (school) year’s problem which, if I am fortunate, will not actually come to pass. My plans for next (school) year include sorting out my French, sorting out the school library on a volunteer basis (it is a disaster) getting fit and generally having a good time (just as an MD’s wife should!!) … My “payment” for organizing the library is to have access to the American embassy gym which is on the school premises but which I have no time to use at present. I may also do a little bit of consulting for World Vision (on a payment or non-payment basis )
But that’s enough about me… Tchad has lost a couple of visionary (and unusually honest) politicians in the last few weeks. The first was the telecoms minister who spoke fluent English, played the guitar etc and with whom Paul had a very good relationship (they shared a “seat” on that rather dangerous trip to Doba in the Hercules which I told you about in November!) Although it is not official (he had been sick for a very long time) everyone is convinced that he had contracted that unforgiving disease of Africa. It was very sad … we were going to invite him and his wife to have dinner with us at home a few weeks later.
Then the following week, Paul was woken up by the sound of crying at 4 am one morning. Thinking it was Guy , he went through to check on the kids, who were fast asleep. It turned out that during a rather violent dust storm which I had wheezed through that night a small aircraft had decided, contrary to advice from the control tower, to take the chance and land at the airport. As visibility was very poor, the pilot flew very low during the approach to the runway. They hit a tree on the Cameroon side of the Chari river (you could see the mangled plane from the garden of our friends from the World Bank) It took three hours for the French military and the Chaddian forces to reach the accident site owing to the plane coming down in a different country (it would have taken 1 minute by helicopter had they been able to just fly over the river but permission had to be given by the Cameroonian government first.) The two ministers on board (Messeurs Amin & Dadi) were very well respected by the international community and were a great loss to the government! The Dadi’s lived behind us and the crying Paul heard must have been Madame Dadi or one of her daughters. The thing is, they too were on the list to be invited to dinner at our house!
Death in this country is so common-place. I have lost count of the number of funerals our house staff have been to since we arrived here .. and they were all legitimate funerals. Did I tell you about the HORRIBLE blunder I made a few weeks after arriving in N’Djamena. Well, my French has improved considerable since those days…. Our cleaner, Martin , doesn’t speak good French and so from a communication point of view, we were a very bad match … it has gotten better!! One afternoon Martin told me that his son had lost a child ….and I, hearing that his son had had a child, said CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! I think that he has forgiven me now but I felt sick for a week!!
On a lighter note, we went back to Wasa a few weekends ago, this time with the American Embassy staff and the Ambassador. What a difference … what took us at least an hour to get through the border the previous time, took all of 2 minutes. We also had an armed escort all the way to Wasa. I couldn’t believe the difference in the countryside! You may or may not remember that our last trip took place at the end of the rainy season and that the elephant-grass was at least 3 metres high! Well, everything was dry and brown this time… and while we saw more animals, we still didn’t see that many. We unfortunately missed the elephants … well, we did actually see them.. four large herds…just recognizable through binoculars in a part of the park which is not accessible by road! Again, the thing that struck me most was the bird life. This time around we saw hundreds of Maribou Storks hobbling around like old hunch-backed men in cloaks. We also saw a huge flock of pelicans including a nest containing some very hungry babies. All in all, we had a very relaxing time although we were a little annoyed that they had still not filled up their swimming pool.
On the return trip we decided to visit another Cameroonian town, Maroua (?spelling?)which had been recommended to us as a good place to buy things . Anyway, we were not overly impressed although our judgement may have become a little clouded by the fact that Guy chose this particular time to have the only serious case of gastro he has had since we arrived in francophone Africa. He also threw up on the way back to N’Djamena which, when you are enclosed in a small space, is not very pleasant (those of you who have experienced this will understand what I am saying and those who haven’t will, I’m sure, have no difficulty in imagining it … and be thankful that this is an experience they have managed to escape!) Apart from that, the return trip was uneventful … I even had the dubious pleasure of driving the worst part of the pot-holed road back to N’Djamena as Paul had an attack of post-prandial hypoglycaemia! ( he needed an after-lunch nap!!) Anyway, driving that road brought to mind an old Zimbabwean joke which could, just as easily be applied to Cameroon or Tchad or, for that matter, almost any other African country.:
How can you recognize a drunk Zimbabwean?
He’s the one who is driving straight!
Summer arrived in N’Djamena while we were in Wasa … temperatures jumped from a pleasant 27 degrees to a less pleasant 40 degrees in the space of three days! So we are condemned to sweat it out until the rains arrive in June!!! Many of the aid organizations (such as World Vision) are preparing themselves for a major food shortage this summer … rainfall last year was far less than it should have been (the Chari river didn’t flood as it usually does … a very bad sign) While it will affect us marginally as the price of basic foodstuffs go up, there are already people in Abeche to the far west of N’Djamena who are already suffering from severe malnutrition. I guess it is the story of Africa … when they do have good rains, they also have severe plagues of locusts and so, much of the food grown is destroyed. It must be very difficult to develop and grow economically when one spends so much of ones time worrying about where your next meal is going to come from.
Well, I think that I had better end this letter now … the kids are starting to beat each other up and the noise is making it very difficult to concentrate. I should like to promise that I will write again soon but I know how long you have had to wait for this letter and I have a new policy of not making any promises…. That way, you may get a surprise sooner than you think!
Best wishes to everyone
Love Paul, Fiona, Lauren & Guy.
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