A Window on my World: 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.