The Long Ride

August 27, 2008
After my 30 minute nap, the day began. The bus we rode on was very odd. All of our bags were loaded on top and strapped down, and then we were seated. When the bus looked full, the driver started unfolding hidden seats from who knows where. What I thought was my armrest folded down and became another seat. As you can imagine, it was pretty crowded. And Africans here don't necessarily smell very pleasant. The ride itself wasn't bad except for the smell and the music. Amazingly enough,the bus had a TV screen that opened down, and we watched an odd mixture of American rap and Chadian comedy shows. We made one stop before Kelo to drop off some people, and when we stopped we got some food. My first encounter with Chadian food wasn't all that bad (although, I couldn't eat very much because I wasn't feeling very good). We had long baguettes with some kind of peanut-based toppings that looked suspiciously like meat (it wasn't). In the middle of eating,we realized that our bus had started pulling away and honking its horn. So we ran for it while all the locals laughed. Apparently that's a common tactic to get everyone back on the bus because we certainly weren't the last people to board. When we got to Kelo, we managed to get all of our bags while Stefan haggled with the mototaxi (clandos) drivers. It was horrible. They all circled around us like a