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.
