We had 4 days of uninterrupted sunshine. Tropical, skin searing, blazing sunshine while our airplane was out of service awaiting parts. Now, with the inoperative parts rendered operable, and the aircraft gods smiling down upon us again, the weather gods have decided its time to return from their brief rest and relaxation recess and play once more.
A flat corrugated, tin roof makes an amazing amount of noise when it is slammed with hailstones or large globulous drops of water sent from 35,000 feet above. I awoke two mornings ago to the slight pitter patter of small droplets, increasing ever slightly, accompanied by the low rumblings of approaching thunder, and I drifted slowly back to sleep. It was as if someone (recently returned from weather god R&R) decided the foreplay was enough...this is boring, lets give em the whole thing. The storm slammed into N'djamena and our flat tin roof resulting in more flooding, more temporarily homeless people whose houses sit submerged in mocha colored waters, more sanctuary for mosquitoes and their parasites, and one wide awake Jesse.
After an hour or so it drifted off into the distance, leaving only a constant drizzle, lumbering off towards Nigeria, and the Atlantic Ocean. Off west still, in this band of latitude where Mr. Coriolis and his wondrous effect have no say, thru the intertropical discontinuity zone as the weather experts call it, over the first murky, then deep, blue waters of the Atlantic. Off over the Canaries, later the Turks and Caicos, the island of Hispaniola, across Cuba and over ailing Mr. Castro's head towards Florida and beyond to the northeast United States. I'm not sure why lying in bed thinking this gave me a bit of solace, a bit of pleasure, though I hypothesize the thoughts produced feelings that were along the lines of 'I'm not so far from home after all'. Most people contemplate, when they are lonely in a faraway place, that the moon or white stars they gaze at above are the very same moon or twinkling, white stars their loved ones may also be admiring 5 thousand miles away. I laid awake thinking that maybe, just maybe, the rain that awakens me here, at 3am on a Wednesday morning, and that will flood our road and the huts of many poor souls here in the neighborhoods surrounding, or at least that rain's cousin, will in possibly 2 weeks time, travel up the eastern seaboard of North America and drench you all too. Sorry.
I leave for R&R this weekend, late Sunday night to be exact. I hop aboard AirFrance and head first to Paris where I meet my friend Laura, whom I traveled with in China last year. We plan on using our 7 hour layover to venture off to the Eiffel tower or maybe just to go get a cup of expensive coffee at some random street side cafe. Then it's back to the airport where our airplane for Lisbon, Portugal awaits to take us.
People have been asking why I want to go to Portugal. How many people do you know personally that have been to Portugal? I, personally, count zero, and that is what interests me. I look forward to being able to eat what I want to eat, without worrying that I'm tempting cholera, dysentery, food poisoning, or giardia, and to drink good wine...mmmm. The ocean, too, tempts, especially it being the Atlantic. I think there may be one summer in my lifetime that I have not gone swimming more than once in the North Atlantic, and I'd rather not make that number two. Its just one of those previously unspoken of (spoken of now) pledges, an unconscious promise to myself. Though I'd rather take to the water with a mask, snorkel and speargun or bag to snag some lobsters, I'll be more than contempt just to wet my head in its salty waves again this year. Oh, and Portugal is said to have the largest supply of unicorns and twizzle horned pixie dust eaters globally (second only to Pilanesburg National Park in South Africa, as Bryce Kujat will attest to). Just seeing if your paying attention.
RANDOM AFRICAN FLOWER...
My unread book supply has dwindled to nothing. What remains are those books that are left here from previous tenants, some in foreign dialects, some saucy-steamy romance novels, one by the good doctor Phil, and the last...Herman Melville's solitary novel of mention (I'm aware he wrote more). It seems quite strange to be sitting beside the muddy Chari River, Cameroon a canoe's paddle away, French warplanes roaring overhead, men careening thru the streets beside with vast armaments of weaponry, tropical birds and tropical sun screeching and scorching, while I sit reading Moby Dick. I always pictured this novel as one best read while sitting beside a stone fireplace in a house perched above the breaking surf on Cuttyhunk Island as cold, coastal December rain pelted the windows, or even on its namesake, Nantucket. But Tchad? Its funny when you get sucked into a good book, your persona almost veers towards that of the characters, you start to be there in the plot and occasionally have to remind yourself that you exist in the present reality, not in the fictional or nonfictional happenings of the novel. This sounds silly, but I can guarantee you that if you were reading a great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story while overlooking the moors of northern England, or a phenomenal mountaineering survival account while the snowy Alps or Rockies sat within view, the book in question would seem all that more real, as if you were inside the setting and a member of its character list. Funny sometimes to be reading all these aargh's, ye's, twas's, thous't's, wast's, hast's, aye's and dosts's only to divert my attention to the real world and hear the next most foreign language besides salty old English with a Quaker twist, Arabic. (yes I realize my highschool grammar teachers would be appalled at my use of apostrophes in the previous statement)
There have been two (of I'm sure countless others I'm unaware of) medevacs lately. One was our Swiss Canadian pilot Miriam, who was suffering for a couple weeks from abdominal pains that the French military doctors debated it being a liver infection or appendicitis. We managed to fit her on the airplane last week and get her back to N'djamena so that she might catch a flight home to Canada.
The other was one of Elizabeth's coworkers, at CCF. This poor guy, who I'm sure I'm misspelling his name grossly, Shri, had quite the run of luck here in the capital. A couple weeks back he came down with a flu like symptoms that after a few days remained, and remained with undiminished intensity. He had little energy, crippling cramps, nausea and fevers...logical conclusion: MALARIA. Off he went to the wonderfully illustrious N'djamena hospital, where sure enough, the Chadian medical staff concluded the same and he was issued a prescription of heavy duty, industrial strength, reduce your life expectancy by 3 years, antibiotics. 5 days later, his symptoms remained, and they once again, remained with consistent fervor. Back to the incredibly insightful N'djamena hospital for Shri where it was found..."WOW, your malaria levels have doubled in the past 5 days. You went from a bacterial concentration level of .004 to .008, that's putting you into a serious danger zone!...here take these, and come back in 3 days". So, off Shri went again, now with a new omnipotent, volatile, take another 4 years off your life expectancy, prescription. Three days pass, guess what? Shri gets driven back to the hospital, feeling as bad as ever. Blood sample taken, blood sample reveals (drum roll please): "OH, PRAISE ALLAH! How are you even alive??? Your malarial infection level has jumped from .008 to .022!!! This is lethal!...Oh, by the way, you have jaundice as well. Sorry. Take these pills and come back in 2 days. Toodles!" So off Shri goes again, but this time the rest of his coworkers finally said enough is enough, we need to get you to a western doctor, and off Shri goes to a French doctor instead of back home to poison himself and his hitchhiking parasites. 1 hour of testing and the French doctor reveals the truth. 'Shri, I'm not sure what to say. Shri, you do not have Malaria, and you sure do not have jaundice. Where did you get these diagnoses?' The answer being told, a mini-investigation took place and was quickly concluded upon one visit to the magnificent and incredibly modern N'djamena hospital.
It seems that in the state of the art medical facility that is the N'djamena hospital, there is a bit of a shortage of peetree dishes for blood sample analysis, and a bit of a shortage of medical common sense for blood sample analysis analysis. One poor guy comes in and has his blood tested. They put a dropper of it on a petree dish and in a test tube for testing, run some checks, make a diagnosis, and voila! the dish or tube is simply emptied and a new sample tossed in. Medical grade alcohol anyone? Nah, too expensive. So Bob comes in one day and sure enough Bob's got malaria. Poor Susan comes in later and, wow! that's the second case of malaria today! Later, Mohammed, Ahkmed, Tony, Paul, Mustaffa, Ibrahim and Shri all come in..."well I'll be a camel's sister!, you've all got malaria. Damn, malaria is really taking off this week, we're batting 1000! By the way nurse, can you just wipe down that petree dish with that rag? Yeah, the bloody rag over there on the floor, uh-huh, that's fine...good, merci beaucoup!". So poor Shri was sent home to India, where I hope he doesn't await the same fate, but at least he'll be in the company of family.
Off to Portugal for me, just in time too. The sh#@ is hitting the fan in Chad...rebels creeping around every corner and people are dusting the cobwebs off the old evacuation plans....
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