Construction Update

Girls night in

Last Saturday night 5 ladies got together for a girls night. Initially a screening of the first Twilight movie instigated by the devoted Twilight fans at SIL (there are 2), the event soon evolved into more of a social night, with food and pampering along the way.

We started with dinner: homemade pizzas and salad, followed by lemon butter and cake for desert.

It was then time to begin the pampering. First we soaked our feet…

Then gave them a scrub and moisturised…

and painted our nails…

All dolled up, ready for a big night in, it was then time for the main event…Twilight! 5 became 4 as we moved to the common room to ensure the best viewing possible – on the flat screen TV (there are only a couple of TVs on the whole centre: this one gives SIL staff an outlet for winding down). While I’m not an avid vampire fan myself, I think it’s fair to say an enjoyable night was had by all. Now for the second movie…

Ba-Illi

We have just returned to N’Djamena from a weeklong trip south (arrived home Wed 16th).

Stefanie, who works as an SIL literacy facilitator for 6 different language groups, gave us the opportunity to accompany her as she travelled to a region she hadn’t yet visited to check up on the progress of the literacy program there. Of course we jumped at the opportunity to get out of N’Djamena and see some more of Chad. 

Thomas, the SIL Chad director also has a Canon camera and he very graciously allowed us to borrow his lens for the trip. Thank the Lord that we've still had some means of documenting what we've seen through this arrangement!

The Journey

With the construction program sorted for the week with tasks that shouldn’t require too much supervision and Katie excited about having a break from school, we left at 8am on Thursday March 10. We left the SIL compound in N’Djamena together with Stefanie and on our way out of N’Djamena, we stopped to pick up Jonas, a Chadian member of Stefanie’s literacy team just before crossing one of the 2 main bridges over the Chari River. Once we had crossed what is sure to be a vastly different river in the wet season, we had officially left N’Djamena and we turned left onto the main road south.

The paved road was reasonable and we both enjoyed watching the scenery outside the capital city pass us by. It wasn’t long before the N’Djamenian houses subsided and infrequent villages were interspersed with the occasional nomad camp (and usually a herd of cattle or camels nearby), random people on foot or bicycles in the middle of nowhere, towering fully loaded trucks, slow, beaten-up minibuses, and medium size Express Voyage buses roaring past at what we guessed would have had to be around 120kph [there is only one way of doing things in Chad (and we assume much of Africa) – ridiculously full loads travelling at full speed]. A couple of toilet stops and a few hours later we had reached Gelendang – where the end of the bitumen meets the dirt road.

The first shots we've been able to take of Chadian streets - only because the car was moving quickly enough. There are
only so many options when taking photos from a bumpy moving vehicle: apologies for the monotony of the framing.

We had to add the token 'its cool when guys hold hands in Africa' photo.

Cranes are an extremely rare sight in Chad - we thought we'd better take a photo and add it for those of you that have
never seen one :)

Nomad Camp

Nomad Camels

Nomad Cattle

African Transport

Village markets often spill onto the main road - slow down and use your horn!

People walk for miles to get to the nearest markets, often carrying their wares to sell

More than meets the eye: nothing goes to waste - look closely and you can see grain stored in the wrecked van

Pretty sure they could fit a few more in...

By the time we got to Gelendang, we were ready for a break and as we had been asked to do some paint shopping by the AIM mission where we were to stay in Ba-Illi, we decided cokes all round could only be beneficial. After half an hour bartering with the two quincaillerie boutiques across the road from each other, we ended up buying our 8 x 1L tins of white paint from the first guy and hit the road again.

Exiting Gelendang - the dirt road begins.

L-R: Demi, the local literacy coordinator; Jonas a supervisor based in N'Djamena; Stefanie; and Katie.

John drove the stretch of dirt road and after a couple of hours of bumpy and sometimes very sandy road, we arrived at a village called Brazzaville, 7km or so out from Ba-illi. Apparently Brazzaville was named after the capital of Congo by a village chief who served in the military there. He was proud enough of his time there that not only did his village take on the name, but one of his sons also received the same honour [the fairly recent war-torn history of the Congolese Brazzaville means this intriguing influence in the village at least deserves a raise of the eyebrows].

Stefanie’s host family (the family of the literacy teacher in the immediate vicinity) live in Brazzaville. By the time we arrived in Brazzaville, it was around 1.30pm and we were invited in to sit under the dried corn stalk roof of a shelter in their concession (on chairs – which meant we were considered special guests). It was there we waited, relaxed and talked while our food was prepared (the conversation included some French learning for us and a quick English lesson for the literacy team). After being served hot tea, a short time later we were brought our meal of rice and fish sauce, with fresh fish pieces [both Ba-Illi and Brazzaville are very close to the Chari River – we had vaguely followed the west bank south and east for the whole journey]. The meal was quite nice, but we couldn’t help but being nervous about our stomachs later on, knowing how the food was likely prepared.

By now the word had spread that there were ‘nassaras’ in the village and a large group of children had gathered, staring with wide eyes at our every movement. This escalated when John got his camera out and starting photographing the scene and showed the children their pictures on the digital camera screen.

We then left Brazzaville around 4:30pm and headed down the road to the AIM compound at Ba-Illi. On our arrival we were greeted by the Clermont children, who were playing basketball with the local children in their front yard.

[Background: we stumbled across Justin and Krista Clermont’s blog while we were still in Australia preparing for our time here. They aren’t in Chad with SIL, but we thought maybe we’d bump into them since surely mission circles aren’t huge in Chad. When we arrived, we couldn’t relocate their blog and no one at SIL was quite sure who we meant as we tried to describe a family we couldn’t remember much about, let alone their names! Anyway, not long after we arrived, they stayed at SIL in N’Djamena before heading back to Ba-Illi and we recognized them! So with this bizarre God engineered connection, we were looking forward to spending a little time getting to know them a bit down in their part of the country.]

As the sun disappeared on the first night, we greatly appreciated the sound of silence. The quiet village was a welcome change to the noisy generators (SIL’s one of the greatest contributors) and constant nighttime music from the bars in our part of N’Djamena. We shared supper with the Clermont family (Justin, Krista and their 4 children who are 5 years old and under), Krista’s parents (her dad is the director of AIM in Chad – he is also the guy who helped John with the last piece of the water crisis puzzle) and Scott (the motorbike dude), who were nearing the end of their weeklong working visit.

John, Pam and Scott were given a chicken before they left for N'Djamena - it rode up top with its feet tied down! 

Work

After our arrival, the days rolled on by but in a more relaxed, slower paced way. Katie helped Krista where she could – minding the children, cooking or cleaning up – while John was kept busy with a few projects Justin had had in mind. This included fixing one of the boys’ bikes, which unfortunately was short lived as a tyre blew out not long after the bike had been repaired again. There was another building foundation to keep in check (much smaller scale thankfully) and they also measured out and marked the boundary for a 90x90m garden and started welding the fence-posts for that. The week’s most important (or perhaps most urgent) project was for John to redesign some supports for the Clermonts broken roof rack with limited materials – then fabricate these and get it back onto their Nissan Patrol. Without the roof rack, there is no way the family of 6 can make the trip to N’Djamena and back and their next trip was only 2 weeks away (the previous supports broke on the last trip back to Ba-Illi).

The roof rack turned out to be quite a time consuming task. The boys spent a couple of long and hard days working on this (African style), cutting multiple lengths of angle iron at specific angles with hack-saws, then welding using an overpowered generator/stick-welder (couldn’t turn the thing down to the correct amperage for the steel used), some G-clamps and broken welding mask. Mind you, this was outside in the hot shade, on sand and using brittle African bricks as a bench. John discovered that the tools actually disappeared beneath the shifting surface if you left them for too long! While the job wasn’t completely finished by the time we left, it wasn’t far off, with only a few additional welds and a coat of paint needed to tidy it up.

We all know John loves fixing bikes - a 16" may be insignificant, but it's a start :)

R: welding looks pretty impressive (fence posts), but it is so frustrating when you've never done it and can't do a good job!
L: the roof rack in its legless state

The Chari River

We got to see a bit of what Ba-illi had to offer when we visited the Chari River on Friday afternoon. Justin, 2 of the Clermont boys and John and Katie all piled into the Patrol and drove 7-8km through desert scrubland (not dissimilar to the scraggly arid vegetation you see in the Australian bush) before parking the car near the river. On this side of the river, we were joined by another Ba-Illi based AIM family who we had met when they came into N’Djamena for homeschooling week at Wellspring. We all jumped into a wooden canoe and peacefully crossed the main part of the river to a little sand bar, with help from our Chadian oarsman. Another AIM family who live in a village on the other side of the river and also own the canoe met us out on the sand bar.

It didn’t take long before all of the children were into the river, swimming and playing together – a nice reprieve from the days heat. The adults stood on the bank and chatted before we all shared some snacks and enjoyed the scenery as the sun went down – also a great opportunity for John to take some photos.

The canoe - these things slowly fill with water, but although that is slightly disconcerting, we can't complain about the trip. Later on
 we saw them use these to take an ox cart over the river and apparently 4wd's have made the trip too (though we wouldn't be
offering our's to test that out)!

[you can see a nomad camp along the bank on the far side of the river]

As the mosquitoes began to arrive we made our exit back across the river in the canoe and left for home. We returned to big fluffy pancakes for supper, which was a real treat.

To Market

Another highlight was going into the Ba-Illi markets on Saturday. Ba-Illi’s population is predominantly Arabic and the culture traditionally keeps the activities of males and females very separate. Katie went in the mid-morning with Krista and bought some essentials such as flour, vegies and tinned food and also did a quick shop for a new head covering for Katie. Being white is certainly a draw card for the locals, especially the children who stop and stare. Vendors had to tell the gawkers to keep moving otherwise the alleyways between stalls quickly became blocked with spectators!

Later in the afternoon, when it had cooled a little, John and Justin went into the markets to have a look around and try to catch up with some local friends who sold goods there. They were treated to a malt drink and some meat and bread as sales had been good that day.

Afternoons

Sometimes in the cool of the afternoons, we would all venture out to the dirt airstrip not far from the Clermonts place. Here the boys would kick a ball (both the AFL ball John brought with him – met with reasonable enthusiasm to his delight – and the usual round type) and throw a frisby, the kids would ride their bikes and the ladies would walk the length of the airstrip chatting. Afternoons were also a good time for John, Justin and the Clermont boys to play soccer with the eager local kids.

Evenings

After supper of an evening, once the kids were all in bed, the adults took the opportunity to chat, play games and share a treat – usually of the chocolate sort (sometimes even Cadbury!!) J This was a great time to get to know each other better and while it was only usually a short time – being so tired from the day, we really enjoyed the insights and hospitality of Justin and Krista.

Church

On Sunday morning, we all went to the Clermont’s local church. It is a small church where an elder spoke on John 15:12 and love. It is cultural for men and women to sit on different sides of the church. The service was in French.

Boule

Monday lunch, Odette the househelp made boule and satay sauce for all. Since the Chadian workers ate too, the men all ate together outside in the hanger (thatched verandah type thing) while the ladies ate inside. Boule and sauce is a traditional Chadian meal. The boule is made with millet and quite dense. It is scooped up with the fingers and dipped into the sauce, then eaten. It is quite a heavy meal. Hot, sugary sweet tea is also served traditionally to guests.

Literacy

On Tuesday afternoon, Justin drove John and Katie back to Brazzaville around 2pm to see Stefanie and visit the Brazzaville literacy class. We arrived at the teacher’s concession just as lunch was being served, so after sharing a little rice and fish sauce, Justin left back for home and we left with the literacy team. The literacy class took place a short drive down the road from the teacher’s concession. By now it was about 3.30pm and the class was due to start at 2pm...African time! The class ran for about an hour and a half and was for the students who had reached levels 3 and 4 (typically it takes about a year to progress through 1 level). Throughout this time we saw the teacher call on the 15 students to read and write in their local dialect with the help of their literacy book.

Stefanie then ‘tested’ the students’ knowledge of their alphabet (31 letters, 9 vowels) by writing unfamiliar and phonically challenging words on the chalkboard for them to sound out. She also got them to do the reverse and write words she spoke and sounded out to them (with the help of the local coordinator who spoke the local dialect – the guy we picked up in Gelendang on the way down). We left at around 5pm and went back to the hosts house where we chatted a little before heading back to Ba-Illi at 6pm.

Unfortunately this was about the only opportunity where we were able to see Stefanie’s work as she ended up being based further out of Ba-Illi for longer than expected. It was good to see at least some of SIL’s work in action and to be able to make more sense of the parts of the process we do see back in N’Djamena.

Home

The drive back home only took around 4.5 hours and this time John drove the paved road from Gelendang all the way home to SIL in N’Djamena. He enjoyed his time behind the wheel, as this is the first opportunity he has had to drive in Chad. We had the pleasure of seeing a group of hippos basking in the sun on a sandbank in the middle of the Chari River as we crossed the bridge back into town. Once we returned home, we realized how good we do have it on the centre – constant electricity (with either town power or the generators), fans, running water – and we still often take it for granted.

The Clermont's Ba-Illi house

Katie and Levi

The guest house (or its gate & the goats anyway) 

The Clermont family (sorry about the appallingly blurry family shot - I stuffed that one up good & proper!)
Main photo L-R: Justin, Levi, Krista (holding Keilah), Josiah, John, Micah and Katie 

Construction Update