In a surprise twist, I went back to Khartoum to do some emergency substitute work. The day I arrived, Tina had a Halloween/birthday party, so I got to be a surprise guest! It was a great reunion with my Khartoum colleagues and friends.
Halloween party- and I got to be the surprise guest of honor!
While I was there, the fall weather was beautiful and we were able to take a few boat trips on the Nile, have a hash on Tuti Island (at the confluence of the Nile Rivers), attend the Caledonian Ball with Joy and our friend Patrick, and go to several parties. Oh, and work! I taught middle school geography and high school geography, and since there wasn’t a teacher apartment available, I lived in a hotel just down the street from the school. Twice a week, I went to yoga with Melanie, one of the new art teachers at the school.
Joy and Deah on the Nile Boat Ride
Hash on Tuti Island
Deah and Patrick and Joy at the Caledonian Ball
The last night I was there, Chantal and I hosted a Going Away/Graduation party to celebrate my newly awarded Master’s Degree. We partied hard on the roof of her apartment building, with all of my friends there to celebrate. At 2 am the party ended and it was time to get on the plane and return to Chad- just in time for Christmas!
With Melanie, Joy, and Chantal, celebrating my Master’s in Library Sciences
Aside from a missed 6 am airport shuttle and a 500 yard dash down the terminal to reach my plane (last passenger on!), the flights to Chad went pretty smoothly. A quick layover in DC, one last slice of pizza, then a layover in Addis Ababa, a St George beer (8 am, y’all, that’s how I roll), and finally made it to Chad around 1 pm the next day. Of course I didn’t sleep on the plane and instead watched six movies.
My new home in Ndjamena
In our first month here we tried a few restaurants around town- according to the “Welcome to Ndjamena” handout we got, there are about 10 here in town- and had some pretty good food. Restaurant prices aren’t too bad, about $40 (or 20,000 CFA- Central African Francs) for the two of us. We tried a casual Lebanese place, a brick oven pizza place, and an upscale French restaurant- very good beef medallions with a yum sauce at that one. There is also a couple of Chinese restaurants, a couple of Chadian places, and I think another Lebanese cafe as well.
Time for dinner!
Grocery shopping, on the other hand, was not so successful. We visited 2 tiny little grocery stores- like the size of a small 7-11 back home- and spent about $50 at each one and came home with…. not much. No fresh fruits/veg, no fresh bread, no meat. Everyone here employs a maid 5 days a week (which costs about $110 a month) and gives the maid some money to go to the outdoor market to purchase fresh food. And they drive across the border to Cameroon and go shopping there.
Speaking of the weather, it’s hot all right, (this is Central Africa) but not quite as bad as Khartoum. It’s rainy season right now, so it rains- and I mean really rains- every afternoon around 4 pm and that really cools things off, so you can actually go for a jog in the evening or something. And someone told me that the weather gets pretty nice by late October. Although, along with the rains, comes the bugs. The week I arrived here was like BUG WEEK- you can hear them crunching on the driveway as you drive up to the house. If you accidentally leave a light on inside when you open your front door- forget it; your front entryway will be COVERED with bugs drawn to the light.
A boat ride on the Charri River
The internet went out at our house Friday night, so no communications on Saturday or Sunday. I was really starting to panic by Monday afternoon, as I had a paper due in my grad class by midnight, so we went over to the Marine House and I used the computer there and we watched the Emmy’s on AFN. Ah, good old Armed Forces Network. Of course afterwards, we came home and our internet was working again.
Field Trip! to the Brasserie du Tchad, where they make Gala beer
Tuesday was a better day- I worked on my classwork a while, got all caught up, read all the requirements for my Capstone week- please, oh please let the internet work that week- and then I visited the doctor at the Embassy (he gave me some malaria pills- in 8 years I have never taken malaria pills but maybe this year I will start)- visited the CLO and her library (ooh, books and DVDs- perfect!), and finally met with the Public Affairs Officer who may have a job for me. Looks like that will all get decided soon (inshallah).
We went to a security briefing- since Chad is not nearly as strictly Muslim as Sudan was, I have to worry less about being stoned to death for not being married to my partner. However, since there is Boko Haram activity nearby, I do have to worry more about kidnappings. According to the embassy, I’m not allowed to take a taxi, ride a public bus, or walk anywhere. However, since I don’t actually work for the embassy, at least not yet, I’m also not supposed to have an embassy driver take me anywhere. It’s a bit confusing.
Chris and I went to the 531 club (5:31pm, get it?) and had happy hour with folks from the embassy. I met some more people and I’m invited to French Conversation lesson tomorrow with Mrs. B, the ambassador’s wife, who is also from Dallas…. there’s tennis lessons at the French Rec center….. yoga at the Esso oil compound….possibly reorganizing the now defunct Ndjamena Hash House Harriers….. there’s a play being put on tomorrow that we’re supposed to go to, a reception on Thursday night for the new political affairs officer, and a goodbye party on Friday night for someone that is leaving here. Mia Farrow is coming to visit Chad soon for some charity work and there will be an event welcoming her to the area. So…. hopefully between my class and getting a job (hoping to talk to Esso oil people this week, see if they have any openings- they pay big bucks), plus lots of extra curriculars, our time won’t be too hard here. And Chris is going to Germany in November, so there is a possibility I could go along for a little R&R. We’ll see how it goes!
After Chris and I won plane tickets at the Caledonian Society Ball in November, we decided to use those plane tickets to fly to Sri Lanka for my spring break. We left on Sunday around 3 pm and after a short layover in Abu Dhabi, we arrived in Sri Lanka around 3 am. We were tired but happy to be there. We hired a car and a driver and set out just before dawn to the city of Dumballah. We arrived around 10 am and luckily were able to check into our hotel a bit early. A small nap, and we were ready to see the Sigiriya Rock Fortress, a tall magma plug that sits in the middle of a huge plains area. You can climb to the top and see where a fortress once stood in the 4th century. Beautiful views and remnants of the past in the rock paintings and lion’s paws that are all that are left of some past statue.
Sigiriya Rock Fortress
We also visited the Dumballah Buddhist cave temples, home to over 150 statues of Buddha, some over 11 m tall. Also around the caves were dozens of monkeys, which are always really fun to watch as they scamper and play.
Dumballah Buddhist Cave Temples
After a good night’s rest, we headed into the center of the island to visit Kandy, a former capital city. Kandy is a lovely city with a square man-made lake in the middle, with dozens of guest houses and hotels on the hillsides looking over the lake. We visited Buddha’s Sacred Tooth Temple and went to a traditional Kandyan dance show, including firewalkers. We also visited an elephant orphanage, where I got to bathe an elephant and Chris and I went for a ride on one. Very fun! Later, our guest house provided a fantastic meal of rice and various curries, with ice cream for dessert. We ate it all, with several Lion Lagers to wash it all down. So far, the food had been excellent everywhere we went.
Kandy dancers
Temple of Buddha’s Sacred Tooth
Kandy Lake
Elephant Ride
Elephant Bath
On Wednesday we left Kandy and on the way out of town we stopped at the Botanical Gardens that were once a rajah’s pleasure gardens. Huge bamboo trees, a giant javan fig tree, tall majestic king palm coconut trees, and amazing expanses of grass… a wonderful park. I only wish we had been able to really laze around and take a picnic lunch and enjoy the park all day. But, we wanted to go down to Ella and see some tea plantations and visit an ayurvedic spa, so we were soon heading south again, winding around high mountain roads with green tea fields on either side. We stopped for a look at a double waterfall, Rombola Falls, and a tour of a tea factory (with a cuppa tea and a slice of chocolate cake afterward, yum). When we arrived in Ella it was misty and raining but for us from Sudan that is a great feeling. We went for a walk, I had a massage, and we sat at a roadside bar and shared some spiced cashews and some beers as we held hands and watched the pedestrians.
Ella
Another fabulous meal at our guest house, with a wonderful view of Ella Gap. Bedtime came early for us and the next day we left the highlands and headed for the coast. We passed a national park and without even entering the park we counted 12 elephants sighted just along the perimeter. Wow! Then the coastal road as we headed toward Unawatuna, a quiet and simple stretch of beach with a dozen or so guest houses and restaurants, and two dive shops. We arranged two dives- one around a large rock on the ocean floor and another of an 1869 sunken ship- and had a great time in the ocean. Later, a long walk on the beach and a fish dinner, complete with more Lion beer, made a fantastic end to our day.
Deah at Unatawuna beach
On our last day we went into Galle and walked around, enjoying a lunch while overlooking the ramparts of the fort. While driving up towards Colombo, we stopped at the Matura River and went on a boat ride, stopping at a cinnamon island, a fishery, and seeing several shrimp catching systems along the way. Monkeys, water monitors, and lots of birds kept our attention as we boated around the seawater river and “lake”. After leaving the river, we passed through Colombo, but as it was raining and rather dark we really didn’t stop to see much. We enjoyed one last lovely dinner with our driver at his house, meeting his family, and then we were on a plane heading home.
Deah, cinnamon island
Chris, river safari
As we had a 24 hour layover in Abu Dhabi, we got a hotel room in the city so we could enjoy some shopping, a movie, and a dinner out. All too soon it was time to board the plane to Khartoum and start thinking about work again.
After recovering from our Kilimanjaro trek, and spending a Swahili Christmas Day with our tour guide and his family, our next adventure was Ngorongoro crater. I had been on game drives before in southern Africa but this was Continue reading “Exploring Tanzania and Kenya”→
I’m not really sure who’s bright idea it was originally, but for Christmas this year, Adam and Hussam (my travel partners to Ethiopia last year) and I decided that this year we would climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. Luckily, Chris was able to get a week off and climb with us.
We arrived in Moshi, Tanzania, and went to our rooms at the local YMCA. We met with our tour guide later that day to get a few last minute items such as heavy coats and sleeping bags. Since we had been living in Khartoum, we didn’t actually own any of those items, so we rented them for the hike. We paid the rest of our money owed on our trip and we were ready to go!
Deah and Chris at the foot of Kili
We began our climb on Sunday, December 19th. The first day we started out at about 1800 meters above sea level, at the gates to the Kilimanjaro National Park. Below that level is cultivated land, and above 1800 m is a rainforest. Our first day’s walk, about 5 hours, was 9 km long and we rose about 900 meters to a height of 2700 meters. The weather was hot and humid and it rained a bit. The climb was not too bad and we were tired but not exhausted when we reached our first camp, Mandara camp. We had a snack of tea and popcorn, got our cabin ready, ate dinner, and went to sleep…. wondering what the next day would be like.
Our group and the owner of the tour companyReady for the second day’s hike
On Monday we hiked from Mandara camp to Homboro camp, another 9 or 10 km and another 900 meters up in altitude. Again, about 5 or 6 hours of hiking, although the altitude was noticeably thinner and breathing was more difficult. The rain forest behind us, we hiked through moorlands, with strange trees and little animal life. By the time we got to Homboro we all had headaches, were pretty tired, and glad of an acclimatization day the next day.
Halfway up!
Day three we stayed at Homboro camp and took a short walk up to the Zebra Rocks, a strange rock formation made of naturally occuring black and white striped rocks. Our headaches were better but we were still dreading the following day as we were to climb to Kibo Camp.
Zebra Rocks
Day four we climbed through the alpine desert to Kibo Camp, an altitude of 4700 meters. It took us maybe 4 or 5 hours, but we were all definitely suffering by the end of it. The weather was much colder, we had some rain and hail, although periodically the sun would come out and the fleece sweaters would come off. By the time we reached Kibo my head was killing me and my vision was blurry and seeing double. I could keep my head down and watch the trail in front of me but if I tried to raise my eyes I would see a bright corona around everything and it hurt like hell. I hoped a nap and some food would help me recover enough to attempt the summit at midnight.
At Kibo hutDeah at Kibo Hut, not feeling too well
Kibo camp was freezing cold (literally) and we slept a bit and ate some dinner- pasta- trying to carb up for the final ascent. After dinner we slept some more and were awoken at midnight. We were already wearing most of our clothes so we just put on our gloves and jackets and started off for the final 1200 meters up.
Freezing cold at Kibo
After 2 hours and having only made it 200 or 300 meters, I knew I couldn’t go on. I really wanted Adam and Hussam and Chris to be able to summit and I was holding them back with my slow pace. I thought I could maybe eke out another hour or two max, but I knew I’d never reach Gilman’s Point at 5700 meters or the top of Uhuru Peak at 5895 meters. So finally I decided to cut my losses and head back to Kibo. I convinced Chris that it was okay to go on without me, and I headed back down. I was sad that I couldn’t finish but frankly was in too much pain to really care that much. All I wanted was a bed and (more) headache medicine.
Sunrise at the top! Pic from Chris
Chris makes it to the summit!Chris at the glaciersGlaciers at the top of Kili
I sat at Kibo camp and watched the stars and the summit for a while. Finally it was too cold to stay out any longer so I went in and went to sleep in my bunk. Around noon, the guys returned, having successfully summited. They rested at Kibo for a couple of hours and then we returned down to Homboro camp for our final night on the mountain.
Tired but ready to start climbing downhillThe long walk down
The last day we walked down the 20 km from Homboro to Mandara camp, to the park gate. Even going down was not exactly easy. Our knees and toes were screaming from the downward motion. But the breathing was much easier and our headaches were gone. At last we reached the bottom, 2 pm on Christmas Eve day. We celebrated with a Kilimanjaro beer, and the guys collected their certificates. We shuffled off back to our hotel, looking forward to a hot shower and a warm bed.
Done with our climb!Kiliminjaro Beer
A great adventure! Did I fail at climbing Mt Kilimanjaro? I prefer instead to think of the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said: “To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.” .
