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...
