Party time

Yesterday we had our team Christmas Party, which also doubled-up as my farewell party. We closed the office early and invited the staff and their immediate family to the compound for a lunchtime gathering. As this is Africa the 1.00 p.m. start time ended up being closer to 2.00 p.m. but that was actually earlier than I thought it would be...

Whilst we waited to begin the children enjoyed playing.

We then ate together.

Followed by the presentation of a farewell gift to me (photos of MAF in Chad in a typically Chadian leather frame) and the obligatory speeches.

And we finished by taking a team photo.

It was a lovely way to finish up my time in Chad. I'm going to miss these people...

Last week in Chad

As the title of this post gives away I have now entered my last week in Chad. I will leave N'Djamena next Sunday evening and arrive home on Monday. There are always a mixture of emotions when I finish an overseas assignment. Inevitably I am looking forward to being home and to reconnecting with family and friends but I am also sad to be saying goodbye to the people I have met - the colleagues I have worked with and the friends I have made. I always wonder if I will ever return or if our paths will cross again.

On Sunday I went to the International church for the last time and today was my last Ladies Bible Study meeting. There are a surprising number of ex-pats working here in a variety of roles - for mission organisations, for NGOs and for commercial companies and it has been good to meet and to get to know a number of them. Some, like me, come for just a short period of time although a surprising number are here long-term spending months and sometimes years learning the local languages and making Chad their permanent home.

In about an hour's time I will head out to the airport to meet a new family who are joining our team. This will be my last airport pick-up although I don't feel particularly sad about that as it is not one of my favourite things to do. The airport pass I get as part of my work gives me access to the baggage reclaim and immigration areas of the airport. Neither area is large enough to cope with the number of arriving passengers and so it is always a heaving mass of people pushing and shoving and shouting in a variety of languages. There is always a great sense of relief when you finally make it back out to the car park again.

Friday will be my last day in the office, although we are planning to finish early and have a special lunch with all the team and their families as a way of saying 'Welcome' to the new family, 'Goodbye' to me and 'Happy Christmas' to everyone.

On Saturday I am thinking about spending the day at the swimming pool at one of the hotels. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have done that here but as I will be returning to winter in the UK it might be a nice way to spend my last Saturday in Chad.

And on Sunday I will leave Chad for the last time. Or maybe not? My future plans are unknown but I have learnt to never say never as you really don't know what could be next...

Tragedy

It seems that almost every day of the week I hear of some difficult circumstance involving one of our Chadian staff - sickness, accidents, loss of or damage to their home and, all too frequently, sudden death. We only have 9 staff members so there are a lot of tough things for them to deal with and some of the situations seem more tragic than others.

Yesterday morning  I greeted Dieudonne as normal and asked how he was. He replied he was fine but then he hesitated and proceeded to tell me that the day before his neighbour had gone fishing with his six-year old son (and that's fishing as a means of earning some money, rather than as a leisure activity). The father and son were on the river bank sorting the big fish from the small ones when a black snake came out of the undergrowth and bit the boy on his leg. The father quickly killed the snake but within five minutes the boy started shaking and very soon afterwards he was dead.

Dieudonne was visibly upset as he told me this and asked if he could take the day off to attend the funeral. People here live very close together so he must know the family well. He has a son of his own who is just a little bit younger than this boy and I am sure he can imagine what it would be like to lose a child so suddenly.

My limited French only stretches as far as 'desole' (sorry), which is clearly an inadequate expression in such tragic circumstances.

I'm not sure I really have the words in English either.

Road Works

Since I returned to Chad in May of this year there have been on-going road works taking place in the streets around our compound. We live about 500 metres from a main road, in an area that is a maze of intersecting narrow streets. As is typical of large parts of Africa these are dirt roads – during the dry season they are rutted and full of pot holes and during the rainy season they become a muddy quagmire. It’s the reason why you really do need a 4 x 4 vehicle for city living – they are a necessity, rather than a status symbol.

The road works began earlier this year and have been gradually spreading throughout the neighbourhood. The work involves digging out the existing road to a depth of several metres and then packing the hole with layer after layer of sand. At the same time the storm drains that run along the sides of each road are being replaced. Huge concrete slabs are lowered into deep trenches and then they are sealed with concrete blocks. Then when that is completed layers of gravel are compacted over the sand to make a solid surface to the road and a kerb is put along the edges to stop people driving over the newly-installed storm drains.*

At this point I was expecting the ‘new’ road to be finished with tarmac but so far that has not happened. Instead the road works have continued on more and more streets and the new roads are already starting to deteriorate as they are unable to handle the heavy construction vehicles that drive along them all day long moving equipment and materials around.

A few weeks ago they also started working on the main road and so the challenge of getting out and about each day increased significantly as what was the main route in and out was no longer an option. Two signs have become a familiar sight – ‘Route Barrée’ and ‘Deviation’. I’d like to think that someone somewhere has a master plan of which roads they are working on at any one time, which will mean that there is always a way through but there is an increasing sense that one day all available routes may be blocked!

The thing we don’t really understand is why so much time, effort and money is being poured into repairing these roads. There is quite a bit of infrastructure development going on in the city at the moment but I would have thought there were higher priorities than the side roads in our neighbourhood. The only reason we can come up with is that there is also a new hotel being built close by. It is huge and the sign outside says it is going to be the N’Djamena Hilton Hotel. Maybe people who can afford to stay in such a fancy hotel cannot be expected to drive over rough unmade roads to get there…

* These new storm drains are potentially life savers. The old drains had fallen into such a state of disrepair that they were uncovered and so had become the receptacle for all the neighbourhood garbage, as well as the public toilet. This meant that when it rained the drains quickly became blocked and the deep water became a death trap in two ways. It quickly became stagnant and attracted mosquitos, increasing the incidence of malaria – a major cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa. And each rainy season you hear that small children have fallen into the water and drowned.

Shopping - Part 3

A new ‘import shop’ has opened in N’Djamena. You might not think that this is worthy of a blog post but, even for a ‘non-shopper’ like me this is an exciting event.

This shop is smaller than the other three main stores, that cater to the international and wealthy Chadian consumer but it is well stocked and has some positive features:

• Everything is clean and the goods are tidily stacked on the shelves in a fairly logical order (not necessarily a feature of all the shops here!)
• For quite a number of products the prices are slightly cheaper than the other shops. I guess time will tell if these are actually ‘opening offers’
• There is a larger selection of both cooked and frozen meats than any of the other shops and, surprisingly, this includes bacon – a rare commodity in this city
• One whole shelf is full of beer, wine and spirits, which is something the other shops don’t stock at all. Alcohol is available in the city – in restaurants and in local bars – but it is not something you see around you all the time
• An assistant carried my shopping basket around for me. I am not sure if this is a standard feature of their customer service or was just because she was bored.

They have yet to get a till so my bill was added up on a calculator and there was no receipt so I have to trust that they charged me correctly. Somehow this didn't seem so bad for what was a reasonably pleasant shopping experience (and pleasant and shopping are not words I naturally put together in the same sentence!)

A definite added bonus is that it has not yet been discovered by the street sellers and beggars so I was able to walk to and from my car without being followed by an assortment of small children and young men.

I shall certainly be going back there.  I suspect it will soon become a favourite shop of the ex-pat community but at the moment it is a bit of a hidden gem.

Public Holiday

Today is Eid al-Adah (or the Festival of Sacrifices). It’s the Muslim holiday that celebrates the provision of the ram when Isaac was almost sacrificed on the altar by Abraham and it is a public holiday in Chad.

I was a bit more prepared for this public holiday than I was for the last one, Eid al-Fitr, which celebrates the end of Ramadan and whose exact date is not decided until the sighting of the full moon. This year that festival fell on a Thursday and so, by some quirk of Chadian law that I didn’t fully understand, the Friday was also declared a holiday (maybe they take the US celebration of Thanksgiving on a Thursday, followed by a Friday holiday as their benchmark for this?). It also happened to be Independence Day on the Sunday and so the Monday was then declared a public holiday, meaning it should have been a five-day weekend. However, as none of this seemed to be known beforehand (we had to wait for it all to be confirmed on the radio the day before) I seemed to end up working pretty much as usual, albeit at a slightly slower pace.

Today has ended up being a bit the same. I was looking forward to the office being closed, to being able to do a few bits of essential work at home and then taking the rest of the day off. But then late yesterday afternoon we received a request for a flight today and so all our plans changed. I did manage a slightly later start to the day than normal, although the chanting and preaching from the local mosque was not particularly conducive to a long lie-in. I worked from home until just after lunch when I headed to the hangar to do the flight-following for the return leg of today’s flight.

As I left the compound there were a handful of men outside the neighbour’s compound praying (or washing prior to praying) on the mats they had lain on the ground. This is not something that they do there every day so I think they are also preparing for a big celebration this evening. Usually at that time of day the roads are busy – full of people on foot, bicycles and motorbikes or in cars, taxis and buses. But today the streets were practically deserted. The guards, who would normally check rigorously everyone’s ID as they enter the airport, just gave me a cursory glance and didn't bother to stir from the chairs that they had carefully positioned under the shade of a nearby tree. The usually bustling and chaotic freight area, which all imported goods must pass through, was eerily quiet. Our day guard seemed more bored than usual, without the other staff to talk to or the interruptions of visitors to the hangar.

On the drive home this evening there was a bit more activity than there had been earlier but it was still pretty quiet. Today is the day that many sheep are slaughtered as part of the celebrations and you often hear stories of the streets running with blood as this takes place in full view of anyone who may be passing. I certainly saw nothing like that today, although maybe I was driving in the ‘wrong’ parts of the city. To me it just seemed that N'Djamena was closed for the day.

Sleep

I have just woken up after a lovely long night's sleep in my 'own' bed. I was undoubtedly tired after an overnight flight the night before but there are other reasons I sleep better in the UK than I do when I'm in Africa.

1. It's cool. In N'Djamena at the moment the night time temperature doesn't get below about 25C and at the hotter times of year it probably doesn't get much below 30C.

2. It's quiet. To try and keep cool in Chad I sleep with a fan on. It's always a bit of a dilemma - am I kept awake by the heat or by the noise of the fan? Even with the fan on you can still hear all the other sounds of the African night - the frogs, crickets and dogs keep up a constant chorus throughout the night and then there is the early morning cacophony of the call to prayer, the cockerels and the goats.

3. It's dark. For security reasons our compound in N'Djamena has outside lights and although that makes us all feel a bit safer it does mean it is never really dark. The availability of thick material to make curtains is also pretty limited so it's hard to block out the light.

4. It's comfortable. When you do short-term assignments you tend to get the 'spare' bed and inevitably they have seen better days...

I am going to make the most of the next 17 nights in the UK!

Small things make a big difference

I arrived back in the UK today after nearly four months in Chad. There are always adjustments to be made when transitioning from one country to another but within a couple of hours of landing at Newcastle Airport I realised I may have become more Chadian than I imagined.

• I had to remind myself it probably wasn't acceptable to shake the immigration official by the hand and say 'Bonjour, ca va?'
• I picked up a friend's car and drove home. I remembered to drive on the left but had to focus in order to not drive straight onto a roundabout, expecting that the vehicles on the roundabout would give way to me
• I stopped at a shop to pick up some milk and a newspaper and as I got out of the car I instinctively looked around for the group of young girls wanting me to buy their bottles of peanuts
• My shopping came to £2.09 and as I handed over a £10 note I expected that the person serving me would a) give me an exasperated look, b) offer me some small sweets to make my bill up to a round figure, c) ask if I had the 9p and when I said 'no' he would d) hand me £8 change and make a big show of circling the 9p on the receipt to make sure I knew how generous he had been in reducing my bill because he didn't have any change
• When the man serving me gave me a handful of coins and apologised for not having any notes I found myself thanking him profusely and feeling a great sense of achievement that I'd managed to get small change
• I got home and decided to make a cup of tea. I looked around the kitchen for the water filter so I could fill the kettle
• When I washed up my cup I was surprised that there was hot water coming out of the tap

Living in another country is a myriad of small experiences, which added together make somewhere seem like a different world.

Humidity

The seasons in Chad go something like this:

• Windy / Dusty (January – March)
• Hot (April – June)
• Rainy (July – September)
• Humid (October)
• Cool * (November – December)

The months are only a rough indication and from year-to-year the actual start and end times of each season can vary by several weeks.

At the moment we are coming towards the end of the rainy season (it hasn’t rained now for over a week in N’Djamena, although one of our pilots had to fly around a big storm in the east of the country earlier this week) and the humidity levels are rising.

I think this is probably my least favourite season. The hot season is pretty intense with temperatures rising into the mid to high 40s C but it is a dry heat and air-conditioning, fans and cold showers make it possible to cool down a bit.

I find the high humidity levels (above 80% on some days according to the BBC weather website) drain my energy levels and make my head feel all fuzzy. Somehow the available ‘cooling devices’ don’t seem to have the same affect they have during the hot season.

There are other ways you can tell it’s humid:

• The laundry takes all day to dry, rather than the usual couple of hours
• Even though your clothes are washed, dried and ironed they still feel just that little bit damp when you take them out of the wardrobe
• Towels always feel slightly damp, never quite drying out between the morning and evening shower
• All the wooden doors are warped, which means that opening or closing a cupboard door involves a lot of effort and slamming
• The salt and pepper are damp so your meals are either under or over seasoned. Either you think you’ve seasoned the food but actually nothing came out when you shook the container or you shake extra hard and it all comes out in a mad rush making the food inedible

I’m glad that it’s the shortest season – for me it can’t end soon enough.

* This is a relative term – it’s ‘cool’ compared to most of the rest of the year but it’s actually quite ‘hot’ by UK standards.

Bemused by bureaucracy

I find that one of the biggest challenges of living in another country comes when I need to understand how any of its bureaucratic systems work. What are the regulations for immigration, visas, tax, social security, banking, driving, vehicle ownership, etc.?

I have always been fortunate to work alongside local people who patiently guide me through the various requirements and do a lot of the 'leg-work' to make sure both the organisation and the individuals are in compliance. Sometimes though you find that even they don't understand what is going on, which can be both reassuring and a bit alarming at the same time.

Last year I blogged about the process we had to go through to get all the vehicles checked and issued with a sticker which showed that all the paperwork was in order. I was aware that this sticker was dated 2012 so expected that at some point it would expire and we would need to go through the whole process again for 2013. I asked our Chadian staff on several occasions whether this was necessary and they kept telling me that the 2012 sticker was still valid.

We then heard, via the international grapevine that exists, that the police were embarking on a rigorous process of stopping vehicles and checking paperwork. Initially this was not a concern as we knew that our paperwork was in order but it then transpired that the annual checks needed to be re-done.

And so began another week where two staff spent the most part of every day trying to get the seven signatures that are required for each vehicle, which show that everything is in order. The first time they went they returned to the office very quickly as the police compound where this work is done was so full of vehicles that had been impounded for not having the right paperwork that it was impossible to get anywhere near the place. Then one day they came back after a few hours saying that they had waited for a while only to eventually be told that all the people who processed the paperwork were in a meeting for the day.

From what I hear the process sounds as chaotic and confused as it was last year but by Friday lunchtime we had received a 2013 'Fiche de Sortie' for each vehicle. For now that is one less piece of Chadian bureaucracy I need to try and understand, unless the requirements change again. Something I wouldn't like to rule out.

Life is Tough

This week there was fairly widespread media coverage of a report by the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) about a sharp increase in the number of malaria cases being treated by them in eastern Chad.

There is always a fairly high incidence of malaria at this time of year as the rainy season comes to an end and the mosquito population is at its height. This year though it does seem to have been particularly bad, with one of our Chadian staff describing the situation to me as an 'epidemic'. I was slightly cynical about that assessment at the time of the conversation because malaria (or 'palu' as it is known here) seems to be the default diagnosis whenever anyone is sick.

When I hear of someone who is sick I struggle to know how best to help them, as the 'system' they rely on for their health and well-being is so broken. Access to good and affordable healthcare is very limited and most people do not have the knowledge or understanding needed to question the diagnosis they are given. My own medical knowledge is not extensive but when I see that a 7 year-old boy has been prescribed eight different medicines at a cost to his family of £35 GBP (or $55 USD), which is about a third of his father's monthly salary, then I can't help thinking that something is very wrong.

And then you hear a story that just makes you realise how tough life really can be for some people. Like this week when one of our staff told us about her 'cousin' (exact relationship unclear as this is a bit of a catch-all title for a member of the extended family). He was a motor-bike taxi driver in the city and last week he disappeared. No-one knew where he was and he could not be contacted on his mobile phone. On Thursday of this week his family were told that his body had been found in Cameroon. He leaves behind a young wife and a small baby.

Sometimes there are just no words...

Rainy season

I am writing this as thunder rumbles in the distance and the rain pours down outside. It's the middle of the rainy season in Chad and a stark contrast to the hot season of just a couple of months ago. The country desperately needs the rain - it means the crops will grow and, maybe, not so many people will go hungry this year - but it also causes major disruption.

The rains usually start towards the end of June or the beginning of July and for the first few weeks the pattern will be of a heavy downpour for an hour or so one day and then it will not rain again for several days. As the year moves on into August the frequency and intensity of the rain increases and more and more it will rain for most of the day, with the heavy showers interspersed with lighter ones. The more it rains the more saturated the ground becomes and the inadequate drainage just cannot cope with the volume of water. Anywhere the ground is slightly lower than the surrounding area quickly becomes a lake and there are not enough dry days between the rainy ones for the water to go down.

Most people's homes are inadequate to handle the rain and it is all too common to hear that someone's roof has collapsed, their walls have fallen down or the water has caused a 'river' that has poured inside. There is more sickness at this time of the year as people live in damp and insanitary conditions and the pools of water provide an ideal breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquito.

If it rains first thing in the morning you can be sure that most people will be late for work. If they are not having to sort out the problems the rain has caused to their homes then their journey to work will have been disrupted by flooded roads or broken down transport. Or they just won't have wanted to leave home while it was raining so heavily because they don't possess the usual means to keep dry (raincoat, boots or an umbrella). In East Africa a common site during the rain is seeing someone with a plastic carrier bag on their head in an attempt to keep a bit dry. But plastic bags have been banned in Chad so even that is not an option here.

The rainy season does at least offer some respite from the intense heat of April, May and June. According to the BBC Weather website it is currently 30C, with expected lows this week of around 24C. Trust me - after 40C+ temperatures this actually feels cool!

The children who live on the compound probably enjoy the rain the most. Unencumbered by concerns about whether the roof will leak they put on their swimming costumes, or strip down to their underwear, and carry on playing outside, squealing with delight as they splash through the puddles and get completely soaked.

The view from my kitchen window this afternoon

The rain pours off the roof - guttering doesn't seem to exist in Chad!

10 things I did this week

When people ask me what I do and I say I am the Programme Manager some look at me rather blankly as if they have no idea what that entails. I sometimes add the explanation that ‘if something needs doing that doesn't involve fixing or flying an airplane then I will probably get involved in it at some point’.

So this week, among other things, I:

1.  Organised for the septic tank at the office to be emptied and for the broken manhole cover to be repaired (meaning we only have to experience the disgusting smell when it is being emptied and not every time we walk past it…)

2.  Started work on the 2014 budgets by doing some analysis of our year-to-date expenditure

3.  Discussed with the night guard the best way to disinfect the guard dog’s kennel following a visit by the vet to treat the dog for tics

4.   Had a long conversation with a member of staff about their poor time-keeping

5.   Agreed that the plumber should replace the leaking tap and shower in the guard’s hut

6. Checked all the transactions that made up July’s financial activities in preparation for sending the information to our head office in the UK early next week

7.  Worked with one of the pilots and the engineer on the initial plans for flying one of our planes to Kenya for essential maintenance that we can’t do here

8.   Went to the offices of the Civil Aviation Authority to have my photograph taken for an airport pass. The man with the camera was in a meeting so I will have to try again next week…

9.  Tried to figure out if the daily server backups are working as they should (they are!)

10. Received cargo from customers for flights taking place today and early next week

No-one could ever say that my work lacks variety…

A day out of the office

There is a hint of irony about the fact that I am currently working for an aviation organisation as flying in small aircraft is not something I enjoy doing. I have done it out of necessity when it is the best option to reach a remote destination but it is not something I would readily choose to do. My reasoning is:

• I am prone to motion sickness and in my experience the smaller the plane the bumpier the ride so why would I choose to do something that is more than likely to make me feel unwell?
• Most flights leave very early in the morning and I am not a morning person...
• There are limited (sometimes no) opportunities to use a bathroom, so I limit my intake of liquids. Consequently at the end of the day I am dehydrated and have a terrible headache.

Generally I prefer to keep my feet on the ground, supporting others as they fly people and essential equipment to hard to reach places. However, I am also aware of the fact that after being in Chad for just over 6 months last year and for two months, so far, this year that I have barely been out of the capital and that there is a lot more of the country to see.

So today I decided it was time to finally go on a flight. The C208 Caravan (the larger of our two planes with a capacity of up to 12 passengers) was going to Am Timan, with space to spare. Am Timan is nearly 600 km east of N'Djamena; a journey that takes more than 12 hours by road but a little over two hours by plane. The departure time was set at a civilized 08:30 a.m. and, I told myself that the Caravan is considerably less bumpy than the smaller 4-seat C182. We were taking three generations of an American family working in the area back to Am TIman after a few days in N'Djamena and they seemed happy for me to come along. Somehow I couldn't find a reason not to go...

The passengers had done a lot of shopping whilst in N'Djamena to take back with them as the availability of goods is very limited in the rural areas. By the time we had loaded the plane and the passengers had got through the bureaucracy and security at the airport it was closer to 9.30 a.m. but we eventually got airborne. We had a good (read 'smooth') flight to Am Timan albeit with a strong headwind, which meant it took us about 20 minutes longer than anticipated to reach our destination.

Pilot Bryan explaining to one of the passengers how to fly a plane!

There was great excitement on our arrival as both the local population and other ex-pat families came out to meet the plane. They all seemed so pleased to see us that we stayed on ground for about half an hour, chatting to everyone and letting the children sit in the plane.

On the airstrip at Am Timan

On the return journey there was just Bryan, the pilot, and me so I got to sit in the co-pilot's seat. I put on the spare headset and plugged it in so I could talk to Bryan during the flight and could also listen to all the radio conversations. We were making extra fast time back as, what had been a headwind on the way out, was now a tailwind, pushing us along at 180 knots.

About an hour from N'Djamena we noticed that the weather radar was showing some storms ahead. As we got closer to our destination the storms seemed to grow in intensity and the control tower at N'Djamena airport confirmed that it was raining there. I was starting to think that this was a situation where I would prefer not to have too much information but I knew I was in capable hands as Bryan has lots of experience of flying in all sorts of different weather conditions.

We diverted slightly from our original course in order to fly around the storms and as we got close to the airport we decided to circle around for about five minutes to allow the tail-end of the storm to pass over. As we bumped around I made sure I had a sick-bag close to hand but fortunately things calmed down before I needed to use it! We came into land just before 3.00 p.m. and two of the MAF team were waiting to meet us to tow us safely back to the hangar.

Coming into land at N'Djamena

I have ended the day with a massive headache (not enough water, not enough coffee) but I am glad I went. I have a new appreciation of the sacrifices some people make as they work in remote areas and I am again very thankful for the skills and abilities of our pilots.

Fuel shortages

Over the last few weeks there has been a shortage of diesel in N'Djamena. Like many oil producing countries in Africa Chad still lacks the investment and the infrastructure of a totally robust supply chain so such shortages are not unexpected (although they are thankfully relatively unusual).

A bit of a grapevine developed whereby word of which petrol stations had diesel would start to spread, which of course meant that very soon they too would run out. One day a colleague managed to fill up his car but when I went to the same petrol station a few hours later they were already out of stock again.

The biggest challenge was buying diesel for our generators, both at the hangar and at the compound. Power cuts are a daily occurrence so we rely on the generators for our electricity supply, particularly in the hot season when the city power can be out for several days at a time and the need to run fridges, fans and air-conditioning is at its greatest. Typically we will buy several 200 litre barrels of diesel at a time in order to give us a good reserve. However, despite our forward planning we soon found ourselves down to our last couple of hundred litres. This may sound a lot but it is quickly used up if we are without city power for a few days. For about a week I was sending one of our staff members out every day to tour the petrol stations to see if he could find one that not only had fuel but was also willing to sell us at least 200 litres. We limited the use of the generator for a while and managed to get by with fuel to spare and now it seems that the supply of diesel is back to normal again.

But this is Africa so just as you come through one challenge another one presents itself! On Tuesday we went to get fuel for one of the aircraft in preparation for a flight the next day only to be told that our usual supplier of Jet A1 (the type of fuel used for most aircraft) was out of stock and would not have any more for a week. Well, aircraft burn a lot of fuel, and despite having some reserves we would not have had enough for all the flights we had planned for the coming week so we made contact with the other supplier of Jet A1 at the airport to see if they could help us. It took a visit to their offices and several phone calls but eventually they said we could buy what we needed.

So we took the plane back to the place where the fueling is done at the airport and filled it up with Jet A1 using the same equipment and the same staff as if we had been buying from our usual supplier. The only difference seemed to be the company name on the invoice and who we wrote the cheque out to. All of which left us wondering if there really is a shortage of Jet A1 at all...

Another goodbye

One of the best parts of the work I do, as I spend time in different countries, is that I get to meet lots of great people from all over the world. Many of these people become good friends as we share the joys and challenges of working (and often living) together.

One of the worst parts of the work I do is that the time always comes to say goodbye. Sometimes I am the one who is leaving and sometimes it is others. When you work in an international community these goodbyes seem to happen fairly frequently.

Today we said goodbye to a MAF family who have been in Chad for almost 10 years. They have served faithfully through some difficult times and have gained the affection and respect of everyone they have come into contact with. They are going to be missed by many people.

As their plane taxied down the runway this afternoon on the first leg of their long journey back to their home country some of the MAF team stood on the apron outside our hangar and waved them goodbye.

I have no idea whether they could see us but somehow it made me feel better. This goodbye was hard.

Well, well, well...

I blogged last year about some of the challenges we had with water at our compound and it seems that this year the problems continue. Yesterday we realised that there had been no water coming in from the city for two days and that our underground tanks were nearly empty.

It is not unusual for the water to be off but it usually comes back again fairly quickly (the city authorities seem better at keeping the water flowing than the electricity, which is frequently off for days at a time). There is a lot of road construction taking place in our neighbourhood and we have heard of others nearby who have lost their water supply as a result so it seems as if it was only a matter of time until it happened to us.

Fortunately (although it didn't seem like it at the time) we had noticed an underground leak and so had called in Silas the plumber to take a look. When we told him that we currently had no water he suggested we should put in a well and offered to do the work today. The price he was asking didn't seem unreasonable and he said it would all be done in a day. As this would not only solve our short-term problem but also be a long-term investment for the compound I gave him the go-ahead and he set off to organise the equipment and the labour.

At 9.00 a.m. this morning seven men arrived in a battered Peugeot pick-up and started work. It seems that to find water you need to have water and so they first dug a large pit and a trench leading to the place where the well will be. They then took water from the kid's swimming pool and poured it into these holes. The only piece of mechanical equipment they have is a pump through which they pass this water in order to create the required pressure for the drilling. However, they turn the drill by hand - four men passing it round in a circle at high speed, whilst another holds the water pipe and the other two keep shoveling away the dirt that is being removed.

It's a long, hard days work in the hot sun as they drill down 45 metres before inserting the pipes and attaching the pump that will bring the water up from underground.

I have been reminded of my first assignment with Medair, when our teams of water engineers spent months drilling for water in South Sudan. They worked in a number of villages, drilling deep into the ground but each time failing to find water. We were starting to think we would have to change our strategy and find a different way to bring clean water to these communities when we finally struck water. The villagers were so excited that they killed a cow in honour of the Medair team and held a big celebration.

I don't think there will be any cow-killing going on at MAF today when the workmen are finished but we will certainly be relieved to have the water flowing again.

Life is fragile

The MAF compound in N'Djamena is in a very mixed neighbourhood. Within just a few blocks of our front gate there are several very large, modern houses (some with swimming pools) and a number of houses that have been turned into offices for government departments or NGOs. In between are plots that contain a multitude of small  'huts' made of rough bricks and corrugated roofing sheets, where the children (who play in the streets and wave enthusiastically as you drive pass) all live with their families.

Life is tough for these people, who are more typical of the average Chadian than those who live in the big houses. They have to collect their water from a borehole that is shared by many other families, they don't have electricity, when it rains their houses leak and the ground around them becomes flooded, the children don't seem to go to school, the men mostly work as day labourers (if they work at all) and the women carry most of the responsibility for the day-to-day running of the home.

Just after I arrived back in Chad a few weeks ago a few of us were driving out of our compound when we spotted a lady walking along the side of the road, with a baby strapped to her back. We recognised her as our neighbour, Sabine, from across the street. She smiled at us and we stopped the car to talk to her. The baby (who was about six months old and still very tiny) had been sick recently and one of the MAF team had visited the family and tried to help. It was unclear what was wrong with the baby (a common situation in a country where good medical care is hard to find, especially for the poorest people) and although he had been in hospital Sabine said he was now much better.

When I left for the office yesterday morning there were a number of men sitting on mats outside the neighbour's compound. This gathering of people, who arrive early in the morning and stay until after dark, usually signifies that a rite of passage is taking place - a birth, a naming, a marriage or a funeral.

I heard later in the day that it was in fact a funeral. Sabine's baby had died the night before and the extended family had come to mark his passing. Life here is fragile.

The River *

The list of ‘things to do with your leisure time in and around N’Djamena’ is a fairly short one.

There is the French patisserie where you can go for coffee, cakes and a light lunch. There are a few reasonably nice restaurants (food is edible and not too expensive). There are two hotels where you can pay a day rate to use the swimming pool. And there is the river.

During my time in Chad last year I experienced all of these except the trip to the river so when some of the other MAF families said they were going there last Sunday I decided to go as well.

In the end all of the international families went along – we piled into three vehicles and headed south out of N’Djamena. We drove for about 45 minutes on good tarmac roads and then at a point that seemed devoid of any road markings we came off the main road onto a dusty track. We followed this past a small mosque and some houses, where children were either playing in the dust or lazily watching their goats, and then struck out across a sandy landscape.

When we could just see the river in the distance we parked up under some trees and bundled out of the vehicles. The ground between where we were parked and the river was mostly soft sand so we thought it wise not to drive on it. Instead we gathered our assorted picnic items together and started walking towards the river.

This was an ideal opportunity for me to get my camera out (unlike in the city, where taking photographs is discouraged). So as this blog has been somewhat devoid of photographs recently here is the story of the rest of the afternoon in pictures.

Keep walking - the river is over there somewhere...

Made it! Time to paddle in the water...

... and watch out for passing boats.

There might be a storm coming...

It's a sand storm

But what a beautiful sunset.

* ‘the river’ is the Chari, which flows north from the Central African Republic, through N’Djamena and into Lake Chad.

Changes

I've been away from Chad for six months and inevitably some things have changed in that time. Some of the more obvious changes that have struck me in my first week include:

• Major road repair to the streets around our compound. What used to be pot-holed dirt roads are slowly being transformed in to smooth tarmac (although the tarmac has not yet appeared). No-one is quite sure why these side roads have been singled out for this improvement and although it's quite disruptive now, with lots of diversions in place, it will make a huge difference when it is finished.

• Increased security around the airport. Since the Chadian army and the French military based in Chad became involved in the situation in Mali security in N'Djamena has been tightened up. There are three roads that lead to the airport and you used to be able to drive freely on any of them. Now two of them have been blocked off and all access to the airport is through a police checkpoint about 200 metres away from the main terminal building. As the MAF hangar and office is at the airport this means that I have to pass through this checkpoint each day to get to work. This involves slowing down enough to show the policeman my MAF ID and I am then waved through.

• A reversal of the law, passed last year that required motorcycle users and their passengers to wear a helmet. It is now against the law to wear a helmet - a measure introduced so that any members of Boko Haram who may try and cross the border from Nigeria can be easily identified.

• A second branch of the most popular 'import shop' (think small neighbourhood mini-market like Spar) called Modern Market has opened on the main street. This is very exciting to an ex-pat in a city where the number of such shops can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

And some things have not changed - it is still as hot as ever, the driving is still as crazy, the internet is still painfully slow and the supply of electricity and water is still erratic. Welcome back!

Back to Chad with a bump!

My return to Chad last Sunday evening was something I won't forget in a hurry. Once on board the Air France flight from Paris to N'Djamena the Captain came on the public address with the usual introductions and information. He said that the weather in N'Djamena was currently 33C and stormy. I thought this was unusual as May is the height of the hot season so I was expecting it to be warmer and without any storms.

I thought no more of it until the turbulence started about 30 minutes away from N'Djamena. This must be the storm! The bumpy ride continued as the cabin crew prepared for landing and the wheels went down. I suffer from motion sickness on bumpy flights so by this point I had my eyes closed and was focusing on retaining my in-flight meal. We were about to land when suddenly the descent turned into a rapid ascent - it felt like being on a roller-coaster and some of the passengers screamed out in a mixture of surprise and fear.

A few minutes later one of the cabin crew came on the public address to say that the Captain would make a announcement soon as to the reason for the aborted landing. However, it would seem that talking to the passengers was not the primary concern of the Captain at this stage as he attempted another landing, only to pull up again. This second attempt again elicited more screams from the nervous passengers and shouts of 'Signeur' ('Lord').

The Captain now made his promised announcement. The quality of the PA system was not great and he spoke English with a heavy French accent but I thought he said there was an obstruction on the runway. In retrospect I don't think this can be the case (maybe I was hearing what I wanted to hear - an obstruction can be managed and moved, a storm cannot!). He explained that we were now going to land using a different runway. This didn't reassure me as it might have done at a larger airport as I was pretty sure there is only one runway at N'Djamena!

If anything the third attempt was even bumpier than the previous two and equally as unsuccessful. By this time all I could think about was the Air France flight that plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean a few years ago and whether or not I was ready to meet my Maker! The cries from the passengers were even louder and I put the quality and strength of the airline's sick bag to the test...

The Captain now informed us that we were going to circle for a while to allow the storm to pass and tried to assure us that when we eventually landed 'it will be safe'. We circled for about half an hour during which time the cabin crew tried to reassure the passengers that all would be well and everyone seemed much calmer as we started our fourth descent.

It wasn't quite as turbulent, although you could still feel the tension in the air, and when the wheels finally hit the tarmac there was clapping and cheering!

News of the dramatic landing seems to have spread throughout N'Djamena and I have been asked about it several times. It rates as one of my least favourite experiences but it seems to make a good story now...

Back to Chad

It is just over a year since I first went to Chad and this coming Sunday (26^th May) I am returning there again. I have been back in the UK since the end of November waiting for, undergoing and recovering from some surgery. The waiting was a bit frustrating but the surgery went well and although the recovery seemed long and slow I am now feeling well enough to return to Africa.

I shall be taking up the role I was doing last year – that of Interim Programme Manager for Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) in Chad. Finding a long-term manager for the programme has proved harder than was originally anticipated so there is still a gap that needs to be filled and I have agreed to cover the job until just before Christmas.

It is an unusual situation for me to be going back to a place I have been before and it is nice to think that I already know most of my team mates (although there have been some new staff whilst I was away), can picture where I will be living, have already experienced the sweltering heat and can find my way around the city. However, it also means that I know about all the things you can’t get in N’Djamena and consequently I seem to have gathered a lot of ‘stuff’ to take with me. I’m anticipating that when I pack on Saturday I will have to make some decisions about what is really important…

Where I'll be

I'm also hoping to return to more regular blogging so watch this space...

World Immunisation Week

This week is World Immunisation Week - an initiative of the World Health Organisation, which aims to promote vaccines as one of the most powerful tools available for good health.

I have yet to see this featured in the mainstream UK media, in contrast to the widespread coverage that has been given to the on-going measles outbreak in South Wales. To date there have been over 800 reported cases of measles with 77 people requiring hospital treatment. Special clinics are now being held to vaccinate those children whose parents had previously decided not to have them immunised and there is much debate about the pros and cons of childhood vaccinations.

The reality is that vaccines save lives and I have been privileged to work for two organisations that are involved, in different ways, in delivering this life-saving health care in Africa.

MAF frequently fly vaccines and health workers into remote areas, which would otherwise take days to reach by road. This is a crucial part of the 'cold-chain' as it is necessary for the vaccines to be kept cold, if they are to be usable when they reach their destination. Keeping anything cold in the heat of countries like Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo or South Sudan is a huge challenge and so speed of delivery is key.

Medair send the health workers to the remote communities with the vaccines, where they train local people to travel from village to village where they ensure as many children as possible are vaccinated. It requires dedication and perseverance to reach some of these people but the effort is well worth the reward of lives saved.

To read the story of just one of these vaccination campaigns click here. 

What do you do all day?

This is a question I have often been asked whilst I have been recovering from surgery. So here are some of the more memorable TV programmes, movies and books I have enjoyed over the last couple of months.

Homeland (Series 2). A gripping story of America's 'war on terror' with many unexpected twists and turns. It keeps you on the edge of your seat right to the very end (provided you can get through the bad language and 'scenes of a sexual nature').

Borgen (Series 1). You have to concentrate on this subtitled Danish-language political drama but it's worth the effort. A fascinating depiction of coalition government, the relationship between politicians and the media and the impact of power (and the pursuit of power) on someone's personal life.

Miranda (Series 1 - 3). Daft but fun sitcom from Miranda Hart that makes me laugh out loud.

The Help. I'm usually reluctant to watch a film of a book I have enjoyed but this is a good adaptation of the novel by Kathryn Stockett. The main characters (and particularly the help) are portrayed with dignity and humanity.

The Artist. An easy to watch film (no complex dialogue to follow!) as a star of the silent screen tries to come to terms with the change that the new talking movies are bringing.

Beasts of the Southern Wild. Fantasy drama about a little girl struggling to survive in the harsh conditions of poverty-stricken southern USA.

The Descendants. It's a George Clooney film - what's not to like...?!!

Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I read this after I had seen the film and both are great in different ways. The film is visually stunning in the same way that the book beautifully describes the story of a teenage boy ship-wrecked with just a Bengal tiger for company. 

Swahili for the Broken-Hearted by Peter Moore. This story of one man's journey from Cape Town to Cairo is not the best travel book I've ever read but it did take me back to Africa for a short while.

The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson. A fun story of one man's long and event-filled life told in a series of flashbacks after he goes on the run from his own 100th birthday party.

If you haven't already seen or read any of these it's worth finding some time for them. Enjoy!