Bere 2018 #1
I’ve been looking forward to my next mission trip and here it is. And as usual it ISN’T boring. I left home Saturday afternoon, and arrived in Bere, Chad on Tuesday night after midnight. My longest flight was 11 hours (Newark NJ to Lome, Togo) this time rather than 18 if I went through Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. After arriving in Chad I stayed the night with some friends then headed to Bere on the public bus the next morning. It’s always good to catch up with old friends! One of my worries while traveling in some African countries, has been the harassment of being stopped by police or army and being my documents and them trying to get money from me for, not having the correct paperwork… I always have the correct paperwork, visa… but it’s a method to get some pocket money. This is rather abrasive to me, and an unpleasant exchange of words. So as I headed towards the bus, this is one of my worries. Another, was that of getting my stuff on the bus with all the people jostling around me and making sure nothing gets stolen. I’ve not had anything stolen, but, another thing I worry about. We pulled up to the bus station and got a ticket for the 8 hour trip to Kelo. Then we are told that the bus is leaving from the other side of the busy, two lane road with a concrete barrier down the middle. Now it’s not really 2 lane, but 2 each direction, with a lot of cars, motos and buses. So I get two guys who ran up wanting to help me, carry my luggage through the traffic, over the center barrier, then through the traffic on the other side to the waiting bus. My boxes are loaded on and I go and find a seat beside a guy that’s around 20 years old.
About a half hour later there is a full bus and we leave. Fortunately this is the large bus that is air-conditioned and has an individual seat for everyone. The inside of the bus is decorated with flowing drapes and lace covering all the windows. We have a Muslim driver, so I assume it’s a Muslim decoration, but don’t know for sure. We take off, honking often. Some it seems to warn others of our presence and others that are longer, to get people out of the way. The streets are crowded with vehicles of all types. And the edges of the road with people walking. It is very green right now, because it’s the end of the rainy season. A video was showing in the front of the bus, It goes from some music videos, to an action movie dubbed into Arabic, to other American movies in French. Some voices are so loud it hurts my ears, other so soft I cant understand it at all. We go about 5 or 6 hours then stop in a village for the driver and the other Muslims on board to have their prayers. About 4:15 in the afternoon I arrive at Kelo. Gabriel is suppose to meet me, so I collect my luggage and stand next to it. People are milling about hawking their bananas, peanuts, shoes, flashlights, medications, cloths, perfumes, incense, legumes, little deep fried breads, sugar cane… I wait about an hour, then I get word that the truck is broken down and they’re trying to fix it in Mundou. About sundown, the director of the bus station says I should move inside to be safe from thieves. So they help me move my stuff in to an open, lit area that they keep their motos in. It starts to sprinkle on me and then quickly stops. About couple hours later another truck comes to pick me up. It’s loaded with stuff bought to fix up the OR and other numerous projects that are being done. We pile my luggage on the top, and they tie it down. One of the passengers gets on top and lets me have his seat. We had about 5 minutes of black top, then started the mud road with huge mud puddles. Most puddles were at least 12-20 feet across. Other areas covered 50 feet or so. As the driver wove in and out of the puddles I could see the water was easily up to our doors often. A couple of times the front submerged enough that the headlights couldn’t be seen. All was black for a few seconds and as the mud dripped back off of them we would see where we were driving again. I was worried that muddy water would get in the air intake, as there is no snorkel on the vehicle. But it kept running. About 3 hours into our 1 hour drive (that’s one hour in the dry season), we encountered a few long areas where the end of the water couldn’t be seen. It was at least larger than 100ft. The driver chose the center, which I assumed was the deepest part, but he was making it till we stopped abruptly. He tried to go forward and back and just spun. We had high centered on something. He took off his shoes to get out and lock the front wheels in, as apparently he was in two wheel drive this whole time! As he opened the door, mud flowed into his side of the truck. He locked it in, and now had front and back tires spinning. Three people were walking by and he asked for help. Two more showed up. They discussed helping for $20, he said no $10. A half hearted push was not successful. I offered to get out and help, and he thought I should stay dry. We could now see a number of flashlights coming our way. A group of 6 more arrived. They discussed that more people were needed and they needed $20 for everyone to help. After that was agreed on, I could feel them lift the back of the truck some, but it didn’t budge. Now a crowd was gathering. Now they decided that the truck needed to be unloaded and the stuff taken to dry ground and then they could push us out. Now they wanted $50 to do it. After discussion they agreed on 13,000CFA about $26. There were many people that then took metal doors, other metal parts, luggage, groceries and everything else in a procession to the “dry” ground in the distance. There were probably now 50 people watching from the side of the road. With a large push and a lift, we were out and driving to our pile of stuff. Just then the other broken down vehicle (which apparently had a fire in the engine area) arrived. After reloading the truck, the people wanted 14,000CFA ($28). Finally they were given 13,000 because that was what was agreed upon, with a gift of 1000 to make them happy. We later asked what they would likely do with the money for so many. He said they would likely get drinks for everyone that pushed. I figure that’s a lot of bilibili. (millet wine). Or I guess it could be about 28 bottles of soda. Other than periodic stops to re-tighten the load, we made it back the remaining 30 minutes without incident. I got into the house that I’m staying in, and unpacked enough stuff, so that if I was called in the middle of the night for surgery, I’d have scrubs and a headlamp ready. At 2am I still lay there trying to fall to sleep. Eventually I did, and was awakened at 8am for a C-section with Dr. Belinsky. Thus started my first day working (next story).