Novotel Hotel, Ndjamena (sometimes it's better to travel than arrive, and sometimes not)

We have had some problems connecting to the internet since the last posting, so here is Jeremy’s blog from Thursday to be followed by mine:

Ah, the joys of travel in Africa. Yesterday we flew down south to Goz Beida – where there are not only huge refugee camps, but also thousands and thousands of ‘Internally Displaced Persons’, but because they are actually Chadians – who have been attacked by goodness knows who, they do not qualify for help from most of the major aid agencies. (If all that isn’t confusing enough, there are actually Chadian refugees who’ve fled over the border into Sudan and set up camps in Darfur. Beat that!)

We stayed with Oxfam, who are heavily involved in the refugee camps, providing tents, sanitation, water, - even healthcare. Of course they are heavily funded by the British Government to do all that, but they do do a good job.
However, after we’d visited the refugee camp, we asked to go and see one of the IDP camps – and that was a very different story.

In Kouroukan camp, they have about twelve thousand people, but not much else – oh, except thousands of donkeys. And they looked awful. We did a quick survey, and over fifty per cent were emaciated, yet the women were relying on them to carry food and water back from the ration distribution points. We spent the rest of the evening working out a project to take blood and faecal samples, and then worm the five thousand or so donkeys in the camp.

So, then we come to the interesting travel arrangements for today. After speaking to the local vet, who interestingly, had absolutely no equipment or medicines, we set out to visit a local village – knowing we had to be back at the airstrip for the flight back to Abeche at midday. An hour later, we were still motoring through the bush when I realised we were never going to get to the village in time. It then turned out this village had been chosen just to give someone a lift home. So, I’m afraid he was deposited by the roadside, with tearful farewells, while we turned round and started to race back to Goz Beida.

Then it all started to go a little wrong. Bang! The front wheel fell off.

So we abandoned the vehicle and started to walk back through the bush.

You meet such interesting people on the road – like the pick-up truck full of JEM rebels, with a heavy machine-gun on the cab roof, and rocket grenades strapped to the sides. Perhaps we should have realised something was a bit odd.

We finally got picked up by an Oxfam vehicle, and made it out to the airport a mere ten minutes too late. We talked to the Government troops guarding the air-strip (actually sleeping in the shade under the thorn trees), who said with some glee, that one plane had gone already – but they hadn’t seen one for a few hours. So we thought we’d wait a bit. Then we started to hear garbled messages over the radio that all the flights that afternoon had been cancelled. Merde. We agreed we might as well go back to the camp – and as we drove off we passed another truck-load of soldiers coming in, and waving cheerily at us, ‘Oh, changing the guards. That’s pretty well organised’ I thought.

Only this really WAS changing the guard – they were actually rebel troops seizing the airfield. So, panic stations back in Goz Beida, but we heard the errant planes were actually going to another airstrip about forty miles away through thick bush, and if we could make that by two-ish we might still get on a plane.

So a veiled and turbaned youngster, who obviously felt he was talented enough for Formula One, then drove us at breakneck speed along rutted tracks, missing trees by a hairsbreadth. Some church missionary people in the back started praying, which I’ve never felt is a good sign, or very confidence building.

But somehow we made it – and apart from the little problem of not being on the passenger manifest, we climbed gratefully into the little twin-engined DH Otter, and headed back to Abeche.

As I said, what fun it is travelling in Chad.