By the main hospital entrance and the Emergency department
One of the waiting areas
That’s my ‘office’, which is actually shared with Olen and Danae. That shelf is the central part of the network, with the main server.
Here are some nurses using the computers for their work
These are two Fulani, the nomadic bush tribe
This is a 38-pound ovarian cyst that was removed from a 27 year old lady. She’d been carrying it around for 3 years because she couldn’t afford the surgery.
The hospital compound is full of mango trees, and they’re just coming into season!
Here are some not ripe mangoes…
This is Zach’s house
Zach’s banana tree
That’s what it looks like to walk down a street in Béré
The little place on the left is a gas station
This is where I get my haircut
We flew up to N’djamena awhile ago, so this is taken from the plane.
This is part of N’djamena
These are some rice fields that have been burned to prepare for a new crop
Just a random little village
Reading with Lyol and Zane
Zach and I at the photoshoot for the next GQ cover
While we had been watching the elephants at the director’s house on Sunday, he asked us about what our plans were for getting back to Béré. After explaining that we were planning to retrace our steps in the same way that we came, he offered to have someone drive us to Am Timan on Monday morning for free. Monday morning came, and just before leaving the park, our driver told us that he had received a call saying that there would be a car going directly from Zakouma to NDJ. He said he would drop us off at his friends’ store in town and the car would come get us. That was at 8am on Monday morning. By 4pm that afternoon the car had still not shown up. It was a pretty boring 8 hours, but I was able to do a lot of people-watching, which was fascinating!
By 4pm it was pretty clear that we needed to find a different option. We decided to head back to the place at the edge of town where all the buses gathered. It was pretty late, but we hoped to find something to NDJ. One driver assured us that he would take the three of us in a pickup as soon as he was ready. An hour came and went and he wasn’t ready. After asking him when we would be leaving, he told us to wait until tomorrow morning. No thanks! Frustrated and desperate, we asked for our money to be returned and started looking for something else. By this point I would’ve taken a camel if one was available. There was a bus ready to depart for Mongo, so we settled for that. It was similar in size/shape to a little VW bus. The roof was piled high with like 5 feet of stuff and there were about 20 people inside. The body odor and lack of leg room was astounding. We finally rolled out of Am Timan around 5pm. We stopped a few villages down the road beside a crowd of people and a huge pile of stuff. My best guess is that someone had just gotten married and was moving out. They proceeded to unpack and repack everything on the roof; mats, clothes, rice, chickens, satellite dishes, cookware, literally everything except the kitchen sink since nobody has one of those here. After they decided that the center of gravity had been sufficiently raised, we all piled back in, along with like 5 more people! The lyrics to Another One Rides the Bus by Weird Al Yankovich started running through my head. The next 9 hours were the most uncomfortable of my whole life. Dust, bumps, smells, cramps, lack of sleep — it was nuts.
It felt so good to get off the bus and feel the cool night air in Mongo. It was about 3am, and our chances of finding a bus to NDJ were basically zero. There was one Arabic guy with a bus full of goats who was just about to leave for NDJ, but he didn’t have any places for us to sit. He only spoke Arabic, but he understood that we were pretty helpless and showed us to a little gated area where there was a mat for us to sleep on. The next morning we were able to find a bus that was going to leave for NDJ around 7:30am. Based on our past experiences, we knew that this really meant a 10-11am departure, but we were used to that by now. To our complete surprise, the bus actually left on time! It wasn’t even full; just the three of us, the driver, and another Arabic man.
We arrived in NDJ around 5pm, after yet another 10 hour bus ride. It was relieving to be back in a familiar place after so much uncertainty. We had made a reservation to stay in NDJ the night before, but by this point we had completely missed it and just got directly on the the bus for Kélo. Another 8 hour bus ride did not sound appealing, but we were so anxious to get home.
Our bus rolled in to Kélo around 2am on Wednesday morning. Adrian stayed on the bus and continued on to Moundou, but Zach and I had arranged for our friend Allah to come with another moto taxi and take us back to Béré. The moto taxi driver demanded that we pay double since it was so late, even though he had told Allah that the price would be the same as a typical trip from Béré to Kélo. By this point in the trip I was so wiped out, and I was sick of people demanding extra money for everything. So I told him we would discuss the price when we arrived. He was a dangerous driver, his headlight was broken, and he ran out of gas halfway through the trip. By the time we got to Béré, I was not a happy camper. I handed him the usual rate (half of what he was asking) and walked off without a word. It was rude, but I’d had enough. Apparently he created quite a scene and Zach ended up giving some extra just to be quiet and leave.
So. That was my vacation! It was absolutely wild. It may not sound like it was much of a vacation at all, but it was so wonderful to get away from Béré and experience more of the country. The whole adventure strengthened my faith immensely, and it will be an awesome story to tell over and over again.
When we arrived at Tinga camp, we were absolutely filthy. The first thing we did after checking in was shower and take a nap.
Dirt
Here is one of our two rooms
Aerial view of Tinga Camp
This is the central building of the camp. It is SO NICE!
Luxury
After that came lunch, which was excellent. We had paid for 3 meals per day for our time at the park. At home I usually sit on the ground and eat with my hands, so a 3-course meal with a waiter seemed extremely fancy!
We arranged for a guide to come and take us on a drive through the park after lunch. It was INCREDIBLE. Here are some of my favorite pictures.
Super awesome safari vehicle
There were giraffes everywhere!
More giraffes…
…And another one
Warthogs
Not sure what kind of bird this is, but it was pretty!
Monkeys!
Baboons!
Just a tree that I thought looked cool.
I’d been asking God in prayer to show us a lion and an elephant. We were kinda skeptical because the last group that went from Béré didn’t see any of either, but I was optimistic. Towards the end of our first drive our guide caught a glimpse of a male lion laying in the bushes. As we got closer, it turned our to be a whole family resting together, which the driver said was incredibly rare to see. There was dad, mom, and three little ones. The little cubs were so cute! We were able to get within about 15 feet of them.
So majestic
Mama lion
Les enfants
Yaaawwwnnn
So. Cute.
After breakfast the next morning (Sunday) we set out on another drive. The goal this time was to see an elephant. It was getting close to lunch time, and we had seen lots of animals other than elephants. Slightly discouraged, we started heading back to camp for lunch. On the way we got a radio call from the director’s house. He said there was an elephant right by his house! We arrived and stood on his porch, watching a bull elephant about 75 feet away. He was hiding in some bushes, which was not ideal for pictures. But hey, it was an elephant. The director casually mentioned that sometimes the elephants come to the back side of their house for water. As we were about to leave, 8 elephants walked up behind the house! They came right up to the porch and we took the hose and gave them water. SO COOL!
Our final drive was on Sunday afternoon. We had seen most of the main animals already, so this drive was basically just to go see some crocodiles.
The river where the crocs live
That little hole behind him is his house
Although that drive didn’t bring a lot of new sights, just relaxing in the car and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere was so worth it. We drove all around the park and watched the sun set across the African savanna. It was a wonderful conclusion to our short stay at Zakouma.
What does one bring on a one-week tour of Chad? Well, if you’re a Chadian native you bring a knife and a small mat, in addition to whatever clothes you happen to be wearing when you leave. I decided to travel in style and brought a pair of pants, two shirts, toiletries, laptop, phone, camera, water bottle, passport, handkerchief, and the cherry on top…one pair of underwear. Stuff it all in a backpack and we’re good. Adventure is out there!
The first leg of the journey went as planned. We walked in front of the hospital, hired 3 motos to take us to Kélo, agreed on a price, and hopped on. 45 minutes to the bus stop in Kélo, no problem.
On the road to Kélo
The bus ride to N’djamena went smoothly as well, except for a few more stops than normal. So in total it took us about 11 hours to get from Béré to NDJ (it normally takes like 7). We didn’t really know what we were gonna do when we got there. Hopefully there would be a night bus that would at least take us in the right direction. There wasn’t. It was about 1am, so we slept on the ground at the bus stop. One lady took pity on me and gave her fabric skirt to use as protection from the mosquitos (she was wearing another one, don’t worry).
We woke up around 5am and started asking everyone where to find a bus towards Am Timan. After a few miles of walking and a few passport checks, we found this little hidden area of NDJ where lots of bus services were gathered. One guy was very excited to take us to Am Timan. Sweet! After waiting for a bit, we asked when he was leaving. “Maybe 11-12 or something.” That wasn’t gonna work, so we ran over to this other area where a big fancy bus was getting ready to leave for Abéché. That’s at least the right direction, we decided. We’ll just get off in Mongo and find another bus. As we were stepping on the bus, we got pulled aside and taken to this dark little room because they wanted to check our nationality, passports, visas, etc. I was a little worried because the bus was just about to leave. After waiting impatiently for a few minutes we glanced over and saw that all the guy was doing was writing down our names. But it was taking FOREVER. So Zach grabbed the pen, wrote our names, and we left. The bus was very nice, by Chadian standards. It was big and had air conditioning. WAY too much air conditioning. I was shivering!
As we left the outer limits of NDJ I started to get a perspective on what life is like for people in central/eastern Chad. Up until this point I had the mindset that Béré was pretty remote and isolated. But it became very apparent to me that Béré has a wealth of beauty and natural resources.
A typical village in central/eastern Chad. Taken from inside the bus.
Another town along the way
Notice the rocks in the distance. That was the first elevation I’ve seen!
There were actually some things that resembled mountains!
We passed many villages like this one
We arrived in Mongo about 5 hours later, at noon. The next task was to find a bus to Am Timan. After asking around we learned that the only thing we could do was ride in the bed of an old clunky pickup. We waited for 4 hours. Things don’t go anywhere in Chad until they’re full. Like FULL. The bed of the pickup was filled up past the roof level with stuff, and then like 20 more people got on top.
I didn’t take this picture, but it’s pretty much exactly the same
We had paid a little extra for one seat inside the cab, so we agreed that I would take that one since I was the smallest. I sat on the center console, sandwiched between the driver and another person who was supposedly “very important”. The shifter was basically in my butt and I had to put my feet on the dash and lift myself up whenever the driver wanted to shift. Super uncomfortable! The “very important” person only spoke Arabic, but the driver spoke French. So between the three of us we were able to make small talk. We passed several groups of camels, which I had never seen in real life before. Super cool!
This was taken from the inside of the pickup truck
It was about 6am when we finally arrived – 14 hours since we had begun the 250 km (150 mi) drive from Mongo. The next task was to figure out how to get from Am Timan to Zakouma. We asked around, but it seemed like everyone was working against us. The moto taxis were asking absurd prices to do the 50 mile trip, and the cars even more. We got super frustrated and created quite a stir. Eventually we just started walking toward a different part of town. We found some new moto taxis that didn’t seem to know about our little uproar and bargained our way down to something reasonable. Finally! We left around 7:30am and go to Tingo camp (the little resort where we had a reservation) at like 9:30am. We saw lots of camels and giraffes during the moto ride. The drivers got upset because they said that it was farther than they thought. We gave them a little extra.
The moto ride into Zakouma
So, it took us 36 hours to get from Béré to Zakouma. I think we spent about 16 of those hours waiting around. The police stopped us at least 15 times. But the sights in the park made it all worth it…
Hey! It’s been a very long time since my last post. There are many things that have been happening that I’ll talk about in some future posts. Right now, I’m at the beginning of a week-long trek around the country with my friends Zach and Adrian. Here’s the itinerary:
Motorcycle from Béré to Kélo
Bus from Kélo to N’djamena
Bus from N’djamena to Am Timan
Some unknown method of transport from Am Timan to Tinga camp in Zakouma National Park
2 days of safari adventures in Zakouma
Travel back to N’djamena the same way we came
Spend 1 day in N’djamena with fast internet!
Bus from N’djamena to Béré
Travel from Béré to Moundou (not sure how yet)
Return to Béré after 1 full day in Moundou
This trip is going to be a much-needed break from my usual work at the hospital. I’m planning to post some pictures when I’m back in N’djamena. Right now I’m sitting on the bus on the way to Am Timan in the east. I’m going to Moundou at the end of this trip because they want to start using a computer system like we now have in Béré. So I’m going to do a site visit and create a parts list that Dr. Scott (Olen’s uncle) can take to America in a few weeks. Then I’ll go back in April and install the network when they have the equipment.
Stayed tuned for some pictures and stuff in a few days. And please pray for safe travels!
Wings Like Eagles 