Travel By Night

I just got back from NDJ and it was my most memorable traveling experience thus far. I’ve discovered that breaking the trip into 2 days makes it much less tiring and avoids dangerous, PC-forbidden night travel. I lucked out on Friday AM and found a truck going straight to N’gouri. Normally, one has to spend the day at the market of Isserom before continuing on to N’gouri. But I got lucky and arrived in N’gouri about noon. I went to Sam’s (new PC volunteer) only to find…. Sam had left! For good! Huh.

So, since Pops now lives and works there in N’gouri, I went over to see him. We drank tea and talked and it turned out that Sam had only left the day before. I decided to stick with my original plan and spend Saturday in N’gouri, since I wasn’t expected in NDJ until Sunday evening. I hung out at Pops’ writing letters and chatting with the nearly constant stream of visitors who came to greet Pops. One of these visitors was a guy, Dieudonne (means God given), working on the census to prepare for the upcoming presidential elections. He said a car was coming from Bol to take him down to NDJ and offered me a spot. Cool. It’s always good to avoid traveling in dusty, uncomfortable, questionably safe market trucks. I ran into Dieudonne in the road later when I went out to buy envelopes. He said, “Hey, let me go present you to the new Prefet (gov’t official).” Okay, I though, “It’s not my site, but I’ll go meet him.”

The prefet’s residence is set out of town a bit, with no other houses around. Me and Mr. God Given sat and talked with the prefet for 1 hour…2 hours, which is a long time for a “visite de courtoisie.” I was finally starting to get wierded out when suddenly good ol’ God Given says, “When you fall in love, are you jalouse? Are you amourouse?” My sketch-alert alarm bell went off and I went into Defensive Chadian Woman Mode, meaning I looked at the floor and responded only with grunts. But God Given wasn’t getting the hint because he kept going, “Do you like night clubs? What’s your sex life like? Are you a virgin?” Now I started getting scared, the alarm bell ringing loud enough that I could hear it through my rage. Dieudonne was a big dude, we were away from any other houses, and when DD had started making moves, The Prefet had gone to take a nap.

I asked, “How long are we going to stay here?” “Oh, “ responded Mr. God Given, “I brought you here to spend the night.” Spend the night?? It was 1 in the afternoon! I said, “No, I need to go home. I have work to do. You need to call your chauffeur.” So he called his driver and as I was getting into the car, he put his hand on my back and asked what time I was coming back. “I’m busy. I’m not coming back.”

The driver took me back to Pops’ and I explained very emphatically that I was not traveling with Monsieur Dieudonne and that he was pas bon. I was MAD and frustrated and kind of scared. It was so frustrating that I had to react like a good Chadian woman. I wanted nothing more than to verbally tear him a new asshole but who knows how he would have reacted? And like I said, he was big, and we were far from anyone else.

There are cars to Mondo on Sunday and one of my host bros was going, so I decided to go along and hop on a truck from Mondo to NDJ, to avoid being on the road at the same time as Dieudonne. When DD came to get me Sunday am, I stared at the ground and Pops spoke for me, “She’s not going to NDJ with you. She’ going to Mondo with her brother.” Thanks, pops! Still, it was frustrating that I couldn’t give this creep a piece of my mind, and had to let Pops speak for me.

Me and my bro, Altladj, left Mondo at about 9. We got a flat tire about 3 km outside of Mondo, but they fixed it pretty quick. We continued another K, when CLUNK – some chunk of metal fell off the wheel. So, now it’s 11:30, and we have to walk 2K into Mondo and I’m not wearing any sunblock. We get to Mondo and trudge up the big hill into town and I see that there is only 1 car. Turns out it’s the only truck going to NDJ and there are no places in the cab. No way am I going to stand in the back of a pickup in the heat of the day 6 hours to NDJ. Everyone said, “There are other cars coming, no worries! Go to Darren’s and come back later.”

So I spend the day with Darren (PC volunteer in Mondo) and vented about Dieudonne, which was therapeutic. We went back down to the market at 4:30 or so to find that no other NDJ trucks had come. If I stayed in Mondo, I couldn’t get to NDJ until Thursday, so I elected to go back to N’gouri and hope for a car on Monday. When we got back to Pops’, he said, “Hey, Mary (friend from Bol) came by looking for you. She is going to NDJ and wanted to give you a ride.” Aiggh! No luck. Bad luck.

Pops found me a car leaving early to Massakory, a town about ½ way down where I could easily get transport to NDJ. The car came at 7 am and I was pumped. “I’ll get there before 2!” I thought. I’m the only passenger in the cab and we’re flying along until CLUNK! Something goes horribly wrong in the motor. The driver and his buddies, who were in the back, take turns hitting the motor with a hammer and crowbar, while I sit on the side of the road, trying to swallow my panic. I was expected in NDJ Sunday evening and now it’s Monday morning. My mind was reeling with all the possibilities…. would they call Bol? Would they call DC? Would they send up a car to find me? After about 45 minutes, the driver slammed the hood shut and motioned me over. He turned the car around and we limped back to N’gouri, which thankfully was only about five minutes away. We pulled into the mechanic’s which was a dirty compound filled with car carcasses and innards. “No problem! 45 minutes, tops!” They assured me. But I was now losing the battle against the panic surging in my veins. I thought, “No way is this gonna be 45 minutes! I need to find Pops, find a radio or a satellite phone and get a message to NDJ!” The driver had told me that there were no other cars to Massakory or NDJ, but when the mechanic yanked something out of the motor – a thick metal ring with a big chunk missing – and said, “Now we just gotta find one of these! 45 minutes!”, I said, I’m going to buy some water at the market,” and went to find another car.

Alhumdullilah, there was another car and as I was talking with the new chauffeur, the old chauffeur came running and said, “There’s no solution, we can’t fix it. Come get your bag and we’ll put you on a new car.” Okay! The new car was leaving right away and we made it to Massakory at about noon. I immediately found a car (a station wagon) in Massakory, though I had to sit on the console between the two front seats. Not comfy. We arrived in NDJ at about 2 o’clock. I stumbled into the icy air-conditioned bureau, tired, hot and FILTHY (I’d been wearing the same clothes for 4 days, 3 of them on the road). I greeted everyone and hurried off to shower in the PCV lounge. I peeled off my filthy, stinky clothes and hopped into the shower to find…NO WATER! No water anywhere in the building! The pump was broken! I finally ended up getting a bucket of water from outside, which wasn’t bad, since it’s what I’m used to. And THAT is the story of my most memorable Chad travel experience.