Chad: Jungle Adventure

In my last blog I mentioned that I'm now safely in another country. Unfortunately, with the last minute rush of everything in Chad, the stories just started to accumulate from my time there, and now I have quite a few stories to write from Ethiopia. So, for now, I'll preface each post with the name of the country it happened and hope that I don't confuse everyone too much. Here's a story from Chad:

 

Jungle Adventure

 

For quite some time, I had wanted to go to the river for a sunrise. I thought it would be a nice, peaceful, and possibly beautiful activity. I invited others to come with me, but it ended up being just Jason and me.

 

Sunrise is generally around 5:45 am, and the river is about an hour walk away. So, Jason and I both woke up early one Sabbath morning and met up at the middle house at 4:45 am. It was still dark enough that we needed our headlamps every once in a while, though we went a lot of the way by moon and starlight.

 

I was glad to have Jason along because my directional skills are certainly not up to par with the average human being. However, it's amazing what being in the dark in a desert will do to even the average person's sense of direction.

 

We ended up taking a wrong turn that led us far, far out from the main path we generally take to the river. The sky began to lighten as we neared a small village. We asked a man near his home which way it was to the river and were thanking God that the man spoke French so far away from town (God answered our prayers and sent people our way several times on the trip). He pointed us in the right direction and we continued on our way.

 

Now, at this point, the sun had already risen. The unfortunate thing was that we didn't really get to see a "sunrise" because it was rather hazy that morning. So we stopped for a minute to take a few pictures of our sad sunrise and kept going.

 

It was about at this point that my right foot began to hurt really badly. It was strange because I hadn't twisted my ankle or anything; it just felt like one of my tendons was really sore. It was at this point 6 ish in the morning, and I knew we had a long ways still to go.

 

We walked and walked for another 20 minutes or so when we finally reached the river! But alas, it was still very far away from our usual river spot and we didn't want to just back track the way we came because we weren't 100% certain of how we had gotten there. We decided to follow the river until we came to our usual spot so that the journey back to the hospital would be quicker.

 

I can't even remember how long we walked, but it seemed like forever. While we were walking, though, we discovered that there are jungles in Chad! Or at least, it was the closest thing to a jungle I'd ever seen in Chad. There were lots of green plants that were sort of thick, which I thought odd since it was the dry season. So we took some pictures and a funny video in our jungle (I'll have to post tons of pictures online when I get back to the States).

 

When we finally arrived at our destination, both Jason and I waded in the river a little bit to wash and cool our feet. Then we sat down on the shore and ate some mangoes. Of course, the whole time we were doing this, we had a small audience. Apparently, it was prime time for washing clothes and crossing the river to get to the market (Saturdays being market day in Bere). I tried to ignore the people staring at us and talking about us in Nangjere (I could recognize a few words…).

 

Eventually we headed back, but it was a lot slower than I had anticipated. By this point, my foot was really hurting and it took a lot of will power to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But we made it. It was a rather unsuccessful and anti-climactic river sunrise trip, but it still made for a good adventure. The only unfortunate consequence was that that evening, my right foot became more than slightly swollen and was sore for a couple of days.

 

Oh, I almost forgot to mention… After church was out, James decided to make another river trip with the van. I'm not certain, but I'd be willing to bet that they've never fit so many people in that van before—36 people all in one load. So, I spent an unusual amount of time at the river my last Sabbath in Bere. But it was worth it.