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.