Travel days are the most stressful. Airports in Chad are strange worlds. They are barely connected to the outside “real” world, and what information does make it through to them gets distorted, no matter how straight forward it seemed before.
We don’t make it easy on ourselves, though. We bring three times the allowed weight, made up of soccer balls, t-shirts, e-readers (for the refugees), and our equipment. I send that information to the powers to be, and then it makes it through the funny hall of mirrors into the Chad-airport world. When we get there, our guaranteed cargo space is something of a myth. There is reality behind it, but unicorns just don’t exist.
Today, we made it from N’Djamena to Abeche beautifully, with the normal high stress and with all of
our luggage. We were feeling lucky. Estelle even said, “So far everything is going really well. No surprises, and nothing to even blog about!” She spoke too soon. The Abeche airport will get you. The people checking us in were laughing, when they saw what we were trying to bring with us (even though somewhere it said we had cargo space reserved). From across the room, they would say something to each other, look at our multiple bags, and laugh out loud some more. Well, long story short, they “guaranteed” that our three bags staying behind will make it to Goz Beida tomorrow. I’m actually pretty certain they will. I shook hands with the people that kept them.
We boarded the little eight seater airplane and made it to Goz Beida. It was too late to go to Djabal camp. But we’re here, and we switch to camp mode. I get to see all my friends tomorrow. I’m especially looking forward to seeing Adef and his family. I always worry. They have a little boy that is
only about two years old. Under five is the vulnerable period. Adef and Achta already lost one little girl we had met. She looked strong and happy at year one, but she did not make it to year two.
I get to see the students. I want to ask them their thoughts about what is happening around the world, to the north of here — and to the west, in Darfur. I read today that ZamZam camp inside of Darfur now has over 160,000 people, making it the largest camp in Darfur. I can’t imagine. Djabal has under 20,000, and it already feels huge.
Travel days are exhausting. Hanging out with Rahma, Guisma, and Ali tomorrow should be energizing.
Peace,
Gabriel