SOCKBALL...a light read

Here are some recent pictures of the big Dogdore Sockball Championship. Team Anglophone Funny Looking White Guy VS. Team Dogdore. Needless to say, I kicked some 8 year old butt! Kids...ppphhht.


THE CROWD OF ORNERY ONLOOKERS GATHERS, ROOTING FOR THE HOME TEAM. LITTLE DID THEY KNOW, TEAM SISSY HEAT SENSITIVE FUNNY LOOKING WHITE GUY HAD A PERSONAL SOCKBALL VENDETTA.





STEP ONE...THE RULES OF THE GAME. Discussing the RULES and REGULATIONS with the competitors, they didn't stand a chance!:



STEP TWO...FINDING THE GAME BALL. I present to you, The COMPETITION (sock)BALL :



STEP THREE...MERCILESS SOCK BALL ACTION AGAINST THE UNSUSPECTING CHILDREN OF DOGDORE! Wusses!



STEP FOUR...MUTUAL CELEBRATION AT THE FACT THE WHITE GUY DIDN'T DIE OF HEAT STROKE WHILE MERCILESSLY PUMMELING THE UNSUSPECTING CHILDREN OF DOGDORE AT COMPETITION SOCKBALL!


A GOOD DAY.

Eat this Hallmark!

This is the post that is the post I never thought I'd be writing, at least to all of you from Chad. But so it goes, life defies us, and often times when it does, it's something beautiful:

A while back, oh, let's say about 3 days after arriving in the luxurious wonderland that is Chad, I was dragged along on a 'training' flight by our (now ex) French Chief Pilot. He had me sit in the back as we flew a rotation to the north, so that I might just see how things were done on a regular, daily basis. We visited the lovely towns of Bahai, Iriba and then finally Guerada, before returning to Abeche. Upon our arrival in Guerada (the warring faction capitol of Eastern Chad) Monsieur Peuvion handed me the passenger manifest and instructed me to go practice my incorrigible French with the awaiting NGO passengers.

I walked towards the crowd of dusty, anxious looking onlookers with the paper in hand, scanning it looking for a name I could actually pronounce. Mahammat Ahmet Muhammed, Ndjkour Hissembbkabye, Nelebaye Djimbe Kjousmanete, shit...

Finally I hit on one...Elizabeth Spess. Nationality: American. Organization: CCF.

Alright! I was relieved to find an American on the list, someone who spoke English and whom I could relate to. I checked in the first phonetically impossible individuals, and finally came back to the Elizabeth Spess name, yelled it over the humdrum of ensuing Francophone conversation, and watched as the beautiful girl with really wacky looking sunglasses approached. She didn't smile, she just handed me her American Passport.

"Hi there. So where are you from, Elizabeth?", I matter asked making small talk.

"America.", was the response.

"Umm, yeah, I got that much thank you. Really though, where are you from?"

"Aah, Abeche?" she quasi-question-stated.

"Ok, look, I know you're not a native Chadian, and I know you are from the United States, because you handed me a large blue passport that says United States of America all over it. So, more specifically, where are you from in the United States of America? How bout you just give me a State...I know most of them...I swear"

"Michigan...well, New York."

Who is this girl? And why won't she give me a straight answer to a ridiculously easy question. CIA? NSA? IDIOT?

I harassed her a bit more before handing her the pen and allowing her to sign in the space allotted. One more passenger was checked in and then I was allowed the joyous pleasure of screening all those I had just checked in with the metal detector. This can sometimes be a great time. You wave the detector over a pocket and it beeps. You stop and look at the individual inquisitively, they smile. You make it beep again on the pocket. They smile again. You pat the pocket, before making it beep. They pat the other pocket and smile. "Argh...what's in your bloody pocket?????!?"

So when it came to Elizabeth Ann Spess's turn, she beeped all over. Knives here, bullets there, a grenade(which we do not count as a weapon, because the Chadians argue they are not all the time. They even think it's funny when we point at the picture of a gun with a X over it. "silly white guy...that's a gun, this is a grenade!"), more knives...Ok, I'm kidding. Little did she know though, there's also a button on the metal detector that makes it beep whenever one feels like making it beep. He..he..he.

The flight back we shouted to each other over the hum of the Otter's low pitched engines and air whistling by. I learned she was from Saginaw, Michigan originally, and then spent the past few years in New York City. She had lived and worked all over the world which intrigued me, and she had a nice ass, which intrigued me equally. My voice became hoarse, and soon we reached Abeche which ended the introductory conversation.

Well, I won't bore you with too many more details here and we'll fast forward to last week, more accurately Valentines Day. It was hot, really, really freaking hot...about 47 degrees Centigrade actually. We finished early and Elizabeth and Asa (pronounced Oh-sa) came over mid afternoon to use the internet and so that I might talk to Elizabeth about something that'd been pestering my consciousness. I hemmed and hawed and made all sorts of really weird noises and motions. I asked repeatedly whether Elizabeth might want to go for a walk or go to the market for something. She questioned whether I'd taken up a drug addiction. Finally I succeeded at dragging her for a walk outside the razor wired compound in the 115 degree Fahrenheit blazing sun...and what a beautiful walk it was. 'Oh, look, a goat skull honey!....Mmm, still stinky too!'

I hemmed and hawed some more, and finally came to a resolute decision...in a clearing 1 Chadian block away from my compound, I sat her down on a crumbling mud brick wall. The lizards scattered and the plastic bags rustled in the faint breeze that did little to cool our smoldering bodies. I looked around for onlookers...none. I listened for onlookers...nothing. There was nothing but the sound of scampering lizard claws, the occasional rustle of the Chadian National Flower (plastic bag) and a slightly eerie sounding Arabic tune wafting in from some mud hut who knows where. I knelt down.

"Elizabeth Ann Spess, will yo.....THWUMP!!"

A large dirt ball blew up next to me, followed by a chorus of laughter from a group of 40 or 50 children and adolescents nearby. Next came the tsunami of Cadeaux (gift en francais) requests, as the mob of ragged kids came running at us. I shoved the object in my hand back down into my pocket. The inquisitive group arrived and I had to answer many questions in broken French as to why I, a white guy, was out walking around in these ornery 8yr. olds' soccer fields, with a white woman, nonetheless. 'Ooooooh' washed over the crowd about the time that one of them made a kissy face and imitated me making out with Elizabeth. I got sucked into a quick game of soccer with the duct taped soccer ball they had brought over before Betsey and I were allowed on our way. More laughter at the kid making the obscene kissy faces....I swore revenge on the boy.

We arrived back at the romantic retreat compound and I, for some reason, decided that it still must be done. So, on the hood of a broken down vehicle I sat Elizabeth, in the blazing Sahel sun, once again. The generator gurgled and burped next to us, belching noxious black smoke our way. We were sweating profusely and neither had showered for at least 2 days. We both, in all likeliness, stunk enough that we did not smell each other. The growing mass of yelling kids still sat outside the metal gate and our guard was growing irritated with the attention that we had garnered. The wind quit making feeble attempts to stir the air, and so she sat and baked non convection style as I slowly kneeled again.

And in this extremely romantic fashion, and in this extremely romantic place, while we both looked so beautiful and smelled even better....I asked her to marry me. And she said yes. Obviously the effects of heat stroke were beginning to affect her decision making.

Sudanese 'Strategery'

Everyone screws up here and there...everyone. No matter how perfectionist, how focused, how inspired, impressive, or impeccable, sooner or later the individual or individuals will balk, and screw the proverbial pooch. That's why I had to laugh the other day, in a sick, twisted kind of way, when I heard about how those silly, genocide crazed, ethnic cleansing enjoying, blissfully bloodthirsty Sudanese Air Force bombers, working in conjunction with ground militias and (most likely) the Janjaweed, kinda pulled a 'oopsy'.

In Bahai, over the past couple of months, it's been a recurring and common knowledge problem that the Sudanese Air Force, on their day to day bombing runs, trying to eradicate the opposing rebels (who for some reason don't agree with this whole genocide thing), and the opposing rebels' supply routes, have time and time again crossed over the border into Chad. In our morning security briefings it is sometimes thrown in for good measure, and it often arises at UNHCR security meetings orchestrated for the other NGOs, that these aircraft have been sighted again doing these illegal maneuvers and have scared the bejeezes out of a bunch of already paranoid and vulnerable refugees. For its part, and on a different note, I believe the UN has failed to follow it's own rules when dealing with international refugees by leaving them in a camp only about 1 mile from the country that wishes to wipe them off the face of the planet. But anyway...

So on this particular, shining morning, not too long ago we got another report of the mischievous, trespassing Sudanese at it again. This time it came with a sad twist for quadruped lovers around the world.

It would seem that the airplanes came in and targeted a large area just to the east of Bahai, in an effort to accomplish what I had mentioned above regarding the rebels. They bombed and bombed and bombed to their little hearts contents, and then bombed some more for good measure. The dust and smoke mixed together and blew around, presenting the already sand storm prone area with even more condensation nuclei to lower the visibility. The dust settled (a bit) the smoking craters, barely discernible from the rest of the void sand box around, quit smoking. The ground forces moved in to count the dead and review the carnage.

For it's part the government of Sudan on this particular day did a lovely job using it's bombs to kill a total of 142 rebel....(drum roll please!).... goats! Damn terrorist goats, newest members to the international axis of evil. The bombing did produce countless more happy soldiers, however, with the abundance of fresh and piping hot brochettes. Pass the pepper Mahammat, s'il vous plait. Mmm, mmm, good. Strategery at it's finest!

Battin Zero

When the phone rings at 5am, its not a welcome noise to me. And so it was last weekend when at 515 or so my little Nokia began singing electronically to me. First instinct: grab the alarm clock and stare absent mindedly at it trying to gauge just what is happening here. Second instinct: grab the phone and answer.

"aaaarggh, Hello?"
"Jesse, this is Joseph with IRC in Bahai, aaaahhh, look, go back to bed..."

With those last 4 words that tumbled out of this man's mouth came a wave of relief for a brief moment. Excellent, I get to crawl back into bed and cuddle up to her again for another hour and a half. The relief was soon drowned in a flood of guilt.

The evening before, while Lauren and I were at the French military base rubbing elbows with the Francophone elite, quietly making fun of them and their silly short shorts, I received a call from Sheri at IRC (International Rescue Committee) . She stated that one of her Bahai based employee's children, a small boy, had been caught in a grease fire at one of the camps. He suffered serious burns and required immediate evacuation in the morning...could we help? Definitely, you know we can always be counted on for such things (a statement I soon wondered if I should regret). A plan for an early flight to pick up the child and his mother was completed and my sleep would be greatly reduced, a miniscule tradeoff.

"...yes, go back to bed, the boy is dead. Thank you for your help though, we greatly appreciate it."

What kind of monster am I to have the first wave of emotions after learning of an innocent child's death be: 'Sweet, I get to go back to bed.'?

A few days later IRC called in yet another Medevac request from Bahai, this time for a young man with a perforated abdomen. We were exhausted from flying nonstop for 6 days, moving from our old house to the new one, and sorting out personnel problems but we said 'no problem' again. Upon arrival the young man, about 21 years old, looked at me with anguish contorted eyes. A primitive IV bag lay on the colorful mattress we loaded him in on, and he smelled of sweat, urine and feces mixed with isopropyl alcohol and iodine. His father, an elderly man in his 60s, with a Sahel sun wrinkled face and deep brown eyes, watched helplessly as we tied the son down gently and began closing the doors. Every small movement we made seemed to send the otherwise staunch and emotionless face of the young man into an abyss of pain. I taxied slow down the gravel and rock airstrip to a spot where the piling sand dunes make it to bumpy, turned around and took off. One hour later, after flying as gently as possible over the arid desert below we landed in Abeche. Ten minutes later, the young man was dead.

Yesterday, after flying to the north yet again, making our rounds thru Bahai, Iriba and Guerada, and evacuating unnecessary UNHCR staff from Guerada due to the escalating tribal vs. militia warfare we returned home to our compound to have lunch. Five minutes after the feast of PB and J began my phone rang. Guess who. The number on the caller id told me it was a satellite phone, and I could think of only one reason why someone from the field would be calling me on their sat phone right now: another Medevac. Answering with a mouth full of crunchy peanut butter (an absolute jewel of a novelty here), my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth, I heard Sheri again on the other line. Sounding as if she was standing in a hurricane, she shouted thru the microphone piece that they were treating a fourteen year old boy who had, very unfortunately, found a landmine. It seems there are a few unexploded devices left in the dunes along the Chadian-Sudanese border left over from a war 20 years ago which the Libyans played a major role in. Back to Bahai.

When we landed the IRC trucks pulled up to the double doors at the Otter's rear. The Land Rover's doors opened up revealing a boy who looked as if he were 10, not 14, who was bundled in bloodied bandages. His face was torn and swollen, his hands and feet were just wadded clots of red gauze.

'He may not make it' one man said in broken English as we gently loaded the fragile cargo onto the airplane. I noted the pool of blood sloshing on the plastic stretcher and agreed silently in my head. Seven months ago my head may have been spinning at the amount of gore that lay in front of me, and while I cannot say I am in immune to it, my skin has thickened. Another weather beaten old man climbed the flimsy aluminum stairs to join us onboard as we all stared at the unfortunate boy, it was the father. From a lasting side glance I took in the man's expression and found that he too, was Chadianized.

The day before, while refueling the aircraft in Abeche, I was joking with one of our employees, Remy, about a certain love potion root he was chewing on, a renowned Chadian aphrodisiac. "Why are you chewing that dirt covered shit???" I asked.

"Aah, to make jiggy-jiggy with his femme! To make more petit Remys!" answered Deni, another local worker standing beside him. We all laughed and took cheap shots at Remy.

"But you already have 2 Remy! Why have more????!! Why do you want anymore than that?"

"Ooh, aah, because you have two annnnnd one die, you have only one. You have tree or four and one or two die, you still have two. Its ok."

Cold statistics. Something that our ancestors living 150 years ago thought about while living on the frontier, but that none of us in the westernized world can truly fathom.

I watched the father as he sat down next to his bloodied boy. A look of concern was in his eye, there was no doubt of that, but that was all I could visibly discern. In a land where death is all around, potentially waiting around each corner for those who call this home, thick skin is a must, and looking at things from a cold statistical point of view might be the only way to survive. Physically and emotionally.
I awoke this morning to another early phone call. This time it was Elizabeth, who was suffering from a nasty bout of food poisoning. I dressed quickly and hopped in the car, loaded with a bottle of Ciproflaxin and some re-hydration salts aimed at fixing the girlfriend. When I neared her compound I had to slow and stop as a Muslim funeral procession crossed the road in front of me. Carried atop the heads of a few mourners was a small coffin, bound for the sand nearby.

Shit, I'm 0 for 3.

W.B.S. = J.E.S.S.E.

It would appear that if a vote were held worldwide, after learning of my not so fearless actions the other evening, I would surely be adorned with the honorary title of "World's Biggest Sissy". Yep, that'd be me, sorry Dad.

My trip home went well, for the most part. It was bittersweet in an odd way. I went to Rhode Island, the tiny, flat, yet family inhabited New England state that kept up with its dreary winter reputation and rained most of the time I was there, reminding me of why I moved away 8 1/2 years ago. It was great to see my family and a few friends while there, but my sense of home is elsewhere now, migrated west, and I couldn't help but continuously thinking "God this weather blows". Clearing customs on New Year's Eve in Boston I walked out into an airport arrival hall filled with some of the finer things in life: Starbucks Coffee, Taco Hell, Manchu Wok, my Mom, and Elizabeth. It was an emotional welcome back into the "free" world. Elizabeth came from Michigan to visit for a few days and I was excited to have the opportunity to show her around a bit here and there, though even that was a bit depressing...

"Ok, if you look out there babe, and if it wasn't rainy and foggy, and sleeting and blowing 35 knots, you'd see the Beavertail Lighthouse, as it is only 30 feet in front of us right now I believe...oooh I think I just saw it's flash thru the mist...can you hear it now?"
"Yep, I sure can....oooh, its so pretty Jesse. I can almost imagine what it looks like."
"I know, I know, its amazing huh!?"

That basically left us to taking stupid pictures.



All in all we made the best of it and had a good time. My family is doing well and my brother is getting too many requests for interviews from too many top Veterinary Colleges that I'm left feeling like the dunce of the family. Thanks Nick. There was much gluttony, beer consumption and rainy day napping.

On one of the last few days of my visit home I woke up in the middle of the night to a pain in my leg. Scratching revealed that a tiny deer tick was lodged in my calf, which I quickly removed and went back to sleep. The next day the bite was swollen and infected, and even later in the afternoon I developed unbelievable heartburn, causing pain even when I drank a glass of water. A doctor prescribed me Amoxicillin at my persistent request, as I thought for sure, and with good reason, this was round two for me with Lyme's disease. The vile, horse sized, pink pills went down the hatch repeatedly, and for 4 days I got worse and worse. I spent a day in Michigan with Elizabeth and her family focusing the whole time on just staying conscious, and wishing she'd find some reason to just deny my ability to get on the Africa bound airplane that night, and keep me there. I even went so far as to begin daydreaming about getting mugged and losing my passport to a thieve outside of Detroit. Aah, yes, its good to have a dream. But Elizabeth failed to come up with a halting reason to keep me there, and no masked mad man in a cape came and violently demanded my passport and cash in a silly French accent. Thanks for nothing to both of you!

One nice January evening in R.I.


So I hopped...actually sluggishly crawled aboard Northwest Flight 50 bound for Paris on Thursday night and began what I hope will be the most painful flight I ever have to experience. I'm sure I had the flight attendants concerned when, shivering uncontrollably, I asked them to turn up the heat while I was wrapped in my winter jacket, a scarf, mittens (thank you Jen!), a hat, and 4 blankets. Everyone else wore short sleeve shirts and I cursed them silently for it. I resolved to drug myself up with sleeping pills and pain relievers, something I never do, and tried, and tried and tried to fall asleep. (Someone ring the big red annoying buzzer please.) Sleep did not visit Jesse that night, instead a fat, hairy black man did, who Jesse feverishly contemplated killing when he pushed Jesse's feet off the seat next to him. Killing someone seems like such a great way to make you feel better when you're sick like that.

Nine hours later we landed in Paris and the drugs, coupled with sickness and sleep deprivation, finally kicked in. I swayed and wobbled thru the people and corridors, practically seeing double, until I got to somewhere close to my gate. I found an empty seat and collapsed, sleeping for almost 5 hours, waking up only, and thankfully, to the sound of my flight's boarding call, finding myself being cautiously regarded and stared at the way 'the bearded man-eating lady from Borneo' might be due to the large pool of drool I'd generously deposited on the seat where my head lay. A "Sorry ladies, he's taken!" sign would have come in real handy. To ice the cake, I was handed the last middle seat between two stinky guys for the 6 hour flight back down over the Sahara to the oh-so-inviting quasi state of Chad.

I slept fitfully that night and woke up late to the ladies arriving in N'djamena with the Otter to pick up groceries, money and me, and was greeted with Georgiana's endearing words of "Wow, you look like shit!". Thanks, its nice to see you too.

My head continued to threaten explosion, my face swelled like a chipmunk (which seemed to kinda turn the monkey on...hmm) my joints ached and my knees gave out at one point causing me to feign a random shoe retying in the middle of our living room. Needless to say, I was in pain and not having fun, wishing I was still in someone's arms. I resolved to take the Malaria Self Test, and disappeared into my room with it.

After struggling to comprehend the directions for what seemed like hours, I finally worked out the complex sequence of events: 1. Prick finger, 2. Drop blood in tiny hole, 3. Wait 15 minutes for two red lines to appear or not appear. No problem.

Wrong. Enter Worlds Biggest Sissy. Even though I felt like I was on the verge of spontaneous combustion, and that my eyes were just itching to try things on their own and pop out of my head, my pansy-ass could not bring itself to prick a significant hole in my finger. For 20 minutes I pricked away at each finger of each hand with a safety pin, just deep enough to make a hole, but not deep enough to draw more than a fleck of blood. When this failed I moved to my arm, first my bicep then my forearm. Then came the back of my hand. I was on the verge of frustrated tears when I had an epiphany...a beam of light burst thru the ceiling and a falsetto chorus sang somewhere nearby. I remembered that I always cut myself shaving, always, and that surely I could get enough blood from that. I ripped off the blankets and hit the bathroom, shivering and shaving as recklessly as I could, hoping my jittery hands would cause a cut deep enough to garnish the much needed home lab sample. It hurt like hell, mainly because in my frenzy I forgot shaving cream, but regardless, January 13th, 2007 marked the first day in his 27 year history that Jesse Archambault has not cut himself in any way, shape or form, while shaving. Depression set in.

A last ditch attempt, to find in the emergency kit, something sharper and more sturdy that I could mount to the wall and impale myself on revealed a hypodermic needle buried beneath band aids. Two minutes later I had the blood sample, and fifteen minutes after that I had the answer: NEGATIVE. Damn! Damn, damn, damn! If I had the energy I’m sure I would’ve punched something. I suddenly had the urge to kill that guy on the airplane again.

Further research revealed that the 'Fisher Price do it at home' kit tested for only one type of malaria, the Plasmodium (P.) falciparum
strain, but that 2 others, the Plasmodium Vivax
and Plasmodium givajessedachills strains existed. After consulting with the French base doctor, the women here and of course, Not Lloyd it was decided that I have one of the other strains and should immediately begin treatment before possible liver damage or worse occurred. I was more than happy to oblige.

About 12 hours after taking my first crazy-toxic, kill all the critters in you bloodstream pills, I noticed an extreme improvement. The drugs made me a bit woozy and lightheaded, though it could have been the heroine I was still doing. Soon I found myself no longer taking 14 Advil a day to prevent my eyeballs from popping out of my head and recovered much of my strength. Long story short, I'm feeling much better now.

The mist that covered most days at home:

A Question For YOU!

I, being that I'm quite frequently on airplanes crisscrossing here or there, am curious why people spend so long in aircraft bathrooms. Granted men have the unsavory reputation for staking a claim with newspaper in hand and camping out for extended periods of time on their mighty porcelain thrones, but an aircraft lavatory is hardly a royal seat. I can think of few more cramped locales, which forcibly cause the user to master some yoga or contortionist pose all the while worrying about turbulence, the putrid layer of water and soap slime on the plastic floor, the restless line of fellow bathroom patrons standing inches away, possible decompression, or just whose dirty ass just touched the dirty horseshoe seat that your dirty ass is about to touch. Yet for some strange reason people go into these places and disappear.

I propose the question to you, because it is all of you...and not me. What do you people do in there? Do you pray? Bow down by the sink or the nasty bowl itself, out of modesty and not wanting to raise concern by praying in the aisle, and pray for a safe journey? Couldn't you have done that before the trip? Do you admire your beautiful visage in the strangely distorted and abnormally unreflective mirror, running your fingers thru your gorgeous locks, or lack thereof? Do you sleep? Do you read? Do you just like watching the freakishly smurf-blood colored blue juice swirl around the bowl making that powerfully pressurized hiss sound? I hear you in there flushing it repeatedly, and unless you've got some serious issues, I know you can't possibly be doing it for the obvious purpose. Are you all terrorists assembling, disassembling, reassembling and disassembling again your weapons in a nervous and aborted attempt to attack the airplane that your conscious just won't let you complete? Are you just craving alone time, away from the masses of foreigners that sit just outside that flimsy 1/2 inch thick, foldable door? I should think there would be more of you who suffer from claustrophobia than xenophobia or agoraphobia.

Well then why? Why do you go into the tiny, cramped cubicle that forces you to crane your neckbackwards just to have a leak and stay there....for 15 minutes at a time? If you were all Chadian Muslim men I wouldn’t have to ask, because I already know. You see, they, in a rather upsetting but simultaneously comical way for the next bathroom patron, have this fetish for trying to wash their entire bodies in a tiny 4 inch wide sink, starting with their feet. It’s an arduous and sometimes catastrophous process that can take quite sometime and which leaves the bathroom looking as if Hurricane Katrina recently made a guest appearance. But most of you are not Chadian Muslim men, so why, I ask,...why? And how bout this, if you cannot come up with a good reason...then quit it! Go in, do what you must, and get the hell out. No more of this time-warp, losing consciousness and all worldly senses shit, taking 20 minutes to have a piss. It doesn’t take that long, ever...never ever ever.

The Newly Weds

"No, she does not have any identification...I do not know where she has left it. I, I, I..ughhh." a local Chadian UNHCR employee rambled to me the other morning, in a slur of French and English while we were in Guerada. He was gesturing towards his wife, the woman who had misplaced her ID.

"Look, you guys make the rules, and then expect us to follow them. And those rules, my friend specifically state that one must have either an NGO badge, or an international ID card along with an Order of Mission from the UN. Period. When we do not follow the rules we get in trouble. Ironically you guys who are the ones who yell when we break them, are also the ones who ask us to break them the most often." I fought the urge to make ridiculous noises with my tongue while making faces towards the man.

The man grew ever more frustrated and anxious, pacing and wilding gesticulating to his new wife who stood close by, timidly observing the show. I knew him. I had seen him a few times before, where I could not recall but I knew I recognized his face, and it wasn't negative emotions that came to mind at his sight either. He was extremely thin and frail, with a freckled and sun-wrinkled light black skin covering his bony face. He thrust his arms back into the cargo hold and yanked out another of his raggy bags, unzipping it and nervously fumbling thru its contents.

Lauren, our new pilot, and I stood in the brisk, howling wind, that was gusting up to 35 or 40 mph and creating a dust storm. Our uniforms flapped violently in the wind like flags on poles. As with all employees in training, you want to show them the correct way how to do things at first. No ifs ands or buts, this is it and this is how we do it here. And while flying in Chad having a clear mandate and set of rules can either make or break your day. Some days it makes life simple, some days it pulls on your heart and you know you cannot in good consciousness follow the rules exactly. I, being the trainer, was intent on showing the correct way of doing things still. We stood, flapping in the wind alongside other locals who observed the man with a look of true concern.

Papers and clothing continued to shuffle frantically from wild hands and gale force winds. "Listen, we may fly here tomorrow, and if not, then it'll be on Monday. Why don't you just go back and find her ID and wait an evening or three at most." I suggested. He seemed not to hear. My thoughts, unisonly in tune with the papers, fluttered with annoyance at myself for failing to bring a jacket, and at this man who was causing me to stand in this whipping wind.

A brief moment after I said these few things I heard an 'AHEM:' come from behind. I cocked my head and rolled it slowly around to find a female IMC passenger whom I had already screened and put on board, squatting in the door way and beckoning me discreetly. I slid across the riveted aircraft skin to where she crouched in the doorway and asked what I could do for her.

"Look, I know it's none of my business, and you have your rules that you must follow, but...well...I know these people and they need to get out. We were hoping to get them out yesterday when you were supposed to come "(I had refused to land because no one, in a stroke of sheer geniousness, turned on the radios in their trucks to give me a security report as we circled precariously overhead the airfield for 10 minutes. I think their necks still must have been sore from craning to watch our airshow for that 10 minutes...another story altogether).

"Look," she continued, in a middle eastern accent, "if you can, please get them out. Please. Otherwise...otherwise...ok, look let me put it to you this way: that man, that man who is looking thru the bags, he found his family dead two days ago, with their eyeballs cut out of their head and laying beside them. You see, he is from XXX tribe and they are rumored to be cooperating with YYY rebel movement, which most of them are not. It is about to get even uglier here, which is quite a feat. He and his wife are XXX, and he and his wife are most likely awaiting the same fate as the rest of his family if you cannot get him out of here today.

I have no problem telling a woman who has been sitting in an airport bar for 3 hours and who wanted to finish just one more martini before boarding and because of this failed to hear the final boarding call "tough luck sweetheart, try again next time.". Or anyone who shows up without proper ID anywhere else in the world, or someone who shows up incredibly late, or someone who is just a jack ass: that they can all wait as far as I'm concerned.

I do have a problem telling a newly married husband and wife that I cannot take them because of a one line sentence written in our "RULES" book that will effectively cause them death and/or disembowelment. Yeah, bit of a different ballpark...shit, different galaxy. What else can you say about it?

We found a piece of paper, a newly printed Marriage certificate, with both their names on it, and welcomed them on board. I learn almost everyday that the consequences for following or not following the rules here are a bit more obtuse than those back home. There is no cut and dried. But there can be cut, gouged and dead.

Merry Christmas + pics

Merry Christmas from Tchad!





High Frequency radio squelch is my lovely Christmas music this morning as I sit inside our little Ops room in our compound. When one cannot have Bing Crosby singing holiday classics, the next most logical choice is alien/robotic C-3PO sounding noises belching from a small desk mounted unit. I wish I could tell everyone that I'm feeling the holiday spirit and that I'm presently making paper snowflakes to assuage my pent up festive creativity, but...ummm....well its a bit hard when it is 100 degrees everyday, lizards scamper about, automatic weapon fire resounds every few nights, there is a war going on outside your cement walls, and your monkey refuses to brush your leg hair anymore because she's moody. So, no. No paper snow flakes. Je suis desole.

I decided, at some point last evening (I believe after my 4th drink at the French base) I'd get into the Christmas spirit if, and only if, I woke up this morning to a white, fluffy blanket of fresh snow. What? Stranger things have happened. George Bush was elected to a second term, wasn't he? So I went to bed and prayed for snow. And guess, what? Morning came too quickly, especially because .J'ai beaucoup bu la nuit dernière , et Je me sens malade. But suddenly out on the (sand) lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang (slowly) from bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a bunch of angry Muslim men, a tiny dog and a cat that's queer! Yep, there was no snow. What there was though besides the items listed above, was the smell of human feces wafting in from our overflowing cesspool directly below my window. It didn't exactly inspire me to shout a la tiny Timmy, ''God bless us, every one!" All well, there's always next year.

Christmas Dinner with the $70 turkey Darcy donated...


That all being said, with the help of the great team we have here in Chad, especially Darcy, I am going to be coming home...December 30th, and words can't describe how excited I am. There are many reasons for my returning, but one, family reasons aside, that I hope will be resolved at least slightly, is my increasing level of cynicism. While I do believe that to grow, learn and open your eyes to the world around inevitably leads to a certain amount of cynicism, and emotional fatigue, I feel that its quantity should, and can be mitigated. I think if not curbed, it spreads with such speed and scope, in exponential terms, into all realms of your life. So go home I must, and try and to put my head back on straight again, hopefully recharging me for another six months of African mayhem, ridiculous UN political games, barking cats, blazing heat, and wafting sewerage. Its amazing what a little of Grandma's cooking will do for you.

The part of Africa I love...

The past few weeks have been quite interesting though. We received our new pilot, Lauren, from Alaska and both Myriam and I have been busy showing her the ropes of Abeche existence. "Don't drive here. Don't take pictures of this, this, this, this and that. Don't slow down when you pass here. Don't make eye contact with these guys. Don't rear end the truck packed with explosives. Don't kick the live bullets on the tarmac. And don't stand behind a donkey." have been some of the finer points. She seems very down to earth, has a great sense of humor and will make a great addition to the team. BUT....now I'm part of Team Femme Chad. Yeah. I am now, besides our engineer (who is leaving in a week) and some animals, the only male expat here. (Strange, I was saying that like the animals are ex-patriots.) Count down to soap opera...5, 4, 3... Naw, I can't say that, and I hope it will never materialize into any drama. I am just drawing unfair parallels with other situations when I lived amongst an all female population that I was not in any way romantically involved with.

We are running out of people to fly now, as we have evacuated most everybody out of the field. Therefore UNHCR is finding creative ways to utilize our time and Jet fuel. "Can you go check out this airstrip, that airstrip and the other one? Can you run these loaves of bread to Bahai? Would you please take this can of Coke to Billy in Goz Beida...he says he really needs it. Could you go fly around aimlessly in circles for our viewing entertainment? Yipee."

A Recent Runway Incursion in Koukou. Patience is key...

So nothing too much to report from here, just the usual chaos of conflict. I hope to be able to fill many of you in on the happenings, politics, and melodrama of Chad, in person, in Rhode Island soon. Merry Christmas!

A sophisticated refueling procedure in Goz Beida...something we didn't do to often on the CRJ in Chicago O'hare...

Peace for all animals, big and small...

Ummm...what?

And now to John at the WABC weather desk:

"Well Tom I'm sure you noticed those dark clouds moving in last night, but truth be told we won't be seeing any moisture out of them. Yep, sure enough folks, they'll just keep rolling thru ahead of this frontal system that's been slowly creeping up on us for quite sometime. Associated with that frontal system you can expect light to moderate unorganized rebel activity. Sporadic, ya know Tom? Ha, ha ha. Yes folks I'll even go so far as to say we have a 30 to 40 % chance of moderate rebel activity by midmorning tomorrow, followed by a 60% chance of looters and bloodthirsty armed bandits. Afterwards pack up the towels and the sunscreen, cause it's gonna be a great day for the beach! Ha, if only we had water to go with all this beach, eh Tom? Back to you..."

And so it goes.

"Ok folks, quiet, quiet please....thanks for coming tonight to the UNHCR's non-emergency mandatory if you want to come meeting. Rebels may be coming tonight or tomorrow. We are not sure. Limit all unnecessary traveling today, tomorrow and the rest of your time in Chad unless you can think of a necessary reason why you must be unnecessarily traveling. We don't want to say who but if we should have a slip of the tongue we might say it could be the UFDD that's approaching. Then again it could be FUC. That being said, it could surely prove to be SCUD, SLA or JEM if they should be in the mood for a rustle. Can anyone think of any other acronyms that sound goofy that we could throw in the mix here? Hmmm...anyone? Or it could be any one of Abeche's neighboring villages that wish to see Abeche fall as regional trade hub. Or it could just be some angry Muslim guys on horseback, the aahhhhh, Janjaweed...oooh, but we really don't like using that word in Chad. Matter of fact it might not even be the rebels or the ethnically charged and angry villagers or angry Muslim guys, it could just be the Chadian military who we all should really be watching out for. I mean seriously, have you seen those guys lately? Cmon gentlemen, a comb and some deodorant please!!!"

"So we will be issuing a quasi-lets not call it an evacuation-evacuation. Lets just call it, a 'Umm, we think all NGO workers should simultaneously leave for R&R right now thingy' We wouldn't want anyone to get excited here. So everyone out of the field now, unless you want to stay longer, which we neither condemn nor encourage. But seriously, everyone needs to be getting away from the battle zones and the carnage, unless you have a note from your Mom, Dad, or, ahhh, hell anyone. If you want to go back up there we neither condemn nor encourage, we condage...no wait, we ahhh, we encodemn, yes, that's it. It is the UN's unofficial stance to encodemn what is happening here. That sounds pretty good, huh guys....jeez, I came up with that one all by myself...aahhhhemm. Sorry. So you see, everyone out! Everyone but AirServ. Ok, everyone but AirServ and WFP, even though WFP will refuse to fly because they are afraid of flying when the UN issues a state of Encodemn-age. But in any case, it'll be nice to have the WFP plane here on the tarmac for symbolic purposes. It shall symbolize that...that..ummm..if we really wanted to fly somewhere in that Caravan we could damnit!...we just choose not too. Ok so nice job with the symbology WFP, aaaaannnnd... well that leaves everything else as far as the not really evacuations but actually they are evacuations-evacuations to you, AirServ. Ha! Yep. good luck. We will be sure to make our further dealings with you as incredibly confusing and convoluted, and political and encodemning and grammatically incorrect as this speech has been. Oh, and just to let you know, this policy may change any day now because we are changing all of our head staff over in 3 days with new super-incredibly-in charge-talented-phenomenally eduacated-decisionally oscillating-unfireable international staff. "

"So, any questions?...........Umm, yes, you...Jesse...go ahead?"

ME: 'WHAT?'

"Ha! Idiot. You see, you should leave governance and decision making to those who have the brains, competence and talent in the world. Go back home and watch TV or something, maybe play with that monkey of yours...we'll call if we need you."

POP

The relative peace and organization that is the fluid inside the shell or the bubble that surrounds the beautiful country of Thailand cataclysmically exploded into a million tiny pieces and was strewn everywhere as soon as we stepped inside the Ethiopian Airlines departure lounge a few evenings ago.

Pop.

From single file lines, scrumptious seafood pad thai and glistening coral filled waters we were catapulted headfirst back into the mass mayhem-fried goat, boiled goat, goat on a stick-brown, cholera infested waters of the African experience(which I still enjoy in a strange way) with that one crucial step. I stepped thru the metal detector back into disorganization, energetic chaos, loud animated Arabic orations, flatulence, and body odor half expecting to hear Axl Rose's screeching voice resonate in my ears, screaming 'Welcome to the jungle-Watch it bring you to your knees, knees - I wanna watch you bleed!!!'. I cautiously stopped and waited a moment, readying for a hasty retreat and eliciting a strange look from Elizabeth, until I felt assured there was no 80's sleaze rock coming my way. I proceeded, though carefully.

As the departure hour nears a Thai worker lifts the microphone to announce that boarding will commence shortly and I watch the comedy happen again, in slow motion, as I had the previous two Ethiopian Airlines flights. His right hand grasps the microphone which lays on the podium beside. He glances down and contemplates what could potentially be the last thought he contemplates until he recovers from the upcoming trauma. His muscles tense as the microphone is slowly raised just inches off the aluminum podium. Suddenly it happens. His eyes raise and lips crack, he is evidently intent on announcing the boarding of certain rows of seats aboard the outgoing aircraft, but his eyes grow wide and his mouth forms the shape of a gasp. My mouth forms a tainted smile, slightly crooked from pity and sadism.

An explosion of bodies violently slams against and over the poor, frail Thai gate attendant and a gurgling "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! only.....Rows 25 thru.....WAIT!!........noooo.....aaaaahhhhhhh" can be heard emminating from the drowning man as he feebly attempts to fight the tsunami of brown skin which now engulfs him and is flowing down the jet way with their tickets still in hand. The body grows limp and chaos reigns. Someone will have to come onto the airplane and collect the tickets. The boarding process which should take 25 minutes will take 2 hours and I sit back and reflect on the past weeks' peace, as Axl Rose screeches away.

I flew last week from Abeche to N'djamena to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Bangkok, Thailand. On the flight from Addis to Bangkok I was blessed with being assigned a seat next to a broken seat which was unserviceable. HA! Problem was it was also coveted, being near the front of the airplane. It seems in most African societies that there is a strong, strong desire to remain in the front 10 rows of an aircraft, to the point where men will leave 20 plus rearward rows empty and practically sit on each others laps, cuddling in a very unmanly way, in order to have those holy first seats. The 'inoperative' placard was quickly ripped off and in hopped a Nigerian businessman on his way to Guangzhou, China. Greetings were made, my head phone jack was stolen, Bill Clinton's amazing political attributes were reflected upon, and I subtlety tried hinting I'd like to watch the movie.

Fourty minutes after takeoff he went for the bathroom, providing me the opportunity to reclaim my head phone jack and commence viewing Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I got about 15 minutes of movie watching before my headphones were plucked from my left ear. "Do ya dink Meesta Clinton will wrun agan?" I wondered if he noticed my face turning crimson in anger. I took a deep breath and answered curtly 'NO', removed his hand from my ear and finished watching Johnny Depp play a pirate ship captain.

When the movie was over I fielded his political questions for a while before we both had nothing to add. I started reading my book but my eyelids grew heavy and my book fell to my knees where it stayed for only a moment. My seatmate gently removed my hand from the book's binding and picked the paperback from my lap, commencing to read and chuckle at the pages of Getting Stoned with Savages as I giggled silently to myself about the different cultures sitting side by side here. I drifted off. Later I awoke to find myself in a very awkward pose, spooning my Nigerian seatmate as he had invaded my seat by thrusting his ass backwards and was practically curled up in my loving embrace. I shifted and slid toward the window hoping Bangkok was nearby.




In Bangkok I found Elizabeth who had been attending a conference there for the previous week. We were given a room at a luxurious resort hotel where amenities abound and were found everywhere and I basked in the loveliness of the frivolous pampering doing things I never do, like taking a bubble bath, knowing in a weeks time I'd be back in the desert where things like bubble baths do not present themselves on a regular basis. The following day we hopped aboard another airliner for Krabi and then caught a ferry to the heavenly isle of Koh Phi Phi, which my eternally immature mind found hilarious because of the pronunciation (Pee Pee), making me crack a smile every time we were asked if 'you want ticket for Pee Pee?'. I struggled to stifle the ridiculous giggles. It amazes me at times the things I find amusing now, at age 27 are not so different from those I found amusing at age 7.

In Koh Phi Phi we spent 4 days lounging on the beautiful beaches, sampling as many different restaurant’s Pad Thai's, Tom Yum spicy soups, and assorted curries, and exploring the surrounding islands beautiful above and underwater terrain. On more than one occasion I received strange looks from waiters when Elizabeth ordered food for the two of us and being that we both enjoy really spicy food, added "I want you to make me cry." She felt if this tidbit was not added the food would be boringly benign. The waiters would immediately turn to me, as if asking permission to hit her so that she might cry, or maybe looking to me to show they thought it my job to make her cry. I'd shrug my shoulders and sometimes whisper "She's been drinking..." which would bring a smile to their face before sauntering off. Aah, but I digress.




One evening we rented a tandem sea kayak and paddled out in search of our own secluded and clandestine strip of sand untrampled by the hooves of other dirty western tourists like ourselves. We found a beautiful stretch with an incredible coral reef just 100 feet offshore. The icing on the cake for me was that the beach actually had a population of sunbathers already...MONKEYS. "C’mon! We gotta go play with the monkeys, don't worry, I speak Monkeyic" were my choice/intelligent words of encouragement. We paddled the kayak ashore, tossed the paddles on the snowy white sand and I anxiously started down the beach towards the plump little monkeys who looked as though they were patiently waiting to catch an admirable sunset. I tried Monkeyic, the language our monkey in Abeche, Maryann, and I use to communicate, and it was no use. Finally Elizabeth shouted "Hey MONKEY!" and they turned slowly towards us, but seemed to look thru us. "Nice honey, smooth. Real smooth.”

Still the monkeys continued to pay us no attention, looking between our legs at something down the beach before they arose and ambled that way. “Jesse, I think they’ve out smarted us.” came from Betsey’s lips as we both turned in unison and saw a troupe of 12 monkeys or so rummaging thru and pillaging our kayak.

“Damn, I’d be screwed on Planet of the Apes”.

We ran down the beach shouting and waving our arms as all of our things were being chewed, thrown or taken up into the trees by the brown little bandits. As we neared and our paced increased, 3 or 4 monkeys decided the timing was perfect for a counterattack, screeching and chasing right back our direction. We, being the incredibly brave souls we are, chose to screech and run into the ocean for protection, which seemed to work. The avenger monkeys returned to the boat and resumed the pillage, bearing their teeth and running towards us hissing only whenever I emerged into water shin deep or less vehemently cursing them.

So we sat helplessly in the tropical water watching monkeys make off with our water bottles, beer bottles and an item of clothing or two. Whenever I’d shout something at them they’d all pause for a moment or two, staring off into oblivion, then slowly turn towards me and stare uncaringly with cold pirate monkey eyes which seemed to say “keep yelling and this could take all night you ass. We’re in no hurry, are you?” We were late returning the kayak, well after dark.




After Koh Phi Phi we headed north to Phuket, where I was slightly disappointed as anyone would be going from paradise to sub-paradise. Just something about that whole sub thing. The last two days were spent lounging, eating and drinking again, enjoying the simple pleasures that are unavailable in the NLZ (no logic zone, a.k.a. CHAD). On the way home we enjoyed a day in Ethiopia sampling the various toxic, local brews and taking harrowing taxi rides thru crowds. We landed in N'djamena at 4am and were quite suprised to find out that we should have been checking our email all along. No one was there to pick her up. Seems her organization evacuated everyone from the country and if she had read the messages in her Inbox, she'd have found instructions to stay on the beach. Instead she graciously accompanied me back to the war zone for a few days before being whisked away again to return who knows when.

The Adventures of Not Lloyd and HS2

A mud caked, sickly, and emaciated puppy was found curled up beneath a bucket in CCF's Abeche compound about 2 weeks ago. In the 'big' scheme of things it was just a drop in the bucket...actually more like a single molecule of H20 in the bucket...but it still got our minds and hearts' attention. Elizabeth washed the whiny bag of uncoordinated and clumsy bones, and began nursing it back to health before the day I stopped by to say hi and met the wan looking thing.

One of the guards at the CCF compound had decided he needed a dog, so promptly stole an unbelievably young puppy from it's mother's care after only about 2 weeks of existence. We guess that about 2 days after this incident the guard decided he couldn't bear the feeble animals whining therefore placing it beneath the bucket in the sweltering African heat and leaving it to the inevitable. Unfortunately for Mr. Inevitable Betsey found it and cleaned it up, screaming at the guard for his profound negligence which evidently confused the hell out of him.

Fast forward now....The puppy now lives with us, is fat and is still clumsy, but is still alive. His name is Not Lloyd.





Around the same time of the canine discovery we were having a problem with a rodent infestation at our house here in Abeche. The rats were large and bold, casually strolling in to the living room while we would all be sitting around watching a movie or discussing the days events. Rat traps were bought in the market and placed strategically about the kitchen where the rats were making havoc on our food stores. After a couple of nights we finally scored a victory, catching one of the large buggers but that was the limit of our success. They continued to amble in and out of the house unconcerned with our presence. If they had opposable thumbs or more human like digits I'm sure that they would have given us the finger every time they made an entrance..."yeah, whatcha gonna do about et? Eh??" (of course its a well known fact that Chadian rats, could they speak, would speak with a Italian mobster accent). After an epic late night battle between Myriam, myself and a ill fated rat, one that we (the humans) were victorious in, and that the opposing party (the rat) ended smashed by a broom in the corner . Panting, yet feeling invigorated from the battle, Myriam and I sat back down to a movie, only to have our privacy invaded about 3.12 minutes later by another large rodent who ran in, looked at the blood on the carpet, looked at us and then stated "Ya killed Vinny ya bastaad! Youz gonna pay for dat I swear!!!!" and then continued on to the kitchen where he ripped open our flour bag. The next day we requested a cat. Enter Harold Sparks, II.

Harold Sparks, II, is an extremely young and vociferous individual, forever meowing about nothing. He also only stands about 4 inches high and weighs maybe 3/4 of a pound, by no means a threat to rats, and is most likely a potential and tempting morsel for the rats. Yet he and Not Lloyd have bonded to a degree that is rather unspeakable, so we cannot within due conscience give him up now. Poor HS2, you see, misses suckling on his mother’s nipples, and is constantly fantasizing about it, seeking anything that even remotely resembles a nipple for his oral fixation. So, free of charge, he treats fat little Not Lloyd to some simple pleasures...ahem...oral sex...about 20 times a day, making N. Lloyd either one of the most lucky, confused or gay dogs out there, depending on how you look at it. For his part, N. Lloyd has yet to retreat from ‘being serviced’ by the cat.





The Abeche zoo continues to grow in size daily. As of now we have on hand:
1. Not Lloyd (the dog)
2. Harold Sparks, II. (the ambiguously gay cat)
3. The monkey formerly known as Mary Ann--named for the Gilligan’s Island character (the monkey)
4. Pedro (the ancient desert tortoise)
5. Numerous unnamed lizards and toads (numerous unnamed lizards and toads)

And the names? Well the dog’s went something like this:

Me: What shall we call the dog?
Someone else: How about Lloyd?
Me: No, not Lloyd.
Someone else: Ok, then what?
Me: I don’t care, just not Lloyd.
PAUSE FOR DEEP THOUGHT
Me again: That’s it! Not Lloyd!
Someone else: What?
Me: Not Lloyd.
Them: Ok, got it, but what else then?
Me: Not Lloyd.
Them: Ok, ok, I understand, we will not name the dog Lloyd, any better ideas?
Me: Yes, Not Lloyd.

And the cat’s followed as follows:

Me: How bout the cat’s name?
Someone else: Harold Sparks the Second?
Me: Perfect.

Yep, think I need a vacation.

A bit of a RANT.

Today a pasty white woman, with entangled varicose veins covering her face, who looked like she belonged in a sealed and sterile bubble approached me as she got on the airplane. I had seen the pasty white woman the previous day greet the NBC Today Show reporter Ann Curry after we had brought her NBC TV crew back from Goz Beida.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15655588/

'Good morning Jesse, my name's Mia Farrow...(pause, I'm guessing waiting for me to jump up and down at the idea I was shaking a famous someone's hand?, to which she got no joy)...I hear you are the Captain taking us to Goz Beida this morning. Well its very nice to meet you, here I'd like you to meet my assistants...' I couldn't get over just how repulsive this woman looked, as horrible as the thought was. Denny and Remy, two of the Chadian workers looked at her in almost shock, most likely at her color.

TV cameras focused in and out on the airplane, Mia, and Steve and I as we stood looking like two confused animals. TV cameras everywhere on a military controlled airport in a military state, which recently outlawed freedom of the press when it declared a state of emergency, and we are surrounded by gun toting, rabid soldiers. Mia, I think you need to tell your fan club to put the cameras away.

"Jesse, nice to meet you, I'm George(?), OOOOHHH, you don't have a bracelet! (pointing at my naked wrist and digging thru his knapsack to find a green rubber bracelet)...Here you are...now you can show your support for the embattled people of Darfur! Thanks for the flight!"

A bracelet. A green rubber bracelet. This is how I am supposed to show my support for the embattled people of Darfur. Thanks jack ass. I stood for a second debating whether to throw the thing at his now turned head, out of principle only you see. A bracelet. "Maybe you have mistaken me for one of the many Americans vacationing here in the Sahel, sir? Hmm? Or maybe it wasn't that, maybe you failed to think that possibly I hadn't made any sacrifices to be where I am now, trying my best to not let this crazy and hellish place and people like you offering me rubber bracelets get the best of me and my attitude, so that I can continue trying to help the 'embattled Darfurians' out. Or maybe you think it will help remind me of the issue and of Africa, as if awakening every morning and looking outside at barbed wire, and flying dying children over burned villages and hearing the stories from the camps, and personally getting sick almost every week doesn't remind me enough of where I am and what I'm doing. Hmmm? Is that what it was? Well here, take your bracelet back please, it's not my color anyway." I didn't say it, but I wanted to. I bit my lip and pondered. Everyone here is saving the world if you ask them, but they'll also tell you that everyone else here isn't. Later I used the bracelet as a rubber band and shot one of the local staff members between the legs, which gave us both a laugh. I guess the thing wasn't so useless after all.

Chad has declared a state of emergency, and has basically reigned in a state of martial law across the country. This just 2 weeks after all our local staff failed to show for work one day. When asked why they responded it was a National holiday. Upon talking with other NGOs we learned this to be the truth, and that it was indeed a National holiday, and none other than "Freedom and Democracy Day". To put it into perspective it would be like Blacks celebrating "Racial Equality and Civil Rights Day" in Montgomery, Alabama in 1935. Maybe they were just satisfied it got them a day off.

The declaration of emergency spawned an emergency meeting between AirServ, UNHCR and the WFP tonight to discuss the various security concerns that are blaring in all our faces daily. Attending as AirServ's chief pilot I was excited to share my thoughts, concerns and suggestions. Instead I walked out feeling insulted and extremely pissed off. I decided I'm going to focus my energies on building a spitball gun that I'll from now on begin shooting all UNHCR and WFP high management employees with whenever I might run across them. If anyone out there thinks that the United Nations, the World Food Program, or most likely even the US Government is run by highly intelligent and down to earth individuals who have a grasp on common sense, you are severely mistaken. What a bunch of immature, feuding, bickering, ridiculously self toting and inflated idiots.

I need a vacation, and next week I get it. Next Thursday, when I'd much rather be sitting down to a Thanksgiving dinner with my family at home, I'll instead be hopping an Ethiopian Airlines 757 heading for Thailand where I hope to forget my daydreams of UN employee strangulation.

Ignorance...

I usually awake in the mornings to a muffled rumble of a struggling generator, a high pitched whine whose intensity rises and falls as the perpetrator's wings beat about my head, and to the constant 'thwump-thwump-thwump' of the overhead ceiling fan. I lay only in my boxer briefs atop sheets that as of lately have been dampened from my sweat due to my air conditioner's inoperativeness. Some days, like today, I just lay there for a little while, letting further muffled rumbles, those of thoughts, swim around in my head with no destination nor purpose nor specific subject matter. I hear birds outside that momentarily remind me of home, and I try to imagine how nice it would be to step outside into the cool, mountain morning air of Durango. The imagining fades as I hear the distressed braying of a donkey standing outside the razor-wired wall of our compound. Just don' find asses roaming Willow Drive that often these days, I hear.

When I finally do rise, often times it's rather begrudgingly, with a noticeable lack of energy due to the noticeable lack of quality sleep the evening before. Motivation for the day is slow to make an appearance, and I'm often reminded of a crusty old Captain I used to fly with on the 1900 in Farmington, NM. Immediately after the first takeoff of the day, as we climbed thru the ruby colored winter skies he'd stretch his arms out, yawn, then slump down in his chair stating 'well, I've already lost interest in the day...'. Not too long afterwards he'd usually pack his lower lip full of Copenhagen snuff, pull a ball cap down over his eyes, turn down his VHF radio, and take out a book. If one were unobservant enough one would never have noticed that he never seemed to flip the pages, and that he was forever reading this same silly, sultry paperback novel, creased from years of being stuffed in his flight bag.

Thankfully I'm not at that point as of yet. Outside it's 6:30 am, and its relatively cool still, a mere 85 degrees with a light, peaceful breeze blowing from the east, from Sudan and the camps and the horrific violence. A few brave birds chirp, the donkeys bray, the generators moan, and members of our local staff are walking around the compound shouting at each other in a mix of French and a southern Chad dialect, where many of them are from. Someone once told me before I left for this job that the Central African countries are the ideal locales to learn French, as most speak it slow and accentuatedly. I'd like to find that person and tell them just how wrong they are...problem is I can't remember who it was. Most of the local population speaks numerous languages, many around 3 or 4. Depending on what tribe they are from, where they are from, where and if they were schooled, and what their religious leanings are the results sound different in every person. The mix is often times a masterpiece as close to French as Creole, and just like a Cajun gumbo, its all stirred up with little spicy bits of phonetic everything.

Linguistic gumbos are tossed back and forth outside my window, causing the lizards clinging to the window's metal screen to nervously twitch their heads looking for the best escape route. At night the screen becomes inundated with the scaly critters, they huddle together and camp out for the evening, seemingly unworried when I open the glass and pet their bellies. During the day they are more aware of my presence, but occasionally allow me some fun. I once wasted almost a whole liter bottle of spring water on such 'fun' activities. I'd fill my mouth to its capacity and with as much pressure as possible I'd spray a stream of water out the window thru the screen and against an unfortunate reptile's belly blasting him right off the screen. The others would pause, twitch their heads, do some spasmodic-epileptic like push ups then scramble for the new vacant lot, sucking the moisture from the tiny squares. I'd find a new victim and start again, providing wholesome fun for the easily entertained - ahem-...me. In the midst of the new game Elisabeth came by and caught me in the act, cheeks swelled like a chipmunk, window open and hot air rushing inwards. When I explained myself and my actions she looked at me quizzically, as if I were a 4 year old for a brief moment who tried to use 4 year old logic. It didn't take long before she joined in the lizard-water blasting festivities. It's make your own fun in Chad, any way you can get it.




After a quick frigid shower in water that often smells of rotten eggs and that sometimes leaves me smelling worse than when I entered (which is quite a feat), I usually try and check my email while sipping a bitter, and lip puckering cup of Nescafe. Every morning seems to bare a striking resemblance to those old Keystone Beer commercials touting 'no bitter beer face!'. I have yet to understand how so much of Europe can thrive on this artificial garbage. I click the little blue E on my computer screen, a message is relayed thru a dish antenna outside to a satellite above to a dish somewhere in Belgium and then to God knows where. I wait patiently and am then greeted with more GARBAGE...Yahoo gossip garbage rivaling STAR, US Weekly or Soap Opera Digest. Six days out of seven when I open internet explorer to my homepage of Yahoo! I feel sick at what I see, especially because I believe it is an embarrassing but often times accurate representation of our youth's interests and what the rest of the globe thinks we care about.

LATEST HEADLINES ON YAHOO!:
Celebrities who like Bull riding!
Jessica Simpson's newest fall fashion and potential romances!
P-Diddy wants to be the next James Bond...
Click here to see what the latest and coolest ringtones are for your phone!!!
What's your favorite interactive smiley face?
Who's got the best Kelly Clarkson karaoke voice? Vote here!!!
Tom and Katie's wedding! Who's on the invitation list?
Paris Hilton, Paris Hilton, Paris Hilton, PARIS FUCKING HILTON!!!!!

Is this what America craves? Garbage? Mindless, brain numbing, trivial shit??? I hang my head low knowing that a large percentage of the American public eats it up. And then a large majority of this same percentage of people I could approach and ask them if they knew what was happening to innocent people in Darfur? Do you know where Darfur is? Do you know where Sudan is? Do you know what genocide is? Can you name 4 countries in Africa? I am reminded of Jay Leno interviewing some fine specimens on the streets of LA who don't even know a thing about the immediate world around them, let alone one that exists thousands of miles away. Ignorance is bliss, and "Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise."-Thomas Gray.

A frothing orgy of ridiculous sensory stimulation awaits to numb one's brain, much as prophesized by Orwell('IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH'-Orwell, 1984), keeping us pleasantly 'content' and ignorant to what exists outside the walls of our rooms, houses, communities, or country. So much time and energy seems expended on the worship and idolization of individuals I believe worthless if it were not for their physical appearance; individuals who contribute nothing positive to the spinning world around. Actors, singers, the disgustingly rich, the alcoholic yet attractive nobody's and politicians, sometimes a strange medley of all these. Consumerism gone terribly wrong...or right? blares out from everywhere on each web page I click. Why you absolutely need this latest phone, PDA, SUV, ring tone, smiley face, video game, designer purse, diamond earrings, or GAP jeans is beaten into your cranium every blink of an eyelash. I look outside the window and wonder where we went wrong.

The other evening I was helping teach our local cook 'Nestor' how to make a proper marinara sauce, or more descriptively, one that would not make us all sick for three days. While mixing tomato paste, garlic and tiny desert grown sautéed onions I asked about his education, his wife and his children. He informed me he's intending on becoming a teacher and is 3 months from obtaining his Chadian teaching certificate. I applauded his choice and told him we need more people like him out there in the world, and that I thought he'd make a fine teacher. I asked again about his kids and their ages. He replied one was seven months and the other about 2 years old, both boys, but one is ill, most likely malaria or even tuberculosis. I expressed my shock and grief and began asking how I could personally help in the matter. A brief pause followed.

"I need...eh....un emmm peee trois...eh...yes...un emm pee trois, si vous plait."

Your child is supposedly sick with a life threatening disease and you are asking me for an MP3 player? Is this what we have culturaly exuded, this is what we have shown is important, materialistic possessions? I stared at the marinara sauce.

"Keep stirring every few minutes for another 20 minutes please. Thank you Nestor", and with that I walked off

daydreams

I find myself more frequently staring off into oblivion, as Myriam or whomever I am flying with is at the controls, daydreaming excessively. I’ve had incredibly vivid memories and imaginings of food, places and people, the things I miss most about home. Last week during all the security concerns, during all the evacuations and chaos, after the airplane would level off in the cooler, more peaceful, thin air at 10,000 feet and all souls on board seemed to exhale a collective sigh of relief, my mind would drift. With my left temple leaned against the plexi-glass window and the African sun scorching my shaved head I’d suddenly be standing in my favorite pool on the Animas River waving my fly-rod around meditatively watching the trout rise on a summer afternoon’s Cadis hatch. The fluttering clouds of Cadis flies sparkling as a million wings reflected the setting sun’s warm glow. Then I would be sitting with a massive chicken burrito smothered in melted cheese, guacamole and sour cream, a basket of chips and salsa and margarita nearby, or hiking with Jen along a branch of the idyllic San Juan River towards the peaceful Rainbow hot springs, as a light mist fell. Sleeping in the back of a pickup truck in Oregon’s high eastern plains alongside a bubbling river listening to lonely coyotes sing in the distance, or at a table 15 years ago with a dinner plate heaped high with my Dad’s famous spaghetti and my little brothers head covered in marinara sauce opposite from my seat across the table. Chaos below, Abeche ahead, grateful passengers behind, Mexican food, trout and rivers within. If nothing else, Chad has made me realize that it’s the little things in life that make it beautiful.

Invertebrate molestations and other security issues...

Her fingers were slowly moving up the inside of my leg, teasing me as she went. I squirmed and she stopped, I was greatly disappointed. She picked up on my disappointment and started again, this time also walking her fingers up my chest. Then something struck me as not right, something was askew, strange…my chest itched and her finger was scratching at my leg. What the hell is…?

I opened my eyes and instead of finding a beautiful, voluptuous girl on top, sensually teasing me I found something which made me scream like a little girl and curse like guys I used to work with on fishing boats. On my chest slowly crept up towards my mouth the biggest, blackest, largest eyed and antennaed desert cricket I had ever seen. It remained the largest cricket I’ve ever seen for approximately three tenths of a second before my eyes darted to my crotch where another of the black behemoths was casually strolling towards a nice warm place to hang out. This fellow now took the prize of largest cricket Jesse has ever seen, and I wasn’t pleased that he was so close to being intimately involved with me. Elizabeth laughed after realizing what was going on as I kicked and scratched and rolled out of the mosquito net onto the dirty tile floor. She laughed carelessly until noticing that other black, privacy invading villains had surrounded her as well and were attempting to overthrow our sleeping spot. No need for a caffeinated cup of coffee in the morning when one awakes to mutant sized crickets attempting a molestation, you’re already wide-awake. Damn N’djamena fire ants must have passed the word along.

Confusion still reigns in Chad as to the current and future happenings of the rebels and government forces. After the Goz Beida seizure the rebels seemed to have split into separate columns and set out west towards the capital city of N’djamena. Reports pour in from everyone and their dog that this town has fallen or that town has been blown to pieces, and that the rebels are marching down Avenue Charles de Gaulle in N’djamena, or outside our compound in Abeche at the very moment in pink ballerina dresses singing songs from the musical Cats. And like the previous sentence, most are not true. I remember when I was about six we used to play the telephone game. Everyone sits in a circle. Someone whispers something into the adjacent child’s ear and it is passed around at a whispered tone until it comes full circle, where it’s voiced aloud, followed by the original message. It’s usually a gross exaggeration of the original text, and sometimes nothing of the original remains. This is the current situation in Chad with the international community, and it gets frustrating trying to sift thru the garbage to find the truth. It is also amusing at times.

Upon the fall of Goz Beida, the WFP (World Food Program and principle aviation entity of the United Nations Refugee Commission) announced they would absolutely not fly anywhere near the town. The UNHCR then came to us: ‘Will you fly down there?’. Sure for a twelve pack of beer and some chewing tobacco we’ll do anything.

Ok, I’m kidding but I tentatively said yes, to the dismay of my copilot, pending our receiving bona fide security information stating that all affairs were normal. A few hours later an entourage of the UNHCR’s top security personnel in Chad approached our plane with what they’d learned from investigation.

“It seems the majority of the rebel forces have moved south and west from Goz Beida, and are no longer occupying the town or camps. It’s true they shot a rocket-propelled grenade at a French aircraft yesterday, but they’ve apologized now and stated it was an accident. They have also repeatedly stated that they are not purposely targeting humanitarians or their organizations. We BELIEVE this information to be true and correct, but cannot ascertain for sure its validity, and we THINK your OK flying down there to Goz Beida. Just do not fly over any hills or the town.”

I voiced the fact that the report they just gave us was about the shittiest piece of intelligence I’d ever been privy too. I never would have thought 6 months ago that in October 2006 I’d be standing on the tarmac of an African desert town’s airport telling a bunch of high ranking UN officials I basically thought they were idiots. Yet I was a little more couth than that. We discussed the fact that not over flying hills is not an option, seeing as how Goz Beida was surrounded by hills. I further voiced my frustration with their obvious lack of organization in the field and with the fact that if so many UN personnel had spoken with these rebels and been assured that NGOs would not be targeted, why hadn’t anyone thought to mention that a humanitarian aircraft may be coming down to evacuate some people? Hmmm??? ‘Please don’t shoot at our silly looking white and blue aircraft that is so slow that it cannot get out of its own way’ is what I suggested they state the next time they had a heart to heart chat with the rebs.

A few more matters were discussed and I felt confident (mostly) that we could execute the flights without incidence. We boarded the few individuals who for some masochistic reason or another wanted to go to Goz Beida before hopping up into the cockpit. The security entourage waved goodbye and it’s head officer approached for a last pertinent piece of advice. “Good luck, just come back in one piece” was o so wisely stated. He then walked away leaving Myriam and I looking at each other dumbfounded and me with the burning desire to run after him and kick him in the ass. We then took off.

In flight, passengers and pilots kept a vigilant eye on the desert floor below, scanning for military convoys crossing in pursuit of another victory. Occasionally we’d hit a pocket of turbulence that made everyone gasp and grip the seats in front of themselves before looking up to the cockpit for a glance from Myriam or I assuring them that the bump was not a missile strike. We picked an altitude that put us just feet below the cloud bases, making us very difficult to spot from the ground below (I told myself repeatedly) and maintained it until we were directly overhead the dirt strip. Scanning the surrounding hill tops and arid landscape below we deemed it safe and I partook in a ‘fun for the pilots, scary for the passengers’ maneuver, making a steep circular dive 9000 feet to land on the runway below, much as they do flying into Baghdad.

After the parking brake was set and we hopped out a group of anxious passengers happily greeted us and for a while I really appreciated my job incredibly, gloating in the praise we received. The base manager approached us and asked why we did our spiral approach to land. When I explained it was for safety and security, avoiding the surrounding hills he calmly stated that ‘there are no rebels here…they left days ago…it’s calm and boring’.

I felt silly. The next morning made me feel better, in an odd way, when we learned his version of the story was not correct either.

The intermission is over.

And so it begins.

Elizabeth called me last night after I cancelled our dinner plans, and I answered thinking she was intent on rubbing in just how good the curry she cooked was. Instead she informed me that rumors were flying that Goz Beida had been overrun by Chadian Rebel forces, a new conglomerate of old separate groups, now known as UFDD (United Front for Democracy and Development). She new we were supposed to fly to Goz Beida in the morning, so it was welcome info.

I hung up and between Myriam, Georgiana (our new base manager), and I, we began investigating. Immediately we ran into the UNHCR roadblock.

“Hello?”
“Hello. This is AirServ. As you know we are scheduled to fly to Goz Beida tomorrow, and we have heard there were events that took place today that could jeopardize our safety and security tomorrow. Can you confirm or deny?”
“…(long pause—thinking of how to best answer as vaguely and ridiculously as possible)…we have no information for you at this time. If information becomes available we will inform you. Thank you.” Click.
“FUCK STICK”

The red flag is up folks…somethings a happenin!

Further investigation revealed there was in fact an emergency meeting taking place and it was being debated just how to break the news to the children (the rest of us NGO workers out here).

As we all sat out on the porch talking sporadic automatic weapon fire was heard nearby. Our guards seemed on edge, the monkey sat atop the roof sentinel like, providing incoherent and squeaky reports in Monkeyic (official language of most monkeys), and I sipped a whisky and coke. After sunset Myriam and I sat marveling at the Milky Way’s cloudy expanse waiting for more information to come our way. Three heavenly bound rockets shot off from somewhere in town, trailing a red afterglow as they made their ascent to quickly join the stars twinkling above. The gunfire and rockets were isolated cases, and ended soon thereafter.

A messenger arrived from the UNHCR and the news about Goz Beida was confirmed, seems the war is back on.

As they predicted: end of Ramadan=end of light military action. I cannot say =end of peace…because there is never peace here. Its like the US Postal service in its consistency. Rain, sleet, snow or sun…we’ll fight, though sometimes we’ll tone it down a bit so we may observe religious holidays.

For its part, the new UFDD has publicly stated that NGOs and UN workers are not a target. They have requested that all humanitarians stay inside their compounds where they will be safe, as only Chadian military garrisons and bases are the enemy. This being said, witnesses have reported that in the refugee camps nearby Goz Beida government military personnel have been seen changing into civilian clothing and hiding amongst the refugees.

“One can make this generalization about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers…they would shed their blood for you, risk their property, their lives, their sons, so long as…danger is remote; but when you are in danger they turn away”
--Niccolo Machiavelli

Can I blame them for being cowards? To an extent, but it has its limits. What I cannot blame them for is not wanting to die for the materialistic good of one man, a greedy, exponentially more fickle, seemingly heartless fiend, or his wealthy entourage (I will draw no parallels). If its due, I hope Karma will even the score.

In the meantime we sit idly by here in Abeche. Waiting for word to evacuate someone, something or someplace, and waiting to see what the week brings. Speculation is everywhere, and everyone has an opinion as to what happens next. Abeche? Who knows. For our part we’ll start stocking up on food, water and beer.

Guns and more guns.

Bright, shiny new Chinese knock offs of the classic Kalashnikov automatic rifle, known world wide as the AK47 are seemingly everywhere in Chad these days. (Its amazing what a little oil money can buy…yep we’re buying the brown stuff from them and helping to keep the cycle going!). At the airport men nap in the shade of dwarfed trees, fatigued from heat and Ramadan fasting, with the glistening black steel instrument of death used as a pillow in the blazing inferno that is eastern Chad now that the rains have ended. An erratic tide of soldiers washes into and over Abeche every few days. Their numbers increase and the rumors and security concerns grow in the NGO community exponentially, before the troops presence seem to ebb, pulled away in camouflaged C130s and helicopter gunships. A collective sigh of relief then ripples across the community upon their departure, as most despise or at very least, do not trust their presence.

I witnessed a very confused expression covering a boy’s face the other morning as I was driven to the airfield in a hulking Toyota Landcruiser, air conditioned frigid air blasting away, and separated from the reality of the outside world by a 1/8 inch pane of glass. The dark, sweaty and immature face was sheepish at first, glancing down to avoid eye contact. He looked scared, alone and out of place, much like a 9th grader showing up for his first day of high school, afraid of the potential hazing. Then in a flash the innocence or childish look was gone, his eyes quickly raised to meet mine, and instantly the expression metamorphosed to bitter defiance. How dare you look at me with pity it seemed to scream as our eyes locked for a brief second of passing.

Our mammoth vehicle raced on past the child and I swiveled in my seat to follow his actions. Pausing in the eddy of choking dust left by the vehicle he seemed frozen in step, as if forgetting his intended task. I wondered if it was due to a moment of intense introversion, momentary consideration of just how ludicrous this life he’d chosen or been chosen for was. In whirling and slowly settling khaki colored dust cloud stood a boy of adolescence wearing lacy silver painted women’s sandals, arctic (white-blue-black) issue camo men’s sized slacks rolled up 1/3 of the way, a jungle print camouflaged shirt about 5 years too big for him as well, a turban, and a glistening AK47 outfitted with razor sharp bayonet. When I was fourteen I was draining my parents liquor cabinet and refilling the bottles with water. I was contemplating smoking marijuana for the first time and trying to convince gas station clerks I was 18 in order to by Marlboro Lights. I was wondering whom I’d take to the homecoming or Sadie Hawkins dance. I was shooting things with BB guns and slingshots, such as apples and my neighbor’s windows…I wasn’t perfect, but I was not skewering others with an 8-inch blade attached to the barrel of my automatic rifle. Our 4x4 whirled around the corner onto the airport tarmac where gunships were being loaded with more bombs and more child soldiers destined to die for a greedy leader who I’m sure won’t bat an eyelash at the thought of their expendability.

I hope you have a childhood next time around my friend.


A day or two later Myriam and I flew the southern rotation together, heading to Goz Beida, KouKou and Dogdore. In Dogdore we serve mainly Medecins San Frontiers (Doctors without Borders) bringing them medicine, food, tools and new physicians so they might help those in need at the nearby refugee camps. The south has been afire with a confusing mix of strife lately: a stewed combination of tribal skirmishes, newly formed energetic rebel groups, older more established rebels, government forces and malicious bandits. It’s just a great place to be these days, a real gem.

Upon landing and slowing I noticed a higher than usual number of military outfits intermingling amongst the girly looking white frock coats the Doctors wear. Still, I trusted that if the physicians had felt it unsafe for us to land they would have advised us by a predetermined signal from the ground (which if I told you, I’d have to kill you all). We feathered the propellers, shut down, hopped out and I was again aware of the gun trucks parked all around, in the shadows behind the white MSF ambulances. “Great…a Goz Beida repeat,” I thought.

No one in Dogdore speaks English, no one. Luckily for me and my incorrigible French, Myriam was there to save the day (Swiss-Canadian, and native French speaker). I unloaded the cargo and bags while vertically impaired Myriam disappeared within a crowd of anxious passengers hoping to go somewhere that wasn’t Dogdore. When I was finished she waved me over to wear she stood surrounded by soldiers armed with enough guns and ammunition to make a run on Fort Knox. They all smiled cheerily and waved, requesting handshakes and the normal civilities. I approached cautiously and saw the passenger in question, a goofy looking old man of about 65 or so with a limited number of teeth and a wrinkled, sun scorched, black leather face. In his hand he held an equally wrinkled piece of lined paper, ripped from a child’s school notebook.

“He says he needs to go…he’s on the manifest, but…well you look at his authorization and tell me what you think…” Myriam sighed.

In order for us to carry a Chadian government passenger it needs to be deemed by the UNHCR that the traveler in question is traveling for the better good of humanitarian needs. They then make out an authorization, or Order du Mission, on official UN letterhead, stamp it a million times, spit on it, and sprinkle it with fairy dust. This produces the desired effect: we let them on the airplane.

Everyone hushed and watched as I took the old man’s authorization from him and examined it, immediately chuckling. The only way it would have appealed more to my sense of humor would be if it had been written in crayon with a few sparkly stickers thrown on for good measure. Scribbled in chicken scratch across a piece of torn, lined notebook paper, was this man’s authorization, written in two ink colors and stamped with an evidently dying inkpad by none other than the old man himself. ‘I hereby give myself permission to ride on your airplane. Sincerely, me.’

At least he smiled as I laughed. Even the other dangerously armed men smiled too which comforted me as I scanned the crowd of faces immediately huddled about my position. The MSF doctors had backed off and were distancing themselves from the conversation, obviously wary of what would happen if his scribbled Lav pass of an authorization were denied. I hesitated, hemmed and hawed, kicked some rocks and made it known that I was not pleased with the situation he was putting us in…then I yielded and let him on…not wanting another situation like my Goz Beida confrontation from 2 months back. The men in uniform all rejoiced and I thought were about to break out into song and dance had we not barked at them to make expedited farewells.

The old man said his goodbyes and we all waited patiently for him to make his way towards the airplane. Finally he came, yet he had slung over his shoulder an archaic looking AK47, which he politely gestured he’d like to take on board. “Ummm, NO.” I said as I pointed at the 18-inch diameter sticker on the airplane door portraying the exact gun he had on him with a big red slash thru it. “No guns, sorry. Je suis desole.” He smiled and removed the gun. I smiled and told him to stand still so that I might wand him with the metal detector.

About 11.4 seconds worth of metal detecting work on my part revealed that this man was the Southern Chad walking ammunition depot. BEEEEEEEP….oh look, you have three handguns wrapped around your waist, isn’t that pleasant??? BEEEEEEEEEP…wow, you’ve got another on your ankle, good spot indeed sir!!!! BEEEEEEEEEEP…ummm, nice knife grandpa, good spot too, the other ankle…hmmm. What are you planning for, World War Three?????

I suddenly had visions of this old man in a Rambo outfit jumping from the airplane when we landed in Abeche and laying waste to all his enemies without suffering a single scratch, then screaming something along the lines of “ NO ONE BEATS ME AT BRIDGE AND LIVES TO TELL!!!” I smiled and he smiled toothlessly back at me.

“At least you’re not being a jerk about it.” I said, knowing he had no idea what I was saying. After the last of Rambo Sr.’s armaments were removed he happily boarded the airplane and I shut the door behind him. I walked slowly up to the front shaking my head in tune with Myriam’s at what a circus we had just seen. We both shrugged our shoulders, sighed and waved to the MSF doctors who were beginning to chase the kids, donkeys and goats off the runway. Only government employees who are traveling for the good of humanitarianism may travel aboard our aircraft. Right. And what was his job? Population control?

Later I yelled at him for removing his seat belt just before landing, confident that Rambo Sr. had no more weapons to wield and that he was just a silly looking old man in a light blue sheet trying to get to the next Abeche AARP meeting.