Madjiri: Homestay

(Photo: Party in Madjiri for Ramadan)

Since my last posting we've moved on to homestay - we'll be living with local families for the next two weeks. Fourteen of us, myself included, are living about thirty minutes walking from our class center in a tiny town called Madjiri. Madjiri is a Muslim town, down a single dirt road, made up of a number of mud houses and concessions. Think stereotypical Africa, National Geographic, Epcot Center.... that's our homestay.

My homestay "pere" (father) is named Adji. It's a little weird to call him my father because he's 22 and looks about 16 - kind of like me. Unlike me, he is married with a 3-month old child. Adji lives in an extension of the larger family's concession and I live in an extension of Adji's place. I have my "own" (house) room with a lockable door and my "own" hangar, which is kind of like an outdoor covered patio. To say "own" is relative because culturally speaking Tchadians have little to no concept of the "personal bubble". So far, most of my time at homestay has looked a little bit like this: I am sitting on a mat - chairs are not used - in my small hangar area. There are 2-20 men gathered around me, the closest ones basically forehead to forehead, the farther ones pushing in from behind. The number of people depends on how entertaining I'm being. Two people means I'm breathing, 10 means I'm talking, 20 means I'm playing music - they've especially enjoyed Tupac and Michael Jackson, but I only have 3 Jackson-5 songs which we've listened to A LOT. Anyway, this is to say that my time thus far has been intense. Madjiri is a small, quiet village with no electricity or running water; when 14 Americans come trooping in with all their accessories, the circus HAS come to town.

Adji is great. He is young, with a new family, his own part of the concession, and he is very proud. He also takes pride in me as his guest. He doesn't leave my side and he tries to get me anything he thinks I might want or need. Dinners are the only meal I have at homestay. Because Adji now has his own place, he no longer eats with any of his older relatives, and because women and men always eat separately (at least in Muslim homes) the dinner "mat" is just Adji and me. Meals look like this: one big plate between the two of us, on which he places a huge heap of HOT rice. On top of this he pours an oily sauce with either a little meat (goat, fish, beef) or some vegetable (potato, onion). The rice is kind of sticky, as is the sauce. This is key because the meal is eaten entirely with the RIGHT hand. My strategy for eating as of right now is to ball up the food with my hand by squeezing it together and then pushing it to the ends of my fingers with my thumb. Then I just shovel it into my mouth trying to drop as little as possible (which is usually quite a bit) into my lap. I emphasize HOT because I've burned both my fingers and my mouth. I emphasize RIGHT hand because the left hand is reserved for wiping one's ass. I kind of see this as the ultimate irony here. They're insulted if I do anything with my left hand, but little do they know, I do everything with my right - including wiping my ass (with toilet paper of course). Anyway the hand thing is good to remember if you happen to be in Tchad anytime soon. The food itself is good but it's a lot. About half way through the food I have to say the dreaded word "kalas" (I'm full/done), Adji then protests "no Zach, c'est pas possible" (a favorite phrase of his) and he begins a sort of chant of "pour manger, pour manger, pour manger"....(eat, eat, eat)... all the while pushing food at me. I get through meal time though, the food is good, I shouldn't complain.

A bit about trying to stay clean and healthy in Tchad. Our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer), Chad - that's his name - ran a session yesterday titled "Diarrhea". The short of it is, there's no avoiding it, but there are things we can do to lessen the frequency and severity. Chad's way of explaining things is to think of everything in Tchad as being covered with a thin (or thick) layer of fecal matter. His motto, "Cook it, peel it, or forget it". They apparently have some organisms and parasites around here that you just do not want in your system, so it's really important to be as vigilant as possible when it comes to cleanliness. That said, it's impossible to stay clean in Tchad. When we walk back to Madjiri in the afternoon we are mobbed by children who've been rolling in the dust all day, kicking goats around, and playing in the Chari River (and you should see the Chari). I eat off the plates and drink from the glasses they provide me. I wash with untreated well water. All of these things are risks that as Chad says could lead to "the rhea". What I do do, is treat ALL of my drinking water by running it through this awesome filter Peace Corps gave us (the water is filtered through porcelain candles). I wash my hands enthusiastically before every meal, I think Adji thinks I'm a little crazy, and I try to refuse food that looks like it's more than sketchy. So far, so good.

This posting could go on and on. It's impossible for me to tell you everything, because there is no everything. The details are infinite, you'd have to be here to know what life is really like. Know that I'm really happy, and excited for each new day.

Darda: Our Training Site

(Photo: Training group, taken at Darda)

On Friday, September 30th, we left for our training site. Darda is about an hour south from N'Djamena along a (mostly) paved road. I was in the lead car, things were going along nicely, I was going to be the first to arrive....then we pulled over, there seemed to be a hold-up, the staff car passed us by, we had to wait for the others...It turned out to be a set-up. We all drove into a full blown ticker-tape parade - Tchadian-style - in honor of our arrival. All the PC (Peace Corps) staff, a number of past volunteers, and just about every single member of Darda - very young and very old - were gathered behind big signs, clapping, singing "Bonne Arrivee" and dancing. It was pretty overwhelming, but amazing. We then all proceeded to dance for an hour or so (broken up by welcome speeches) while losing about five pounds from sweat in the process.

Darda is a tiny village, made somewhat notable by the fact that there's a large (we take up the whole thing) conference center here. The place is very comfortable, electricity shows up for a few hours each night, there are dorm-style rooms for all of us, and there is a big shaded yard where we hold all our classes. This is going to be our headquarters for the next ten weeks or so. While we are here our schedule looks a little something like this: language class every morning from 8-10, break from 10-10:30, morning session 10:30-12:30 (either on medical, teaching, or cross-cultural), lunch from 12:30-2:30, afternoon session from 2:30-4. At 4 we are done for the day, free to go home when we are in homestay, or hang out when we're not.

But that gets a little ahead of myself. I should first talk about our first night here in Darda. Some have called it "legendary", others "epic", to me it was just "ridiculous"....Chad is freakin' hot outside....if you go inside it's just stupid. Sleeping indoors, in a room without a fan, is like sleeping in a sauna. So we all decided to sleep outdoors. First you have to deal with the mosquitos, they're everywhere come nightfall, hordes of them, whining in your ears. Of course we all hang mosquito nets, but you can't keep them all out, and then they're trapped in; a single mosquito can drive you crazy all night; horrible. Then come the "Darda birds". They move in shifts, the shriekers, and trillers, and warblers, and hooters, but all of them make a freakin' racket. Then come the hippos, who moan from the nearby Chari River (we didn't know they were hippos at the time). Then come all the stray dogs who bark and fight everytime they hear a hippo. Then came the rain, and the rain really sucked. We are at the tail end of rainy season and we found out what that means in Chad. Our first night; I don't think anybody got more than 1-2 hours sleep.