Chibok is still a sad story…

I remember Monday the 14th of April 2014 like it was yesterday, waking up to the horrible news about yet another bomb blast, this time in the super busy Nyanya Motor Park. The explosion went off inside a car about 6.55am, the period with the highest traffic in the area as commuters from satellite towns and neighbouring states board vehicles headed into the city center.

While the government, international agencies and witnesses argued on the body count, families grieved as they shuttled between the many hospitals and the morgues in search of their people. Some of them would eventually settle for empty caskets, or a body part or two. That was the intensity of the blast.

I remember the outrage, and the confirmation that Boko Haram was not just one religion against the other, but a sect of murderers who had twisted their religion to justify mayhem against the entire country/region.

Far away in Chibok, in a Borno already ravaged by Boko Haram, over 300 girls drawn from secondary schools (closed because of security concerns) around the state, went to bed in hostels at Government Secondary School after a day of writing WAEC exams.

Not for long though. Insurgents invaded the school that same night, and carted away 279 girls aged 14 – 18 in one fell swoop. In one of the #BringBackOurGirls rallies I attended, I learned one parent was missing three family members (two daughters and a niece).

The government’s first reaction to the news of the abduction was denial. First denial that any girls were taken, then the arrest of some of the teachers and a parent by First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan, then the accusation and counter accusations between the two major political parties on who was behind the kidnapping began, and then the unforgivable slip from the military that they had been found. All fingers pointed and to this day still point towards Sambisa Forest, with different people giving different accounts of its density/porosity being the reason why an onslaught against the kidnappers has not resulted in the rescue of the girls.

The first #BringBackOurGirls protest was on the 30th of April, 2014, led by Hadiza Bala Usman, Aisha Yesufu, and Obiageli Ezekwesili. I remember getting drenched as we marched, as we sang, as we rallied support and demanded answers from the National Assembly.

Hashtag activism brought to life, fueled by anger at the brazenness of the abduction, the reaction by government, and most important, the desire to reunite these children with the parents and families. And it exploded, all around the world. From parents, to school children, politicians (including First Lady Michelle Obama), celebrities, artists, people all over the world stood still for the campaign.

President Goodluck Jonathan first addressed the nation about the girls on the 4th of May, promising to do all in his power to ensure their rescue. Soon after, the Safe Schools Initiative by the Federal Government in collaboration with the international community was launched to ensure that children in the three least educationally developed states (Yobe, Adamawa, and Borno) got an education in a safe, terror-free environment. Activists including Malala Yousafzai also came to Nigeria to advocate for the speedy rescue of the girls.

More than 365 days after that abduction, the girls are still missing. A total of 57 have escaped at various times, and a number of them (purportedly taken from Chibok) were confirmed pregnant. Some parents of the girls have passed on from sorrow, and Boko Haram is still targeting schools. Over 48 children were killed when a bomb exploded on the assembly ground of Government Technical School, Potiskum, in Yobe State. Some of children killed were only 11 years old.

14th April 2015 was the anniversary of the abduction. Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, said,”Over the past 12 months, Boko Haram intensified its brutal attacks on boys and girls in Nigeria and neighbouring countries. Hundreds of thousands of children have been displaced from their homes, and deprived of their rights to live and grow up in safety, dignity and peace. Boko Haram’s killing, abduction and recruitment of children, including the use of girls as ‘suicide bombers’, is abhorrent.”

In Nigeria, there was a commemorative march by the Bring Back Our Girls Community, silent, with red tape over their mouths. Co-Ordinator Oby Ezekwesili said, “We decided that we have spoken so often about this that we’re just going to try to show the people what it feels like … when your voice is taken from you, which is what the terrorists have done to our daughters.” Candles were lit later that evening to renew hope and faith that the girls would be rescued and reunited with their parents.

I agree and lend my voice to Malala Yousafzai’s letter to the missing girls – “I look forward to the day I can hug each one of you, pray with you and celebrate your freedom with your families. Until then, stay strong and never lose hope. You are my heroes.”

In a Northern Nigeria where only 5% of the girls go to school, they are indeed.

PS: Originally published on Future Challenges here.

How close are Nigerians to safe drinking water?

Now this piece was originally written for (and published by)  Future Challenges, and I’ve been writing for them since late 2012. Brilliant editors (I miss Paul Morland) criticise our work to perfection, and ensure that what we publish can stand anywhere. Great learning too.

I explored several angles to a Mid Term briefing the minister for water resources did, and I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

🙂

If we got paid for all the times we heard ‘water is life’, we probably would not need it anymore; we’d be drinking, bathing, and doing everything else with gold – that’s how wealthy we’d be.

How important is this most vital of natural resources? On the 28^th of July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly recognized the human right to water through Resolution 64/292; acknowledging that access to clean drinking water and sanitation are essential to every other human right.

There are several other charters passed by different international organizations that dictate what levels of access to water around the world are acceptable, and what countries should aspire to. They all agree that water should be sufficient (for personal and domestic use), safe (free from germs and harmful substances), acceptable (should look and taste a certain way), must be accessible (within 1000 meters of the home according to the World Health Organization), and it should be affordable.

So, what’s the story in Nigeria? How close are we to any of this?

According to Water Aid, about 97, 000 children die in Nigeria every year from diarrhea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation, and 63.2 million people do not have access to safe water.

Water Aid works in 100 communities across six states in Nigeria so it might be tempting to dismiss their statistics as over-zealous prospecting. Closer to reality however is NOI Polls Access to Clean Water Snap Poll done in February 2014 that sampled 1,072 people above 18. Their report shows that 83% of Nigerians source their drinking water privately, and 47% of Nigerians find clean water a major challenge.

In January 2011, the Federal Government launched the ‘Nigeria Water Sector Roadmap’ a document that details the government’s plans for providing safe and clean water up to 2025, and says that 75% of the country will have access by 2015. Question is, how far have we come with that?

Water is doubly, maybe even triply, important in Nigeria because our electricity depends on it to a very large extent, because it supports our agriculture (more like it creates an enabling environment for it), and also because it supplements the efforts of the Ministry of Health.

What then has been done?

Recently, the Minister for Water Resources, Sarah Ochekpe presented a report detailing the scope of work, achievements and pending tasks of the ministry in the last four years.

According to the report, 37 dams have been completed, 10 were rehabilitated, and there are 149 currently under construction. Of the completed dams, 16 have hydropower potentials capable of generating over 135 megawatts of electricity. With current generation and distribution numbers at 3700MW on average for approximately 170 million people, we obviously need all the wattage we can get.

We can only hope due diligence was taken with the construction and rehabilitation; we cannot afford a repeat of a dam failure that the residents of Gusau in Zamfara state suffered in September 2006.

On to irrigation, the Ministry boasts of 385 formal and informal projects since 2010. When all have been completed (there are 185 in various stages of construction), it will produce 397, 060 hectares of irrigable land, thereby increasing opportunities for subsistence and commercial farmers.

Access to clean water has grown from 58 to 67% according to the Honorable Minister, and the National Water Supply Sector Reform programme initiated by the ministry in collaboration with development partners like the World Ban project impacting the lives of another 30 million positively.

There are several other campaigns the ministry of water resources is plugging into; the End-Open Defecation and Global Handwashing Campaigns championed by the United Nations, the G-WIN (Girls and Women in Nigeria) project with the Ministry of Finance, among others, including trans-boundary water initiatives and agreements.

It appears that the Ministry appreciates the relationship between clean, accessible water and the social/economic development of Nigerians; they have also taken the initiative with the Ministry of Power to work with the private sector to put hydroelectric turbines into dams in the country. It must now double its efforts to ensure it closes the gaps standing between Nigerians and this basic right.

 

PS: My profile on Future Challenges is here.

PPS: I like to guest write, so get in touch if you want something written.

PPPS: 85% of my writing is paid for. The other 15% depends on who/what/why. Get in touch first!

Chronicles from The Hague (Part Two)

By the second day, everyone had made friends, cliques had been formed, ad people generally knew who they were more comfortable hanging with.

We went to China town (isn’t it incredible how there’s a china town literally everywhere you go)? Dinner was fab though, and it was nice sitting and chatting with Sirenya (South Africa), Silindile (Botswana), and Kaushalaya (Sri Lanka) – lovely, lovely people!

Somehow, I had a lot of work to deal with from home, and by the end of the day, my presentation was moved to the next day.  Didn’t mind much though, because our sessions would hold at the world-famous Peace Palace!

The Peace Palace (also called the international sear of law) is a historic building, housing things like the International Court of Justice. By 2013, it had been in standing for 100 years, and is one of the United Nations heritage sites. Beautiful, breathtaking, I could go on and on!

Of course we took pictures!

I presented a 20 minutes talk on ‘Young people and politics – transcending borders and maximizing impact via social media’.

It was such an honor to talk about Nigeria, to plot the graph of our social media usage and how, regardless of the horrible things we’re seeing now, we’re coming into our own because we recognize we have a voice and boy are we going to use it! I’m so proud of my peers, of every young person who is daring to be different in their little corners – it is because of you that there is hope for this country!

Of course there were questions about Boko Haram being a Muslim vs Christian war, the abduction of the 200+ girls from Chibok, Borno, and the usefulness (or not) of the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag. Here’s a summary of my answers:

1. Boko Haram is not a religious war – it is the ambition of a few made manifest in the most devilish way.
2. The fact that 45 days after we still cannot agree on the exact number of girls missing is absolute cause for concern.
3. The day we did the march to the National Assembly and got drenched in the rain, the Chibok community in Abuja thanked us for standing with them when no one believed their children were missing. When we saw international support (in the form of the celebrities and movements springing up to echo the hashtag), we (I know I did) felt encouraged to keep going out, day after day, after day. Are there people who have hijacked the hashtag for their selfish ambitions? Of course! Doesn’t take away from the fact that we need our girls back, now and alive!

*While I am not particularly impressed with the ‘West’ coming in to help, I believe that the light the international community has shone on Nigeria and our practices will hopefully, embarrass us into effecting changes we desperately need.

There was another presentation by from , and I really loved learning about her country. Loved it! Plus she’s got such a love for travel and adventure, and a signature shot she does in each country!

Enough of the talk, here are a few more pictures!

 

Later that evening we had a speech performance by …. She’s amazing! Like, each time she was doing a speech, the hall would be so quiet it was incredible! She’s so good! Wish I would steal her and plant her in a room with our leaders so she can coach them. She’s so good!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related articles

• BOKO HARAM VS NIGERIA (domestic terrorism)
• Boko Haram only kidnapped the Nigerian girls because they were Christian
• If Boko Haram Ignores Social Media Pressure, Then What?

“People change and so do you” – Ewoma gives us home truths! #31days31writers

Frank is another person I have never met, but we had probably exchanged a few tweets before the Sunday I threw open the challenge for people to join my #31days31writers project. He said yes, and when I was editing his entry, I was grateful for the good sense to welcome submissions from people I ‘technically’ didn’t know!

His lessons from this year resonate with me so much I had to convince myself this was someone else’s story, not mine. Say hello to Ewoma, and the 18th day of this project!

So 2013 gradually grinds to a halt and with it comes the experiences, lessons and the many stories that we will tell. I am one of the lucky few picked by the Fairy GodSister to tell my tale so I’ll just share; I’m not good with stories but I can share my lessons!

Oh, the introduction! I am Ewoma Frank Uruemurie, a Nigerian and I own a small business. I am a football lover, a fan of Manchester United; I  a social media addict and I am always seeking out new information.

I have gleaned a lot these past few months, permit me to number them as I share:

1. When you feel disappointed by the things going on around you, just take a break and see your life from the outside, you will be amazed how quickly things will turn around.
2. Trust your dreams, don’t be afraid to try new things, to take bold steps. Never allow fear deter you from exploring the possibilities in your life.
3. Family is everything. They will sing your praise and will not be afraid to tell you the truth even when you don’t want to hear. Stay true to your family, you will always need them.
4. You will fall a few times but don’t give up, keep pushing and slowly but surely you will get there no matter how long it takes. Your flaws do not define you.
5. People change and so do you, so don’t always expect people to fit into your plans. Accept people for what they are not what you want them to be.

Sometimes it was really hard for me especially as I was trying to set up my firm but as I kept moving these lessons came alive for me and trust me, learning has not been easy but facing my fears head on helped me survive falls. So there you have it, those would be my five major lessons for 2013.

What am I most grateful for?

I could be Captain Obvious and say I am grateful for a lot of things so I’ll just say I am most grateful for FAMILY. Without the support that they bring it would have really been a hard year for me. I spent the first five months of the year in the Northern part of Nigeria with the whole Boko Haram crisis but their words, prayers and endless encouragement pulled me through. I  came back home and there was the business to set up and the whole fear of the unknown but still my family was there every step of the way so definitely I am grateful for them.

If there was one thing I could do differently in 2013 then it would be to TRUST MY DREAMS and the coming year will be so much better! I wish you the best of 2014!

By the way, I am on Twitter as @IamEwoma.

Thank you for writing in Ewoma!!

 

SELAMTA!!

Ok! It’s a beautiful day! Yes it is, despite the fact that Israel is taking some heat from the United Nations et al because of their invasion of the Flotilla (which I must say is baseless because which ship carrying ‘humanitarian aid’ will also have metal rods, stun guns, and pipes on it)? Let’s not even start with the disparity in the stories of the activists on board the ship.

It’s still a beautiful day, beautiful start to the first month this second half of the year, despite the fact that the 52 year old taxi driver in Cumbria, England woke up and decided to shoot and kill 13 people (including himself); despite the fact that BP’s latest plan to contain the mega oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t working; despite the fact that IBB (in his ‘wisdom’) said MKO should be immortalized; despite the varying levels of craziness going on in our world, it’s still a beautiful day. Want to know why?

It’s a beautiful day because you’re alive to see this! Are you not aware of people (who you may not be necessarily better than) who didn’t make it to today? Ok, even though they are alive, don’t have the presence of mind to read this?  Take a minute, and say thank you to the Fairy Godfather…have you? Good! Now we can move on. Another reason today’s a beautiful day? Well my cold is finally easing up (thank you FGF) and I’m getting ready for my Ndjamena via Addis trip later today, yay!

Ok, fast forward to after we had checked in, passed immigration and headed for the departure lounge (powered by MTN…believe me that’s what was written there)! To get to the lounge we had to do close to a 30minutes walk! Since this fairy is as fit as a fiddle, I didn’t feel a thing; I’ll just try not to do it too many times! We got there, I settled in and started replying mails, facebooking, etc and may I use this opportunity to thank everyone who chatted and kept me company, especially since the flight was delayed a bit.

The fun started after we boarded. Just for sitting I was given a glass of lovely orange juice. Minutes after we took off I was given more juice and biscuits and then the hostess brought the menu with a somewhat plastered smile on her face (by the way, Ethiopian ladies are pretty). While I was still deciding which would be the lesser of the many evils listed on the menu, another nice looking lady brought me a small bowl of very colorful food in a tray, ‘something to start with’, she said. I recognized items that make a salad in one of the bowls, tasted it and it was nice. I tried eating something else that looked like bacon (which I love) but alas! It was raw, fishy, and had a faint lingering taste of red wine. I would find later that it was salmon, yuck! Seemed like the worst ended with the starters however because I enjoyed everything else, especially the passion fruit mousse I had for dessert. Then they served fruits and minutes later asked if I wanted tea. No!!! Is this a flight or did I mistakenly board a mobile fattening room?

Away from food (one of my favorite topics), I noticed that one of the hostesses wasn’t wearing a uniform like the others but a white dress with something that looked like it was gotten from a pashmenya or aso oke at the hem on the scarf draped round her shoulders. Miss inquisitive asked what the separation was for and she said all the hostesses had outfits like that that they wore on days assigned something about showcasing their national colors and things. ‘Nice, I thought, Nigeria could do something like that; we’d just have to own an airline (and fully too)! Did I mention that Ethiopian Airlines is the single largest indigenous employer in the country, paying salaries of close to 6000 staff? And yes, its 100% government owned, not privatized or managed by foreigners!

Sometime during the flight the pilot came to the business class lounge to talk to someone; at that moment the person beside me woke up and asked; ‘is that not the pilot there’? I said yes and he said, ‘he should better go back to the cockpit o, who did he leave the place for’? Truth is, if he wasn’t white, I would have thought he was Nigerian; we’re the ones always abandoning our constituencies to frolic everywhere else.

I saw a lovely movie (Valentine’s Day) and boy was I grateful I didn’t pay to see it before I left! Just as I was getting done, it was to time to get down (meaning that we had reached Addis Ababa, and safely too)!

Big fast forward to the second leg of the trip (Addis to N’Djamena) where I’m praying that the loud mouth beside me takes the hint that I’m furiously writing and leave me alone! Where is peace and quiet when you need it?

To start with, I’m majorly pissed off that I’m flying economy (apparently everyday isn’t Christmas), I didn’t get the window or aisle seat and to compound issues, I’m starving and the guy has foul breath! By the way, have you ever been tortured by hunger and foul breath at the same time? It’s painful I promise you, the kind of pain you wouldn’t even wish an enemy! Did I mention that he didn’t know more than 50 words in English? And he wasn’t cute neither!

‘Leave me alone, I don’t want to chat’, for where? The son of God took the pains to tell me he’s a commissioner  in N’Djamena. A commissioner seated in economy? Yeah right. In Nigeria he’d buy the plane! Apparently sensing my unbelief, the man brought out a dossier from his portmanteau and flipped through the papers inside; taking care that I’d be able to see the Chadian logos splashed all over the papers (so yes I looked). Then he asked if I was Cameroonian; ‘no, I’m proudly Nigerian’ I said. I realized I shot myself in the foot when his face lit up at my answer and he started boasting about being in Nigeria our years ago to build the edifice that is the Embassy of Chad. Edifice? Pigs may fly too!

That’s when I started writing but no, Mr. Architect had sworn on his president’s passport that he wouldn’t let me be! He said he was going to N’Djamena for a meeting and then return to Addis, I nodded; he said he was tres tres busy man, I nodded; he said……. I said I wanted to use my headphones to find out what music choices I had, and he smiled. I chuckled inside me, sure that I was too fast for him to understand a word of what I said. That bought me like 20minutes, 20 uninterrupted minutes that I was grateful to the Fairy Godfather for. I was bobbing my head to something from Timberland; opened my eyes to catch my commissioner neighbor with his headphones on too, nodding to some music too. I was happy for him (thankful for world peace too) till I saw that he didn’t plug in the cord! My word! What was he listening to then? Did I have a good laugh or what!

Did I mention that my seat refused to recline? How much worse could things get? Fortunately, again I watched a couple movies plus the flight wasn’t too long so it didn’t hurt as much.

Before I forget, just before the plane took off (it was already taxiing as a matter of fact), another young man stood up and said he wanted to use the convenience. The person in the seat next to him told him to wait till we were in the air but homeboy refused. Two hostesses came, told him he had to wait and then he said he would stand by the toilet. Of course they refused, and got their supervisor to ‘usher’ him back to his seat. After we had steadied in the air, they came to tell him he could go but he said he wouldn’t because he was hurt. Hurt? People like this make me thank the FGF my dreams of becoming an air hostess haven’t come true (yet)!

I daresay the flight to N’Djamena was full of characters, almost felt like I was on Drama Central! Seated around me was a man I had heard shouting at one of the hostesses earlier; I found out he had paid for ten seats. Those ten seats catered to two wives, a grandmother, and over 50 children! I know I’m exaggerating but honestly I lost count especially since they all looked alike (facially and in stature too), didn’t stay in their seats (which I can bet they sat like 6 to 1), and didn’t speak a word of English! I imagined how much the trip cost him and I smiled; what if he had bought business class tickets for all of them?

By the way, selamta is Ethiopian for welcome………

WITH LOVE FROM CHAD!!

A friend of mine is planning to get married soon and amongst other things, I was a little curious as to where the honeymoon will be (if their jobs allow them that is)! We drew up a list and the bride-to be said she’d rather do a couple of places in Africa than one country in the West. At the time I knew I would be doing a small tour myself so I said I’d look around and then suggest; now I need you to decide whether I should suggest this spot to her, but only after you’ve read this!

Ok, so a little basic history about Chad. Chad means, ‘large expanse of water’, and actually derived from Lake Chad which experts say has shrunk in the last 13,000 years. Chad is very hot with temperatures getting up to 60 degrees Celsius in the peak of the dry season. While I was here, the temperature hovered between 32 and 39 degrees and our hosts said it’s the coolest they’ve had in a while; especially since it rained the night we got in.

Before I tell you what I had for dinner (since we got in at night), when I was  younger I was in love with oranges so much I could eat up to nine or ten a day. One day the Fairy Godfather saw me with a big bowl and knowing the fate of the oranges therein said, ‘at this rate you’ll wake up soonest with an orange tree on your head’. Suffice to say that it’s almost a chore for me to eat oranges now; I was so scared!

Dinner was rice (looking forward to a rice plantation on my head at this rate) with potato and carrot sauce and loads of chicken. It was a lovely meal except that I had to keep apologizing for each onion ring I pulled out of my plate, I so cannot stand onions and they were so many!

Ah ha! Before I forget, I stayed in Hotel Santana and it was a really nice, Egyptian style decorated room. One evening, out of extreme boredom and I knew I couldn’t go out because the sun was blazing like it was angry with the Chadians, I started flipping channels, looking for something nice to watch. Fourteen channels and no English later (save CNN, BBC, Aljazeera, and then MBC 2 with its ancient movies), I was going crazy. Continued flipping till I saw an MTV logo and I was like, ‘yes! Finally something I can relate to’! Two non English songs later, I consoled myself with the thought that it was probably time for alternative music or stuff from around the world. Then it was time for news; immediately I saw writing from the right to the left I knew I was in trouble! It was MTV Arabia! What!!! That was it; I gave up, and slept.

The day we were to leave Chad, we got to the airport early only to be told our flight would be delayed for 3 hours. God of grace, just like that? A little about the airport; like every other office/organization in N’djamena’ they pride themselves in the number of different uniforms their workers wear, even if they’re doing the same thing! Did I mention that the flies in N’djamena nearly killed me? They were so many, even in the airport (what was I thinking, flies have ‘restricted areas’)? The flies were part of the reason I was almost never outside the car or my hotel room. Other reasons would be the sun, the strong unnerving presence of the non English speaking, mostly under aged, heavily armed military men on the street but, let’s leave that for now.

Since Ethiopian Airways had given us three hours to play with, our hosts decided to drive us around the town to pass time; this is what I found out. By the way, I saw some security cameras on the way out of the departure lounge that (forgive me) looked as old as Chad’s independence and I wondered if there was even a CCTV room in the airport.

Back to what I saw, do you sometimes wish someone could come take care of your issues? Yes? Means you have Chadian streaks in you, streaks that mean that you expect help from everywhere but within! A couple of reasons I said that

• Kempinski, the largest hotel in N’Djamena (and Chad by extension) was built and is managed by Libya.
• The largest mosque in N’Djamena which houses a primary and secondary school and a university was built by Saudi Arabia. Can you now guess the more prominent religion in Chad? I must say however that religious induced fighting is rare, there are many other things to fight about. But, I digress.
• When Chad had issues with rebels and there were attempts on the presidents life, the American government built blockades outside the President’s house; France offered him exile and Ukraine (amongst others) supplied the soldiers and weaponry that quelled the insurgency. Speaking of France, they have a huge military base in N’Djamena where according to our host; the best surgeries (if any) are done. Before nko?

We passed by the President’s palace; more like a fortress if you ask me, with the heavily armed mostly underage soldiers every 10 feet! I asked if we could stop and take pictures; you know, Buckingham palace style and things.  Our host laughed so hard I almost felt insulted, till he said the guards had express orders to shoot to kill anything that stops around the palace unlawfully, including tourists. He said that once, the wife of the American envoy to Chad was in a car that mysteriously developed a fault and stopped outside the palace. Men and brethren, the soldiers opened fire o! With the American flag, diplomatic number plates, they opened fire! Fortunately the car was bullet proof but the lady was traumatized and it was a big international issue at the time. Are you still asking why I don’t have pictures of the palace? I thought so!

We saw a river which is the boundary between Chad and Cameroon. I was told people swim across the river; made me wonder where they keep their passports when they’re swimming, especially since there are no immigration desks on both sides!

A little about President Idriss Deby Itno; he’s been in power for about 20 years now and has already declared that he’s contesting again when the country goes to the polls in April next year. ‘He’s going to win’, our host says, ‘it’ll be the moon in the morning if he doesn’t’. What is amazing is that he’s given the UN quit notice from the country; people say it’s because he doesn’t any ‘interference’ in the elections. Interference? Ok o.

By the way, the United Nations have a big base in N’Djamena; noticeably close to the airport. And I don’t blame them. As fortified as the place is, I think they need a close by exit in the event of violence because as far as I am concerned, like a lot of other poverty stricken places in Africa, Chad is as volatile as they come.

On a lighter note but still on the scarcity of resources, bananas are not sold in bunches but finger by finger. I asked and was told it’s so that you can buy only what you can afford, and only what you can eat!

So, I’m done! I’ll leave you to holler at my bride-to-be friend; all I can say is if I had known I’d encounter so many flies in N’Djamena I’d had chopped off the ears of the guy who sat in front of me on the plane and used his ears for swatting, especially since I’ve never seen ears so wide and floppy in my entire Fairy life!

Mwah!