What a difference some rain makes

Hot season has finally ended and I am so glad.  Gone (until March 2017) are the sweltering 45C days and 35C nights.  They’ve been replaced with a very humid but cooler climate because the rains have arrived.  It’s unusual to have a small shower here, usually it’s a full-on storm that goes on for hours with heavy rain, thunder and lightning.  Along with the rain comes standing water, along with standing water come the mosquitoes, and along with mosquitoes comes malaria :(  The number of cases of malaria that we see at the hospital is increasing daily…..

Something else that comes with the rain is grass!  Yes, believe it or not, we get grass here in the desert.  How the seeds stay alive under the ground during hot season I do not know, but it only takes a week or so of rains for them to come alive and sprout, meaning we have to get the lawnmower out!

My house in dry season

My house in rainy season

Part of the road to Guinebor in dry season

Same part of the road to Guinebor in rainy season

Another thing that comes with the rain is mud.  Lots of mud.  Half of the ‘road’ from the hospital into town is dirt track.  Dirt track + heavy rain = lots of puddles and mud.  This makes for interesting driving.  We effectively have to do 4x4 off-roading to get to the shops!  Not a lot of people can say that!  It can be exciting but most of the time I’m scared, if I’m honest.  I’m scared my Toyota RAV4 will get stuck (it’s not too high off the ground).  It’s a challenge to navigate through the mud and puddles, wondering how deep it’ll be, whether there are any hidden rocks or random pieces of scrap metal to help destroy the car that little bit more.  There are a fair few parts of the ‘road’ where there’s only a single track through at best.  Meeting another car or motorbike at these points can be stressful, as you can’t slow down and calmly go past each other, else one or both of you get stuck!  So far so good with the off-roading to the shops – I’ve not yet had to use the tow rope I diligently packed in the UK and had to face the obligatory crowd that I’m told suddenly develops when the white person gets stuck in the mud!  Long may it continue.  Here are a few pictures of the ‘road’ to the shops.  I’ve unfortunately not got the narrower and muddier parts captured on camera but you get the idea…….

Watch out Britain's roads when I’m next back, this girl is getting used to putting her foot down and ploughing on through!

Hello, bonjour, al-salam alekum

In the last six weeks I have started learning Chadian Arabic!  Why?!  I hear you ask.  The fact of the matter is that not many Chadians speak French.  Only those who’ve been able to have an education can speak French and unfortunately, not all children here are able to go to school.  The working language of the hospital, between the staff, is French and so that is why I went to French language school, in order to improve my French and enable me to communicate better with my colleagues.  I can definitely tell that my French has improved, compared to when I was here in 2013.  However, my ability to communicate with people at the hospital stops there, with the staff.  I’d say around 90% of the patients who come here don’t speak French but the majority of them speak Chadian Arabic.  Therefore communicating with them is difficult and when I need to speak with a patient I have to have one of the Chadian staff translate for me (the staff all speak French and Chadian Arabic).

In order to be able to interact directly with the patients, I really want to be able to speak Chadian Arabic.

So six weeks ago, I and two expat friends who also work here embarked on learning spoken Chadian Arabic.  We’ve not attempted to try and learn Arabic script, that feels one step too far and to be honest.  This is generally a spoken-language culture as a lot of people are illiterate – because they’ve not had access to education.

After locating a teacher in town, who came highly recommended by others, we negotiated the price and the days and times we’d learn Chadian Arabic.  We currently have two lessons a week, each being two hours long.  We meet for our lessons here on the hospital site, after the three of us have finished the bulk of our work for the day.

It is challenging learning this language!  Aside from the fact that we started learning it at the hottest time of year and at the end of the working day, it is a challenge to learn a language through a language that isn’t your first.  We learn Chadian Arabic in French.  Sometimes my brain gets confused with two foreign languages milling around in there and my mouth interjects a French word among the Chadian Arabic I’m speaking – cos, well it’s all foreign language isn’t it?!

  

A page from our Chadian Arabic textbook

Chadian Arabic only has three tenses: past, present and future.  Language learners amongst you will know that that was very happy news to hear!  However sentence structure can get a bit complicated and I now have to get used to being able to say the letter ‘s’ at the end of a word again, which you never do in French but you do in English.  And then there’s money.  Arabic uses different figures when it comes to money, and not just the number that corresponds to the amount being talked about.  So that’s another avenue of confusion!

All in all it’s going well and I’m enjoying it.  The hospital staff think it’s great (actually, make that word hilarious) that we’re trying to learn Chadian Arabic and they help us out all the time with practising speaking it.  However they often go far beyond the amount we’ve learned so far and then I get stuck!  All good fun.

My friends and I with Abakar, our teacher

Free spa treatments

What?!  I hear you cry.  Free spa treatments?!  Where do I sign up?!

The answer: Chad!  Come to Chad and you too can experience the following three spa treatments, usually attracting a hefty charge in salons across the Western world, for absolutely nothing!  See, it’s not all dust and excessive temperatures here!  The only downside is that you get no choice as to when you receive your ‘treatment’.  You get what you pay for I guess…….

1.       Free facial exfoliation

You can experience a free facial exfoliation at any time, but more commonly during the first three months of the year, when it’s harmattan season.  Strong winds will pick up speed in seconds.  Couple that with the fact it won’t have rained for at least three months, which means there’s dust aplenty and there you have it – a free face scrub! 

2.       Free colonic irrigation

Foreign bugs can sometimes play havoc with your digestive system, however well you filter your water, disinfect your fruit and veg and wash your hands.  I don’t need to say any more! 

3.       Free sauna

With temperatures currently at a daytime high of 45C in the shade, you sweat.  A lot.  Even though the humidity is usually fairly low.  So every day it’s like walking around in a huge sauna.  Great for the pores, there’s no chance of having spots here!

Chad is a country of many surprises.  I may be able to add to this list in the future!

Celebrating women

What were you doing on Tuesday 8^th March 2016?  Did you know that each year 8^th March is designated as International Women’s Day?  I never knew that until I was in Chad last time.  It’s not much celebrated in the UK.

Here in Chad, as in a lot of countries, it is a big event.  I could think up some reasons why, but I’m not sure they’d be based on fact, just my own thoughts and probably a few biases.

Women in Chad are generally seen as inferior to men.  A woman’s worth is overall gauged by how many children she produces.  Men are generally the wage-earners and the women stay at home cooking, cleaning and looking after the children.  Polygamous relationships are legal, men can have up to four wives under Chadian law, and so families can be large. 

On the morning of 8^th March I was looking at the BBC website and my eye was drawn to an article entitled ‘International Women’s Day: Sexism rife in textbooks, says Unesco’.  The sub-title reads ‘sexist attitudes are ‘rife’ in school textbooks used in developing countries, according to Unesco’.  The article is at this link if you want to read it: http://www.bbc.com/news/education-35745327

I was saddened to read this article which highlights gender bias in some school textbooks, showing men in money-earning roles and women dreaming of becoming a wife and mother.  I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with dreaming of being a wife and mother, it’s just that these textbooks only show that role for women.

At the end of the BBC article, a report called ‘Poverty is Sexist’, from the campaign group One is referenced (the report available at this link: http://www.one.org/international/take-action/poverty-is-sexist/#report).  It says that gender inequality and poverty are linked and that women in developing countries are more likely to be worse off than men.  One have produced a list of 20 countries where it’s toughest to be born a girl.  This is based on criteria such as access to health and education, economic opportunities, access to a bank account and political representation.  I hoped against hope that Chad wasn’t on this list but knew deep down it would be.  As I scrolled down, there it was, at number 9.

8^th March each year in Chad is the only day where most women get to have the day off from their usual daily routines and have a party.  That in itself speaks volumes I think and goes some way to explain why it’s continually celebrated here. 

Here at the hospital around 40% of the staff are female.  Most of them are nurses or midwives and so have a relatively high level of education compared with many women in Chad.  A lot of our female staff have their pay paid into their own bank account.  So we buck the trend to some extent.

All the female staff at the hospital had the day off on 8^th March (except two midwives who obviously had to work.  We have male nurses, so they provided cover).  There is always a big march in front of the president’s palace first thing in the morning of 8^th March, where women march in their new outfits, made from that year’s specially printed Women’s Day fabric.  For security reasons we didn’t march this year but we did go to a restaurant, all togged-up in our new outfits, and ate roast chicken with fresh bread and the obligatory sugary soft drink!  There was a jovial atmosphere as we all enjoyed being out of the work environment and being together.

It’s important that International Women’s Day is continually remembered and used to try and redress the gender inequality that is virulent, to varying degrees, in all countries around the world.

Cracked heels and big smiles

Hello from Chad and welcome to my first blog of 2016.  I arrived safely with all of my luggage on 7^th January and had the first week and a bit to unpack and settle into my house on the compound here at Guinebor II Hospital.  That first week also enabled me to say hello to my Chadian work colleagues, 90% of whom are the same as when I was here last time.  It has been really good to see them all again.  By far my best welcome back was from my pharmacy colleague Elisabeth who greeted me with a big smile, lots of whooping, then gave me the biggest hug possible and proceeded to lift me up and down three times!!  Other staff asked after my family and a lot of people told me, with a big encouraging smile, that I had gained weight!  This is most definitely not an insult, weight gain is seen as a good thing here as it means you’re eating well and are being well looked after.

So I’ve been here for 4 weeks now but to be honest it feels a lot longer.  In a weird way it feels like the 22 months since I left never happened.  They obviously most definitely did, and I learned a lot in those 22 months, but I think that because the UK/France and Chad are so vastly different, it’s like they’re two completely different worlds.  I’ve left my ‘Europe world’ and re-entered my ‘Chad world’ and it feels like I’m just continuing on from March 2014.  It’s an odd feeling in a way but also strangely comforting.  I’ve not got to learn how to live here as I’ve done it before.  I’ve had to relearn my way into town along the dirt tracks though, as numerous buildings have been built in Guinebor and the surrounding area since I left, some of which are built where the ‘road’ used to be!  Some of the shops in town have moved.  Some of the shops I used to buy things in are now more expensive than others that used to be on the pricier-side.  The internet infrastructure is much better.  The airport has been completely renovated.  More roads in town are tarred.  Apart from all that, N’Djamena is pretty much how I left it in 2014.

The pharmacy team is still the same and seem to be doing a great job.  It’s been good to get re-acquainted with them and share news.

With pharmacy colleagues

My role here at the hospital is still evolving but I am currently doing some hospital personnel management (cue a steep learning curve of Chadian employment law, in French obviously), as well as having supervisory oversight of the pharmacy and the lab.  There’s a lot involved in keeping the hospital running, as I’m beginning to find out!

However it’s always good to remind myself why I’m here and it’s to contribute to the provision of high quality compassionate health care for our many patients.

Some of the day's patients and relatives

It’s been a good first month, I know I’m where I’m meant to be.  I am really noticing my improved level of French, thanks to my studies at Les Cèdres. I am loving the perpetual blue sky and temperatures of a ‘chilly’ 17C in the mornings and highs of 25C.  (I’m enjoying it whilst it lasts!).  I’d forgotten exactly how dry Chad is.  With a humidity of just 10%, my heels cracked in the first week as I forgot the need to douse them with lotion!

I’ll leave you with a picture I quickly snapped the other evening out in Guinebor II on my way home.  I love African sunsets!

Sunset at Guinebor II

Language school....done!

....and now for the next phase.

I've just finished my last classes at language school.  Tomorrow we have an hour with our teacher where we're told what level we've reached and then the whole school is having brunch all together (the French word is 'brunch', brilliant!) before we have a goodbye service.

To be honest, I have no clue where my time here has gone.  It only feels like yesterday that I arrived in the height of the French summer and now I'm finished.  Overall it's been great, studying and living with like-minded people.  The sense of community is fantastic and something that I will miss immensely.  However it's also been a LOT of hard work!  My brain has been given a thorough workout and I've learned more grammatical terms than I ever knew existed in English, let alone French.  I feel much more coherent when I speak French and it does come more easily to me now, I have to think about it a lot less.  So I'm confident that I will notice a difference in my communication abilities when I return to Chad.

Talking of Chad, I fly there on Thursday 7th January.  Yep, three weeks today!  I leave France on Saturday 19th December and will spend just under three weeks in the UK seeing family and close friends before I go to Chad.  Somewhere in the midst of that will be Christmas and the New Year!  It's all a bit mind-boggling to be honest, so I'm taking one day at a time.

This is likely to be my last blog before I go to Chad.  I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy Christmas and a blessed new year.  

I'll end with these words, from the popular Christmas carol 'O come, O come Emmanuel' that we sing in the UK.  I think the French translation of the chorus is 'prettier' (for want of a better word!) than the English version we sing:

Joyeux, levez les yeux au ciel
Voici venir Emmanuel!

Literal version of French words:                                Words sung in English version:
Joyfully lift your eyes to heaven                                Rejoice!  Rejoice!
Here comes Emmanuel!                                           Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel

Joyeux Noël!

Questions of (my) life

I thought asking my supporters to send me questions that I could make into a Q&A blog entry would be an interesting thing to do, and it has been.  Although I suddenly realised it would be a wise idea to put in a disclaimer when I sent out the plea for questions:  ‘I can’t promise to answer every question’.  I was concerned about what may possibly be asked!! 

Here are the answers to the vast majority of questions I’ve been asked.  Thanks to those who sent them!

What things do you miss the most when you’re not in the UK? 

Apart from the obvious answer of missing my family and friends, I miss cheddar cheese and Cadbury’s chocolate!  When I’m in Chad I also miss the different seasons.  Chad just has two seasons, the longest one is hot, dry and dusty and the other is wet, humid and a little bit cooler.

Are you enjoying learning French?

Yes, I am really enjoying learning French.  I love language-learning and I’ve always wanted to become more proficient in another language.  It’s therefore been an absolute pleasure and privilege to be here at language school in Paris, with six months dedicated to full-time language learning.  However it’s not been easy and my head has been spinning for most of the last six months with everything I’m trying to learn and remember!  It can also be frustrating when you can’t completely express what you want to say, however I’ve definitely improved in my abilities to read, write, listen to and speak French and this will be of great use once I get to Chad.

Do you get much free time whilst at language school?

We have about 20 hours of taught French lessons a week, plus homework every night and on the weekend.  When not doing formal school work, I guess that would be called free time, but we’re encouraged to meet with a language partner outside of school to chat in French, so that’s another hour a week, and we’re also encouraged to listen to French radio, watch French TV, read French newspapers and so on.  All of that is not actually that relaxing, as it’s not in your mother-tongue and takes a lot of concentration!  If you’re out and about in Paris everything is in French and if you’re in the communal kitchen cooking a meal we’re supposed to speak in French too.  So despite only having 20 hours a week of formal teaching, most of daily life is like a classroom too!  But yes, we do get free time and sometimes we speak in English for a break - shhh….don’t tell anyone ;)

What’s the weather like in Paris?

A lot drier than the UK which I’m grateful for!  Slightly warmer than the UK by a few degrees, although it doesn’t feel like it today!

What will you miss most about Paris?

The boulangeries and patisseries (bakeries and cake shops)!!  It is such a treat having these on nearly every street corner.  I’ll also miss just being able to pop into the city and take a look around and soak up the atmosphere.

What has been your biggest thrill over the last year? 

A lot has happened in 2015 so I’m going to say two things!  One was my commissioning service at my home Church in Torquay.  Being surrounded by so many people who love and support me and my work overseas was amazing and humbling.  The other is living in Paris.  I never tire of exploring this great city.

What has been the biggest challenge over the last year? 

The many goodbyes.  Packing up and saying goodbye to friends that I trained with at BMS’s International Mission Centre (IMC) in Birmingham, who are now spread around the globe.  Saying goodbye to friends and family in the UK. Saying goodbyes to friends at the language school in France.

How do you think your preparation and study will equip you for your return to Chad?

As I’ve already said, I’m definitely going back with a greater ability in French which will help immensely.  Hopefully I’ll be able to communicate with people in Chad more freely and be able to express myself at a slightly deeper level.  I’ve often said that not being able to do that last time I was there was a source of frustration and so hopefully that frustration will be less this time.  My time at IMC has definitely given me a wider perception of the needs of people the world over and how integral mission plays its part in that.  It’s also equipped me with a wider perception of how the work of the hospital in Chad fits into the bigger picture of world mission and also that longevity of mission projects, such as the hospital, is key.  Nothing happens overnight and so I need to be prepared to be in it for the long haul, however long that may end up being.

How will your return to Chad be different from your first experiences?

Following on from the question above, this time I’m going with a wider and longer-term mind-set.  Last time I was there for a relatively short, fixed period of time and with a couple of fairly-quickly-achievable goals. 

How ready do you feel for your return to Chad?

With 18 months of training under my belt, I feel as prepared as I can be, although I can never be 100% ready I don’t think.  There are always things to learn and be aware of.  I feel ready to return though (my flight is booked for 7 January 2016).

What are you looking forward to about living in Chad again?

Seeing friends that I made there last time.  The almost perpetual blue sky.  Eating copious amounts of mangoes between March and September (mango season!).

What are you dreading about living in Chad?

The heat.  Especially April, the month I missed last time I was there and which is the hottest month of the year.  Temperatures are regularly around 45C (113F) and don’t drop much below 40C (104F) at night.  There’s no air-con to cool yourself down.  You just have to live with being a sweaty mess all the time (yuk).

Where you will live in Chad?   Will you be sharing with anyone or have somewhere to yourself?

I will be living in a single-storey house on the hospital compound that I will probably have to myself.

What do you like doing in your spare time in Chad?  

I watch lots of DVDs, mainly box sets of TV series, but also films.  I also do a lot of reading.  I also like visiting friends and hanging out with them. 

How much spare time a week do you have?

That will depend on my work schedule which I don’t know yet, but I should typically work around 35 hours a week and have the rest of the time off, just like in the UK.

Is there a local church you will be able to attend?

Yes, there are a lot of churches in N’Djamena.  Some have their services in French, some in Chadian Arabic and some in one of the local village languages.  I’ll go to one that has the service in French so I’ve at least some chance of understanding what’s being said!

Do the prayers of your church partners help you and encourage your faith?

Most definitely.  If it wasn’t for people in the UK and beyond supporting me in various ways, this journey and my work would be much more difficult.  I really appreciate you all.