Chad Mental Status Check

As I’ve shared with many of you, I have to admit that I do have a solid ten minutes (give or take) a day where I doubt why I ever came to Chad. Should I just call it a day and go back home? Today those ten minutes turned into a couple of hours where I devised an array of exit strategies, but somehow, I always come back around. Something always happens to make me laugh at myself and this situation, or in today’s case, my luggage arrived and I now have my boxed wine! In the end, I am determined to do what I was sent to do.

I am not the only one who seems to suffer from “Chad” syndrome and I think there is such a tight expat community because of the additional stress of working here and the distance we all somehow feel from the local population. I cannot tell you how many people have told me that if you can work here, you can work anywhere. We are all aware of the sorry state of our existence, but somehow we drudge forward, taking comfort in the little joys. For such a short time here, I’ve had such a great time with some of the strangest combinations of people from all parts of the world. We can somehow turn a night of eating whatever the hell we can find to mix up into a salsa dance party.

So how is the work? Well, I’ve visited one of our camps of operation and it was quite a contrast to the IDP camps in Northern Uganda. Desolation, spread out, dust, wind, few people out, aside from the women walking for firewood and water…Pictures are probably best. What I am struck by is the organization of the camps, all of which are managed by international NGOs. Language is tricky- though I’ve been struggling through Franglais in Iriba and Abeche, French gets me nowhere with Sudanese refugees who speak their own dialect of Arabic, which is different from that spoken by Chadians. I gave a training to my staff today, and everything I said had to be translated from English to French by my assistant, and then from French to Chadian Arabic by another worker and then vice versa when they want to talk to me. No wonder it takes forever to get anything done!

In case you have forgotten, I remain in my “sparse” living conditions. I managed to get two showers (and toilet!) in at another NGO this week and that is all anybody can really hope for. Food? There still isn’t any. Canned food gets old real quick and I continue in my attempts (though often in vain) to get other people to cook for me. There are only so many combinations I can concoct from pasta, canned tuna fish/veggies/fruits/lentils, and the occasional REAL tomato (peanut butter is a special breakfast treat and I am rationing oatmeal packets for a rainy day). My only score is the discovery of some children’s Flintstone-style chewable vitamins. The vitamins now serve as my candy fix – I take two mid-morning to pretend like I am having a little snack. I am freezing at night, hoping that as Thursday is market day, I can find a blanket. There are rumors that one can get potatoes on market day, but I’ve just found out that no such luck this week. I also eagerly await allergy medicine from the States, though what I can be allergic to other than dust and sand is beyond me!

I continue to fail in my attempt to paint a picture of the people or this region, let alone the Darfurian refugees. I suppose I just cannot get words around my impressions. I also think it takes much longer to really get a sense of what is going on beneath the surface. Give me time…