Cancelled visit

Just to update this blog in case anyone was planning to attend - the following visit has been cancelled at the church's request:

Wednesday 29 June - Lydbrook BC, Nr Ross-on-Wye - 2.30pm

It's been great to see many people on this home assignment, thank you to those who've attended one of my updates :)

Updating the UK

Hello!  It's been a while since I wrote anything on here, the blog has unfortunately been side-lined by other communication methods.  I got back to the UK for my 2022 home assignment 10 days ago.  After 2020's 100% online home assignment, this time around it's pretty much business as usual and I'm touring the UK giving updates on the work at Guinebor II (G2) hospital in Chad.  I thought I'd use the blogosphere (is that even a word?) to let you know where and when in the UK I will be speaking, in case you'd like to try and catch me and hear about the hospital in the desert.

Sunday 29 May - Upton Vale Baptist Church, Torquay - bring & share lunch followed by my update

Tuesday 31 May - Westcliff BC, Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex - 7.30pm

Sunday 5 June - Mansfield BC - 10.30am

Sunday 5 June - Darkhouse BC, Cosley, Bilston - 3.30pm

Monday 13 June - Union BC, High Wycombe (via Zoom) - 8pm

Wednesday 15 June - Manvers Street BC, Bath - 11.30am

Wednesday 15 June - South Molton BC, Devon - 7.30pm

Saturday 18 June - Folkestone BC - 4pm

Sunday 19 June - Brighton Road BC, Horsham - 10am

Wednesday 22 June - Selly Park BC, Birmingham - 7.30pm

Sunday 26 June - Mumbles BC, Swansea - 11am

Tuesday 28 June - Griffithstown BC, Pontypool - 7pm

Wednesday 29 June - Lydbrook BC, Nr Ross-on-Wye - 2.30pm **CANCELLED**

Sunday 3 July - Earl Shilton BC, Leicester - 10.30am

Unless otherwise stated, all meetings are in-person.  Hope you can join me, I look forward to seeing you!

Ramblings from Chad

Now that I do prayer letters more often, this blog has kinda become redundant.  However, I think it’s morphing into more of somewhere where I can give you a small window of insight into daily life in Chad.

I can’t start writing anything at this point in time without referencing covid-19.  Yes, it unfortunately made it to Chad, much to my dismay.  I’m not sure how I thought Chad would be immune, but I lived in hope.  Only for that hope to be dashed with the announcement of the first positive case on 19^th March.  I have to say that I was impressed with how the government here responded.  Lockdown happened immediately.  We didn’t have full-on lockdown like many other countries because, quite frankly, most people here can’t afford to hunker down in their houses for weeks on end.  They live day to day and so need to be out buying food with whatever money that have available that day.  However, churches and mosques were shut, non-essential shops were shut, restaurants were allowed to operate a takeaway service only, mass communal transport was stopped, you weren’t allowed more than 4 people in a car or 2 on a motorbike.  Everyone had to wear face masks.  Hand-washing stations popped up everywhere.  A night-time curfew was installed.  The airport was shut to all but cargo planes.  The list goes on.  I have to admit that the latter point about the airport turned out to be one of the hardest parts of living through covid-19 here for me.  The knowledge that there was no easy route out of Chad should I need it was hard to live with when my family and many of my closest friends are all in the UK.  Numbers of cases increased in the country.  The first community-transmission case was reported.  Chad was heading in the same direction as most of the rest of the world.  However, something happened. Or rather, didn’t happen.  Yes, numbers increased quickly.  We put many measure in place at the hospital to deal with suspect cases and prevent spread of the infection.  The government hospital down the road was the designated treatment hospital.  We waited for what I thought was the inevitable deluge of patients who would need isolating and referring to that hospital.  It never came.  There was no talk of mass death in the country.  Our hospital staff never got ill with covid.  Writing this 4 months down the line, I am full of gratitude that covid-19, despite causing sad deaths here, never escalated to the extent it has elsewhere.  The healthcare system would have been inundated and collapsed under the strain.

Here’s a pic of me sporting one of my 5 facemasks.  They’re a bit of a fashion statement here!  This is my work face mask.  Wearing it during hot season wasn’t pleasant but I am definitely pro-mask.  No debate.  This is my personal blog so I can give personal opinions ;)

Was I smiling or not under that thing?!

I’m a bit annoyed with myself for not taking a picture of my pharmacy colleague Audrey the other day.  He proudly arrived at work sporting a shirt and trousers made out of the same fabric.  Nothing unusual in that here.  However, his face mask was also made out of the same fabric.  And.  Wait for it.  His flipflops had been covered in the same fabric too!!  He was head to toe in purple tie-dye.  Brilliant.  You’ll have to use my writing to conjure up an image of what he looked like!

One thing about covid-19 that I’ve appreciated, and let’s face it, there’s not been a lot to appreciate about it, is that it’s given me the opportunity to connect in real time with people in the UK doing online things like church services.  Thanks to much-improved internet here, I was no longer the one who was far away and unable to participate.  That was great.  As was the empathy I now feel you all can have with me in the fact that I was able to have my hair cut last week for the first time in 9 months!  Hairdressers here aren’t used to Caucasian hair but a lovely Canadian friend who lives out East was in the capital.  She has hair-cutting scissors and many previous experiences of cutting people’s hair.  The offer was there.  I took it.  Alfresco hair cut!  Check out the hair washing facility in the picture below.  Ecologically friendly as I was able to water the plants at the same time. 

Simple hair-washing station!

Granted I was offered to go into the apartment she was staying in and wash my hair but hec, this was quicker and as the water was cool, pretty refreshing too!  It was so nice to have 3 inches lopped off I can tell you.

Ta-da! The end result.  Much lighter :)

Talking of water (my links in this blog are so slick today), rainy season has arrived with a vengeance.  We’ve have had some pretty heavy deluges.  Last week was particularly long and heavy and like me, many Chadians were saying they’d never known such an intense rainstorm that lasted so long.  It was crazy.  I was so worried about the villagers around the hospital and how their houses were holding up.

My new temporary lake-side property

Oh and finally, I almost forgot.  Not sure how, because this last subject has taken up a lot of time and effort since it commenced last December.  I built a house!  I know, right?!  What else would a pharmacist working at a hospital in Chad do?  I’ve definitely got many new transferable (hopefully?) skills.  Ok, so I didn’t build it with my own hands, but I was one half of the design and planning team and then I oversaw the build, which was led by our lovely and long-suffering hospital maintenance guy Alphonse.  My BMS colleagues moved in two weeks ago!  It’s so good to see it done and being lived in.  I’ve vowed never to take on a big building project again.  This is accountability right there.  Please hold me to this!!   I’ll leave you with some pictures of the construction phases and the finished product.  There are a lot, so stop here if you don’t want to be bored with construction pics!

Thanks for reading :)

18th December 2019 - before anything started

20th December 2019 - marking out the site,
digging out the foundations (by hand)

3rd January 2020 - foundations

9th January 2020 - prepping the base/floor
I've no idea what the right word is....I'm a pharmacist!

20th January 2020 - walls going up

7th February 2020 - progress!

17th February 2020 - roof going on

26th February 2020 - roof on, plastering being done,
front veranda going up

9th March 2020 - window frames in

10th March 2020 - more work on front veranda

3rd April 2020 - more progress

27th April 2020 - exterior painting

27th May 2020 - more or less finished

30th July 2020 - house being lived in :)

How you know it's hot season in Chad

We’re hopefully coming to the end of Chadian hot season 2020 and will wave a very happy goodbye to the 2-month stint of day-time temperatures around 45C and night-time temperatures of 35C.  Here are a few tell-tale signs that it’s hot season in Chad!

You prefer to sleep outside on a stringy camp bed than inside on your roasting hot mattress

My trusty camp bed

It’s not the most comfortable thing to sleep on but I find it far better than sweating it out inside on a mattress that’s absorbed the day’s heat.

The chocolate pieces in your yummy cereal, which you convince yourself is healthy because it has the word ‘muesli’ on the box, melts onto the packaging, rendering it impossible to enjoy the chocolate as it’s effectively disappeared

Empty cereal packaging, the cereal rendered more
healthy than normal thanks to the automatic removal
of the chocolate pieces from amidst the muesli

Your friends turn up with a boot-full of mangoes they bought mega-cheap from the local mango farm

I never even knew this local mango farm existed!  The joys of new teammates who find this stuff out.  I love mango and always say that they’re the only positive part of hot season in Chad.  I bought 10 mangoes from my friends for the princely sum of 75p :)

You get mega excited when a colleague presents you with a cold coca-cola in the middle of the day

Unfortunately, with my facemask on, you can’t tell I’m smiling in this photo but trust me, I let out a little whoop of excitement when I was given this!

While they’re watering the garden, you ask your friend to hose you down even though you’re still fully dressed

So refreshing!

I carried on wearing these clothes in my house after becoming drenched.  One way of staying cool!  90 minutes later they were bone dry.

Last minute meal ideas are easy – take two tortillas out of the freezer and 5 minutes later they’re defrosted and ready to eat

Taken out of the freezer at 6pm, ready to eat at 6.05pm

A local lady makes these.  They’re cheap (15p each) and make a nice change from eating baguette which is the most frequently available source of bread here.

There are probably other signs of hot season, but I can’t think of any more right now.  Other than boring you with multiple photos of my thermometer.  My parents, sister and brother-in-law are the only ones I force to see all those via WhatsApp!  Oh yes, birthday cake candles have to be kept in the fridge else they spontaneously melt and look pathetic.  That’s a good one.  I unfortunately don’t have an exciting photo of a semi-spontaneously melted candle though, sorry about that.  Oh and then there’s the fact that you have to drink around 6 litres of fluid per day.  Can’t really take a fancy photo of water bottles but yeah, that’s about the average that I drink during hot season.  Oh and that you need to add salt to food to replace what you’ve sweated out.  That’s pretty counter-cultural when you’re taught growing up that you shouldn’t add salt to anything in order to be healthy.

Hopefully that’s given a little insight into the joys of Chadian hot season!  This has been my 5^th and they don’t get any easier.  However, we’re all in the same boat and everyone consoles each other and spurs each other on.  It definitely builds camaraderie and solidarity!  

The beginner's guide to driving in Chad

Driving in Chad is most definitely an experience and adds to the fun of living here!  In order to be adept at driving in Chad you need the following aptitudes:

- 360-degree vision

- 100% alertness at all times so that you can expect the unexpected

- High anticipation of the (sometimes strange) manoeuvres that everyone else around you is about to do

- Quick hand reflex to sound the car’s horn

- Previous 4x4 off-roading experience desirable (but not essential)

- A good sense of direction (alternatively, access to GPS)

Chad, like many countries around the world (except my passport country and a fair few others) drives on the right.  So the first thing I had to get used to was driving while sitting on the left and having the gear stick on the right.  Well, that and also remembering to drive on the right!

Chad does have rules of the road.  I’m not totally sure whether they’re written down, I guess they must be, but there are also many ‘unwritten rules’ that you just learn about as you go.

In N’Djamena, the capital, the few main tarred roads are theoretically mostly dual carriageways.  However, the unwritten rule is that the lane on the right is for motorbikes (motos), car/minivan taxis (the latter frequently stop to add or drop off passengers) and the lane on the left is for regular cars and bigger vehicles.  Unless the bigger vehicles are s-l-o-w like fuel tankers or heavily-laden lorries.  Then they are ‘urged’, by the sounding of horns of vehicles following them, to move over.  I mainly stick to the left-side of the dual carriageway to avoid motos and the start-stopping taxis.  Unless there’s a fast moving, often military, pickup tailgating me.  Then I’ll politely move over to the right.  Well, I am British after all 😉 Plus I’d rather the guys with guns are ahead of me!

Perfect example of moto on the right, bigger vehicles,
including the one I'm driving, on the left

This road is actually only a single lane each side.
But, you know, there's always room for a third lane
down the middle

N’Djamena boasts three flyovers (over-passes for my American readers).  All of them are over roundabouts.  The rule is that motos aren’t allowed on the flyovers, only cars are.  The motos have to go down to the roundabout and up the other side.  So that frees up some space!  It’s timely that I add in here that there are more motos than cars here in Chad.  They are far more affordable, and you can still fit a family of four on it.  Or yourself and two adult friends.  Who needs a car when a moto will do at a fraction of the cost?

Next we need to talk about roundabouts.  Ahhhh, roundabouts.  Chad loves a good roundabout and they like making features of them by building a small monument on them, or a piece of abstract art.  Many of them are used as landmarks when giving directions.  Most of them have two names, the official one and the colloquial one.  Chad has a strange, antiquated rule when it comes to driving around roundabouts and it’s one that takes some getting used to.  When driving up to a roundabout in Chad you have right of way and can drive straight onto the roundabout.  If there’s already a vehicle going around the roundabout, it must stop to let you enter.  That said, the rule never seems to apply to motos, and they rarely stop on the roundabout to let a car enter!   I guess they’re small enough to sneak through on the inside.

Here we are, entering a roundabout.  Note the ladies on the moto and
the car patiently (ish) waiting.  Also note the decorative roundabout,
with not-anatomically-correct hands holding a globe.  What you can't see is that the globe
contains a map of the outline of Africa, with Chad painted, very large and not to scale, in the middle

Entering another roundabout.  This one is colloquially called
the spitting cow roundabout, cos those are cows heads on
the building on the roundabout.  Sometimes they turn the water
on and water comes out their mouths.  Hence the name!  Note the
terrible car driver who is not giving way to me entering the roundabout. 
Tut tut.

Next we need to cover junctions.  They exist in theory, but in practice, people rarely stop at them.  I can be driving on the main road and there can be a feeder road on my left, for example.  In most countries, the vehicle entering the main road from the side road gives way to me and enters the main road once I’ve gone past.  This rarely happens in Chad.  They drive straight out of the junction and instead of coming across in front of me, they slowly drive up the wrong side of the road for a while, dodging any oncoming traffic, until they can safely cruise over to the correct, right-hand side of the road.  It’s motos that perform this manoeuvre most often but sometimes cars do it too.  If you’re a wary foreigner like me, and you’re coming out of a side street, wanting to turn left and you’re waiting until the traffic on the main road is clear, this will cause fellow road users behind some angst.  No need to wait!  They’ll pull up beside me and then pull out at the same time as me, creating a temporary two-lane system until we’re both on the main road.

Here I am approaching a main road from a smaller road.
I, and the car in front (using an indicator, rare occurrence)
want to turn left.  So does the silver Hilux approaching from the
main road.  A nice web of cars, but it all works out in the end

Car in front cuts across to the left, I wait for the Hilux and the next
car to turn in left from the main road, before I reach the main road and
dart across to the left before more cars appear

There are accidents in Chad.  But far fewer than I’d imagine given some of the unofficial rules.  I guess most people are aware of them and so it’s not an issue.  That helps.  As does the fact that people drive pretty slowly.

So there we have it, a little overview of driving practices in Chad.  Anyone want to come over and try it out?!

Disclaimer: I wasn’t taking these photos while driving, my wonderful friend and colleague Debbie did, from the passenger’s seat.  So all photo credits to Debbie 😊 Thanks Debbie for being my official photographer for this blog post!

Handbags and gladrags

Catchy title, eh?!  It's the title of a song by British group Stereophonics.  I'm not actually going to write anything about gladrags.....there are enough pictures on this blog of me wearing various Chadian outfits so we'll leave that part of the title there.  So why am I writing about handbags?  Well, I want to use my handbag as a simple (ok, very simple) illustration of how quick my life can change and what that looks like in very practical terms.

Ten days ago, my handbag and its contents looked like this:

• Small brick-like dual SIM indestructible phone 
• Insect repellent
• Hand sanitiser
• Sun cream
• Fold-able fan
• Tissues
• Purse with Chadian money

Today, my handbag contains:

• Tissues
• Smartphone
• Reusable bag
• Pen
• Umbrella
• Purse with British money

Yes, it's home assignment time and I'm back in the UK!  I will be speaking about the work of Guinebor II Hospital at various places around the country.  Feel free to come along and hear all about it.

Sunday 22 September - 3pm - Upton Vale Baptist Church, Torquay

Saturday 28 September - 1.40pm - BMS cafe event at the South Wales Baptist Association 'Association Day' at Bethel Baptist Church, Pontyclun.  More info: http://southwalesba.org.uk/news-events/

Sunday 29 September - 11am - Mumbles Baptist Church, Swansea

Sunday 29 September - 6pm - Moriah Baptist Church, Risca

Sunday 6 October - 10am - Redhill Baptist Church

Tuesday 8 October - evening - Desford Free Church, Leicester

Sunday 13 October - 10.45am - Abbey Centre Baptist Church, Northampton

Sunday 13 October - 6pm - Eastwood Baptist Church, Nottingham

Tuesday 15 October - 7pm - Griffithstown Baptist Church

Thursday 17 October - 7.30pm - South Molton Baptist Church

Sunday 20 October - Bluntisham Baptist Church 

Rainy season - the positives

Usually when rainy season hits, I’m blogging about increased mud, dodgy (ok, dodgier) roads and heightened malaria risk.  All that is still true and an everyday reality.  However, there are some positives of the rains hitting!

The first rain at Guinebor this year happened on 27^th May.  I did my traditional dance in the first rain of the year (ok, it’s actually a crazy run around with my arms in the air) – it is SUCH a relief to feel the rain after the drudge of at least 2 months of hot season, where it’s continuously over 35C by night and over 40C by day.  I get totally soaked and it’s fabulous!  This year I was joined by BMS short-termer Dr Jon.  Kudos to Dr Jon who arrived for a 4-month stint with us at Guinebor at the height of hot season at the start of April.  We were watched bemusedly by our friend Michaela, who watched the rain fall from the comfort of her veranda!

After dancing like a fool in the first rain of 2019!
Note the brown ground in the background

So 27^th May was the first rain since October 2018!  It’s amazing that after just a few rains, the brown, dry, dusty ground turns green.  The following pictures show the same part of the housing area of the hospital compound at three different times at the start of rainy.  It’s so cool that the grass seeds remain dormant under the ground all dry season!

19th May 2019

7th June 2019

29th June 2019

30th July 2019

We have gardens, of sorts, at our houses here on the compound.  During the dry season we work hard watering them to keep some sort of greenery around.  Every now and again a plant will flower in dry season, but not too often.  However, in rainy season – flowers abound!

Wildlife also seems to abound more in rainy season.  There are often small birds around our compound but this rainy season we’ve seen a lot of sunbirds.  Or maybe it’s just one that we’ve seen a lot?  Beautiful creatures that have iridescent colours.  The colours of their feathers change depending on the angle of the sun on them.  Totally amazing!  Unfortunately, they’re quite elusive and I’ve never had my camera around when I’ve happened to see a sunbird on a small tree outside my front door.  So you’ll have to do with a stock photo I pinched off the internet (thanks Google).

Finally, I saw something for the first time ever a couple of Sundays ago on the way back from church.  A rainbow behind clouds!  I’d heard about this phenomenon that happens during rainy season and seen pictures from a few years ago when it was last seen here.  It was great to witness it with my own eyes.  The picture below doesn’t do it justice really, but you get the idea.

Beauty in the desert and a privilege to see :)