For those of you who read this post last night and wrote me since then, I apologize. I was pretty confused and pissed off about the '3rd' strike I received in regards to picture taking.
Therefore I have edited it and subtracted the 3 beers I had in me when I wrote it as well. Anyway, for those of you who did not read it...good, lets just keep it that way.
What happened was this: On our way to another local NGO's (World Food Program) barbecue we stopped at one of the local bars, the very one I went to my first day here, in order to buy some beer for the cookout. While we were stopped a thunderstorm advanced led by a huge wall of orange dust reaching 3000 to 4000 feet in the air, it was an unbelievable sight. I had already seen a few others last week, preceeding some of the other thunderstorms, but this one was wild, and it was too perfect as far a photo-ops go. So, we all began clicking away...shooting this wall of dust advancing across the city, turning everything to orange, turning everything eerie. It was awesome. I took 4 pictures or so of different things around me, from the back seat of the car when suddenly I heard shouting coming from my left. Amazingly, once again I had been caught taking pictures, this time of the most sacred of Chadian subjects...DUST! The thing that upset me about the event was that I had been done taking pictures for a good few minutes, yet the others were just putting their cameras away. We were all discrete, and all made sure we did not aim them in the direction of women. Yet for some reason I was once again the one who was picked out of the group and violently approached.
An evidently intoxicated and hypocritical Muslim (hypocritical because of the intoxication...a big Quran no-no) ran up to my window with buddies in tow and begin screaming at me in slurred Arabic. At first I was quite freaked out, then as the slurring continued I started to get mad, real mad, and confused. Why me? Huh? What had I done differently from the others? Did you know I was intentionally underexposing the pictures 1/2 a F-stop????? Does that make you MAD?? Do you not like the shirt I'm wearing???? Is my deodorant offensive??? Well then WHAT!!??!?? It escalated to a point that I was mad, and a bit afraid that it was on the verge of turning into something worse. Jihads against Anglo Saxon tourist/photographer/NGO guys is not my idea of a relaxing intro to an afternoon barbeque. Next time no appetizer please...thank you Ahkmed.
So, my camera now only goes in the plane with me, in my backpack if we venture out of town, or in my backpack when I go on vacation. I'm not sure what it is that these cantancerous old bastards dislike so vehemently with my looks or photo taking style, but I'm not tempting 'Strike 4' for quite sometime. Its too bad, as well, because I see so many things that would make incredible images to share with you all, but now I'm afraid there might be some other pugnacious freak lurking behind me looking for an excuse to pick a fight, and I think I'll just have to write more descriptevely instead to make up the difference.
Anyway, here's a few pictures from the moments before the storm and sand cloud. If it hadn't been for Akbar the Asshole I would have taken more of the amazing eeriness. Sorry if I worried anyone, I'll cool it from now on...
Notice the ORANGE GLOW in the air...it was a bit spooky in a way. The most amazing thing about it all was watching the sand cloud wall, which rose about 4000 feet in the air, advancing in front of the thunderstorm, racing across the desert towards the town, us and our beer.
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