Antarctica-Checking Off the Last Continent

Penguin selfie!

 I’ve been promising to write about this for a while because I got back in February and it’s now April. I don’t know what happened, but probably just extreme laziness on my part and the inevitable passing of time that is out of my control. Since I got back from Antarctica/Argentina, I’ve already been in Ethiopia, and I’m heading to Zanzibar on Monday because I’m a long-suffering good friend who would do anything for Claire, including going back to a place I’ve already been. But just this once… I figured before I get on to that trip and then the next one (meetings in Cambodia with Africans coming along—sure to be exciting mix of my Southeast Asian childhood and my African old age hood), I should probably write a few things here so I can tell people I did it and then I can go back to my normal lazy existence. 

I have had plenty of people demand in person stories from my trip, and I’ve shown lots of photos, most recently at an American Embassy function I was invited to a few days ago. It was not at the Embassy, but conveniently in my neighborhood. I know the lady who organized it and she was very upset because the generator wasn’t working at the venue in spite of the fact that it had worked every other day that week. It was probably the first time that most of the fancy Embassy people had to spend an extended period of time without AC, so I think it was good for them ultimately. Anyway, not the function organizer who was understandably busy, but another American Embassy friend asked me to tell her about my trip.

My main quick spiel is that it was amazing, I liked it more than I even expected, not that I didn’t expect to like it, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. There is an other-worldly beauty about Antarctica that Debbie (my go-to, always up for an adventure, let’s make it happen, thankfully organized friend) and I kept marveling at. We were often sailing by mountains that looked like they were painted onto a wall for an old fashioned movie set. We, creative brilliant geniuses that we are, dubbed them “Fake Mountains.” We laughed about how many photos we took of the very first distant iceberg we saw once we were surrounded by them, but we were definitely obsessed with how beautiful and fascinating they were. And of course the animals—penguins, seals, whales, dolphins, albatross—always amazing to see. 

Debbie is a very good photographer and has long complained that I lack her skills. She learned if she wanted me to take a photo to be very specific about what she wanted, and then there was a 60% chance she would get that photo on her phone. I learned that I could leave my hands toasty warm in my gloves and let her take photos that would be way better than any I would take anyway. We planned to share photos and did share some, but not all so sorry about that, but I really think you should just go visit yourself. Or if you want professional photos, there were several professional photographers on our trip who got amazing photos, and I’m sure they’re easy to find online should you want to see an adorable penguin floating on an iceberg or a seal yawning or something.

I realized when I was trying to pick photos
that mostly I have videos of penguins because they are so cute.
But I can never make videos work on the blog so you'll have to make do with photos.

This is the first organized tour type thing that Debbie and I have ever done as we tend to prefer wandering around by ourselves, but we aren’t experienced enough sailors to make it from Ushuaia, through the Drake Passage, to Antarctica, and back. Debbie certainly never would have made it as she was miserably seasick the first day until I made friends with the Indonesian staff working on the boat (yay for that Southeast Asian childhood again!) and convinced her to take the real meds instead of the hippie stickers and bracelets TikTok recommended to her. 

This photo hurts my vanity because I look insane, 
but Ibu Lu was wonderful and I can't find any other photos with her.
We sat in her part of the restaurant every night. She was the best.
Pasti orang Indonesia yang paling bagus!

While I appreciated the nerd lectures on the boat (and Debbie appreciated being able to watch them from the TV while lying down in her bunk) and also the activities that we got to do and not having to drive a boat by ourselves (although I do think I would have enjoyed that), we were not sad to leave the boat and have a few days afterwards to explore Buenos Aires and Colonia del Sacramento (Uruguay). We also had fun hiking to the Laguna Esmeralda in Ushuaia too. We ate a lot of good food and drank a lot of very good beverages and had a lovely time. Thanks, Debbie, for always being up for my crazy trip ideas!

We made it to Laguna Esmeralda and beat the time everyone said it would take.
Had to call our taxi driver to come back early. 

And now I’m going to share a few more photos that you can skim through. Thanks to my friend Lisa who told me that there is a limited number of people allowed on land at each landing site in Antarctica so we knew to get a smaller boat to make sure we made it to land. The limit is 100 people on land at a time. The other people would ride around in zodiacs (inflatable boats) and see wildlife and ice bergs up close and then switch. Debbie and I learned that we are very competitive hikers and need to be the first up any hill or to any Laguna Esmeralda and we don’t suffer slowpokes. We also learned that a lot of determined retirees with varying levels of physical fitness go on these trips and it can be tricky to get around them, but we managed.

Enjoy the photos and pretend you’re just swiping away on my phone like everyone else here did, but hopefully you are reading this from a nice cool environment because it is a million degrees here and we haven’t had electricity in several months now because most of the national electric company’s generators are broken. The Egyptian Consulate closed the other day because they had no power and their back up systems weren't working. Claire and I are going to Zanzibar to enjoy some rain, though Naomi coming from Northern Ireland is hoping for some sunshine. On va voir. 

My trip started out in luxury because I upgraded myself with miles.
Thanks, Sheba Miles, for always bringing the adventure of running all over Bole Airport,
whenever you want to use your miles because only one Ethiopian Airlines employee at a time
knows all the intricate rules of how to use your miles, and you never know where to find him...

On the bus in Ushuaia!

Excited to be in Ushuaia, preparing to board our boat the next day.

Our boat room!

To Antarctica!

Boat lectures

The first iceberg!

Some fake mountains--photos don't so it justice.
I'm not sure if they looked fake because of the quality of Antarctic summer light,
or because I'm not used to sun on snow.

I showed the photos to Moussa, who loves poultry of all kinds, 
and has a "collect them all mentality" owning chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, and turkeys.
He was very interested in penguins and their eggs:
"How can I get one of these? What do the eggs taste like?"
Considering its 46C/115F here right now, I don't think he should try to develop the industry here in Chad.

7 in Sign Language for our 7th continent

Look at this great photo Debbie took--she is truly an artist.

Glad to have each other as apparently lots of people can't find anyone
crazy enough to go with them on this trip so there were lots of single travelers.

We became friends with this cool London girl, which is good because 
before I left Hassan told me that this is a crazy trip that only white people would do.
"What if you get eaten by a penguin or some other dangerous animal?"
I said, "I think I'm in more danger of getting attacked by a hippo that lives near my house
or getting in a car wreck driving around Ndjamena." He did concede the point,
 after I showed him what a penguin is. But he still thought it was a dumb thing to do.
Michelle is Jamaican/British so I showed him not only white people do this.
When I admitted she was the only one of African ancestry and also she's actually British,
he said it proved his point. I would have counter pointed that there were a TON of Chinese
people on my flight back who had all been to 南极洲
but to Chadians nasaras and Chinese are basically the same.

Eating a piece of an ice berg right out of the ocean!

I will say in Moussa's defense:
legend has it that once a tourist stole a penguin from the beach
and stowed it in his bathroom. Maintenance finally broke in and freed it,
three days later once the bathroom stank so much people got suspicious.
They had to turn the boat around and return the penguin to its home.
So Moussa is probably not the only one wondering about breeding penguins.

An old whaling ship, sunk decades ago.

My Aussie friends were so psyched that John Eales was on our ship.
He was a good speaker too. His wife was also lovely.
Of course, I'm a Rugby League fan myself--Go Broncos!
Always cheer the boss's favourite ('u' for Australian) team.

Definitely did the polar plunge. No regrets.
Debbie, of course, tried to swim away, as she is a champion swimmer,
I used skills honed over the 8 years of not having a heater for my shower.
At this point, I wish I had a cooler for my shower because the water comes out hot.
I'm remembering this plunge fondly as I sweat in front of a fan that is pushing hot air around my house.

Cool artsy photo that Debbie took of the floor
in a cool Buenos Aires neighborhood with too many tourists.

Exploring Buenos Aires!

Colonia del Sacremento

Still Uruguay

I convinced Debbie to get matched tattoos:
7 in Arabic script since we met in the Middle East
and visited our 7th continent together.
In this photo it looks like she is the one trying to convince me, 
but I am the bad influence in this case.

Fortunately, she loved it.
Thanks to Norberto!

Fancy alfajor with tea on Debbie's coffeeshop tourism day.
I think she had about 6 cups of coffee in a few hours.
Or maybe that was another day?

Tigre, Argentina where people live by the river and own speed boats.

Tigre

I'll leave you with a couple more iceberg photos:

Starting out 2024

This photo has nothing to do with the blog but it is from our visit to Festival Dary,
a Chadian Festival that celebrates Chad. It is a lot of fun if you go on a day where there are no riots.

It’s a new year, and some new year miracles are happening—first, I’m writing this instead of doing some other useless thing. Second, my priority checked bags actually both arrived nearly first off the plane in N’djamena and I got out of the airport before almost anyone else. Manon and Joe were waiting in the car to pick me up. Pika continues to hate car rides unless she knows we are going to buy some goat meat for her dinner. Ziggy was not invited along because she is very mad at Manon for getting another kitten and keeps trying to attack her. Now Zig sleeps with me and stays exclusively in my house. Manon is sad, but those are the consequences for getting a kitten that can walk and chase mice. The consequences of keeping Zig mean she is constantly falling into the dogs’ water bowl and knocking her food all over the kitchen but she is so cute.

Manon's new kitten

Zig is unimpressed by her new neighbor

I’ve already had one visit here in Chad, which I thought was going to be fairly easy and painless. My boss, his son, and 2 new colleagues were coming. Well, the woman colleague’s plane was canceled due to the snow and she couldn’t make it. This was sad to me because I’m almost always the only girl here, and it would have been fun to have another one along. It was also sad because she was bringing me her winter clothes to wear on my trip to Antarctica. Yes—I’m going there next week. 

Excited to eat grilled camel meat

I turn 40 this year, which is an age I always thought was SO OLD as a kid. Probably because when I was a kid, it was en vogue to throw grave yard parties with black balloons and “over the hill” signs for people who turned 40 and we had a lot of those parties for my parents and others of their expat friends. My life did not follow the traditional plan where I am now married with several children who will give my old age purpose and visitors and black balloon parties, but I think I should embrace the things I did end up with—flexibility and freedom to travel. So I have one more continent to visit to “collect them all,” and I’m heading there next week inshallah!

I also get to embrace these 3 things that do not particularly like being embraced.

Anyway, back to this most recent trip…

I picked up the guys and we went to visit projects in Dourbali. Everything went fairly smoothly except that the night we spent in Dourbali we ended up taking a woman to the hospital who was in a minor motorcycle accident. My diagnosis is that she made herself hysterical, but was actually not badly injured at all. It is a good thing I am not a doctor because I have no bedside manner. I let Matt drive her to the hospital because it is the greatest joy of his life to drive in Chad when roads aren’t paved. I ended up driving back to the hospital later that night to pick her up when she was discharged because Matt was already asleep. I got in bed around midnight that night.

BTS of a Matt video in front of a terrible water source.
Good news: a well is being drilled in this village right now!

The next day we visited another village and they insisted on us riding camels and horses into the village as they celebrated. Matt and I rode the horses since we’ve ridden plenty of camels in the past and let the others ride the camels. I’m not a fan of horses much but these ones were fine, except it is awkward to ride astride in a dress. I’m glad to see people happy to have clean water, but I do feel awkward in those types of celebrations. People here get a kick out of it, so I try to have fun with them. 

The presented us with camel milk, which I told Matt to pretend to drink. He did well.
The kid's sign is asking for education for children in the village,
sadly that is not something we do, but I hope that there will be a school in this village someday.

Anyway, all was well. The visit went well. Jeff drove back some of the way until we got to the paved roads and had a great time. I took everyone for pizza back in N’djamena. They’d all done so well eating the Chadian food and enjoying it, so I always reward people with pizza after that trip.

The next day I went to pick up the guys from the hotel to take them to breakfast. Matt and Nathan were there, but Jeff didn’t come. I went inside to find him, knocked on his door and he appeared in his underwear with a miserable look on his face. He had diarrhea and vomiting all night and was still going. I said to rest and I would come back later with meds. Matt, Nathan and I went on to the French bakery for some nice pastries. Then we went to my house to drop off their bags so we could go see the hippos. I called Claire for medical advice, she gave me the names of meds to get and Abiner went off to find the meds. Then I got a call from Jeff. He said, “The police are here and they are wanting to arrest me. I don’t know what to do.” I told him to pass me the phone and had the following conversation:

Me: “The nasara is sick and I left him there to rest. I’m coming back to pay for the rooms. Please leave him alone so he can rest.”

Police: “We know he is sick. We don’t want to cause problems for him, but there is a problem at the hotel. We are arresting everyone. Can you come get him?”

I live 5 minutes away so I hopped in the car and went to get him. 

Probably one of the last times Jeff was smiling in Chad.

I get there and the place is crawling with military, police and tons of people. People are carrying out lamps, sheets, food, mini refrigerators, and it is mass chaos. I go inside and find the nice guy from reception and make sure he is not about to be arrested. He assures me he is fine, but the owner of the property and the Chinese renter (it is the Hotel Hong Kong) are having a spat about the rent and the Chadian owner took the Chinese renter to court over it and they were currently there and fighting it out. So everyone has to leave. Not as bad as I had thought, but I guess if you can’t speak the language and stuff is coming out both ends and police bang on your door you would think that is pretty bad. Jean from reception said, “Do you mind if I get your bill to you later? Everything is a bit unorganized right now.” He was not wrong.

I brought Jeff back to my house where Antani had graciously cleaned my room up nicely for him, but he collapsed on my very uncomfortable small sofa instead and insisted he was fine and didn’t want to move. I brought him a pillow, made him take some meds and drink a sprite and then we went off to go see hippos.

Matt and Nathan were excited to see the hippos, but we made the mistake of putting everyone in the same wooden canoe and we nearly sank while paddling to the little island where the hippos were sleeping. They also didn’t want to go closer because hippos are a little scary. Before we made it to the island, Matt kept trying to get us to go back, but the guys refused, probably because turning around would have tipped the boat for sure. Both Matt and Nathan’s shoes were soaked, which I felt bad about because they were flying out later that night, and it isn’t fun to travel with wet squishy shoes. Matt said the hippos were not worth the boat trip, but we got two canoes to pick us up and the trip back to shore was not bad. Nathan said he enjoyed it anyway. Chad weather came through for us and their shoes were dry by the time we walked back to our truck.

See? They didn't sink!

Then we spent some time buying soccer jerseys for Matt’s other kids and finally we got back to my house to check on Jeff. I noticed he was no longer on the couch, so I went into my bedroom where he was sleeping on my bed. I congratulated him for moving to a more comfortable location. (Really the only people who like to sit on my couch are Joe, Pika and Ziguégué). He said, “I think your couch is like a futon or something because it folded up.”

It is not a futon. He just was too big for it and it collapsed. Fortunately Manon has an extra couch in our storage room and she let me take that while Matt tried to find enough straight nails in our nail jar to fix my old one. I like the new couch better anyway, but I need to buy new cushions for it because my ones are too small.

My new couch will look like this once I get cushions that are the right size.

Jeff skipped our late lunch/early dinner too, but perked up for souvenir shopping before heading to the airport. (Dr Claire saves the day for the neverthirst team again. She says, “I always know to keep my phone by me when you have a neverthirst team here.” And Matt says we need to keep her on retainer. Honestly, she has even helped with medical advice when I’ve been in Niger, Ethiopia, and Uganda even.) Their flight was delayed again, but I think everything else has been ok because I’ve not had any other messages from them. I doubt Jeff will ever want to come again to Chad, and now I need to find another go-to hotel, but otherwise it was a mostly successful trip. I’m happy to say that I think Nathan had a good time, so at least we are passing good memories on to the next generation.

Another recent visitor--cute little CODA.
His hands are blurred because he is trying to sign to me.

Now I’m sitting under my fan in my room typing this and feeling very cold as Pika licks my legs for no reason. I am happy that the warm clothes I ordered on Amazon made it to Debbie’s house so that I can have some warm clothes for Antarctica because if I’m cold in these clothes under the fan, I’m not going to be ok hanging with the penguins without some extras.

Pika is unsure of these chili lemon gummy bears, but I love them.
Thanks to my niece and nephews for the Christmas present.

Dusty Travels

I just got back from a really lovely relaxing vacation with two close friends where we wandered around old cities, swam in the sea for as long as we could take the cold, and boated around really pretty islands. I’ll share some photos, but not too many so you won’t get jealous. If you do get jealous, remember that I had to take 3 planes to get there and it was very long and tiring and more expensive than I had originally planned for it to be. And on the first plane a lady tried to put her feet in my lap and sleep. I said no. Then she put her head in my lap, but got up when I kept accidentally (probably) poking her whenever I moved.

But don't forget I had to endure this first:

I pushed her feet off my lap with my bag
and then a little while later she changed positions.
I'm sure she slept fine on her trip to Dubai.

And then, after all the relaxing good times, I got to come back to Chad, where I do want to be, but getting here can definitely take a toll. For one thing, no one knows that Chad exists outside of Chad so airports are often very confused about where I’m going. They never give me my boarding pass early enough. 

I had 14 hours in Athens, but I also have free lounge access, and l do enjoy lounging in airport lounges when they have good food and everything is free (Athens lounges have good food). But Croatia to Greece is Schengen so I had to leave the Domestic Terminal to go to the International Terminal, and couldn’t get back to the lounges until Ethiopian Airlines decided to open their check in (which they don’t do until last minute). I wanted to go out and wander a bit in Athens but I wanted to come back before dark and lounge it up. My flight was at 2am. Fortunately, after many emails and help from the wonderful Anurag, travel agent extraordinaire, I got my boarding pass early. I then wandered down to the port in Athens, which was actually fairly boring because it was only cruise ships and shops. I already did Athens tourist stuff 15 years ago (to the day!) with some cool friends back when we were young and spry so I wanted to do something else and it was not the best, but I did get some fresh air.

I mean, it was a nice little walk, I guess...

The flight from Athens to Addis was uneventful. Then I boarded my flight to N’Djamena, which is where everything started to get tense. First, the lovely Anurag pre-booked my seats. He knows I like the aisle. But he put me in the front of the plane, which I avoid when booking for myself for many reasons. The reason that is now the most important to me is avoiding the very entitled Chadian women who are rich enough to go to Dubai to stock their businesses for their families. When I first saw these gaggles of women on my flights, I tried to be compassionate, thinking that their pushiness was just nerves on their first flight. I have now come to realize that is not the case. They’re pros. They’re also pros at using their inability to speak English with the Ethiopian flight attendants and their inability to speak French with non-Arabic speaking travelers to do whatever they want on the flight. One lady in particular insists on taking a specific seat, even if it is not hers, and will be very annoying until people give up and give it to her. I’ve seen her do it many times, but I was not in a mood to take it, and I do happen to speak both French and Arabic. She was in my seat. She tried to refuse to move. I showed her my ticket. She motioned to the middle seat. I said no, you are in my seat, and you need to move to yours. Where is your boarding pass? She said, “I lost it.” (Unlikely, as she would have had to show it to get on the plane.) I said, “Look, airplanes are not like busses. There are rules.” She yelled that she knows everything about airplanes and flies all the time. Then she moved to her seat, but she poked her elbows and knees into me most of the flight and leaved heavily into my seat (she is a hefty woman). I ignored her, and settled into the flight.

Memories of the good times keep you going during the tough times,
aka when someone is jabbing you with her elbow for 4.5 hours.

Everything was mostly fine until we started to land in N’Djamena. The pilot circled a couple of times and then sharply pulled up like we were dodging a missile or a flock of birds. Immediately the Italian Catholic priest across the aisle from me whipped out his prayer beads and on the other side of my All-Knowing Seat-sharing traveling companion was a Muslim mullah from Saudi Arabia who whipped out the Quran app on his phone and began chanting surahs loudly (wearing a 15th century outfit, but with 21st century technology). Finally the pilot gave a whispered announcement I couldn’t hear as Chadians loudly asked what the guy was saying and those of us who speak English tried to tell them to be quiet so we could hear. I flagged down a flight attendant who told me that we were going on to Kano (Nigeria) for an undetermined amount of time because of a dust storm in N’Djamena that messed up visibility. Then I passed the news on in French and Arabic until everyone understood. I wanted to go back and pass it on in Chinese too, but they seemed to get it and the aisles were fairly blocked. 

We landed in Kano, and before the plane comes to a complete stop, the commerce ladies are up, in the aisle, with all bags unloaded. The flight attendants are yelling sweet nothings to them about staying in their seats with seat belts fastened, and they are studiously ignoring them. Finally they understand that we are not yet leaving the plane. Everyone settled back in (bags strewn about on the floor still) and we started to get acquainted. I was happy to meet Sharon, an English missionary doing Bible translation on her way back from some months in the UK. Oscar in front of me is an Italian hotelier with African Parks going to the place I really want to visit in Chad but haven’t yet gotten to see. I connected him with the Italian priest and hands were flying as they chatted in their native tongue. I texted Anurag for an update and found that there was a new guy named Sameer coming from India to join their travel agency. It is his first trip to Africa and I should try to say hi. I saw an Indian guy not too far behind me and thought—that must be him! So I went over to say hi and it was not him at all. It was another very nice and now very confused Indian guy named Anees coming to Chad for work completely unrelated to Satguru Travel. When they finally let us go into the airport to sit in chairs that were almost as uncomfortable as the airplane ones, I met Sameer and let him speak on the phone with Anurag. He was also initially very confused that a strange white lady greeted him by name and also knows where he works and where he is coming from, and it will probably take a while before he wants to be my friend, but I’m sure I’ll win him over.

Note the juice box is as long as my thumb.
I do not actually have extra-long thumbs.
It did not quench the thirst.

Eventually they took our passports and sent us off to hotels for the night. I sympathized with the poor Nigerian airport workers as the Chadian commerce ladies imperiously demanded things from them, pushed past them and generally caused more mayhem and confusion than necessary. None of them spoke Arabic or French either. Eventually, they put me with the business class people (because I have Gold status on Ethiopian Airlines), and things were a bit calmer for me for a few hours. Still no one really knew when/if we were going back to the airport the next day. They said we would get a 5am wake up call and leave at 6. Then they said we would leave at 7 so we could have breakfast first. Then they gave everyone a 5:20 wake up call for reasons unknown to anyone. None of us were late, and everyone was very nice to everyone else. I would like to point out that there WERE Chadians in the group, but none of them were Commerce Ladies. I did hear one of the commerce ladies screaming that she had platinum status (which I would believe because they seem to be on every single flight I’m on), but she was not taken to the business class hotel probably because “you catch more flies with honey.” (Though in Chad, you can catch flies simply by existing so she probably doesn’t know that expression.)

When you take the stairs in a hotel, you never know what you might stumble upon.
I found this room of Christmas decorations. I can't decide if Santa is smoking a pipe
after decapitating one of his more recalcitrant reindeer or if someone sent him a message,
Godfather-style, and he is contemplating his John Wick-style revenge.
(Note: I have seen the Godfather, but not JW.
Because of my TCK trauma, I stay fairly up to date with pop culture
so I can know what I'm fake-laughing at. I believe JW is Keanu Reeves taking down evil people who killed his dog. I could get murderous if someone messed with my dogs, so the plot seems believable,
but I have chosen other films to watch on long flights because I don't watch movies where dogs die.) 

The next morning at 7am sharp, we head back to the airport. We arrived before 8am, which is, incidentally, the time that the airport actually opens. Something that you would think the organizers of our Nigerian tourist experience should have known. Everyone plonked down on the sidewalk in front of the airport, no problem for Chadians, even commerce ladies, but some of the nasaras were looking around for chairs or leaning against the walls. When they finally let us in the airport, again it was mass chaos of pushing and shoving (Commerce Ladies) and the English missionary (who speaks excellent French and Chadian Arabic) trying to tell everyone to stay in the queue! She was ignored and I’m really worried for her in Chad while she tries to lose her British love for waiting patiently in lines. I sympathized, really I did, but there are some battles you have to accept that you cannot win. 

Another angle on vengeful Santa.

We make it inside and are eventually forced into a line that is inching forward. We are close enough to the front that we can see a very harried and confused bunch of Nigerian immigration officials fighting with the crowds to stay calm and wait for their passports. Women screamed out their names at the poor men who were trying to differentiate between Fatima Abaker and Fatemeh Aboubaker Hadje and Hissein Ali and Ali Hassan and so on. One of the business class men I’d been chatting with told me I should go help because I can speak to everyone. I said that I didn’t want to be “that know it all white girl” but he dragged me there and offered my help to the Nigerians and they said, “Please, yes, please help!” Next thing I knew, I was in the immigration booth behind a stack of passports, sorting names and yelling at women to wait in line and then verify that we had handed them the right passports before moving on to the next people. I also helped the official sort out babies who didn’t have passports (one of them was so young, it might have actually been born in Nigeria the previous night) and the one Chadian lady who didn’t have her passport because she had been in jail in Saudi Arabia and they had confiscated her passport, given her a boarding pass and sent her back home. We also had an issue with one man coming through and saying his mother was still sleeping back at the hotel. Someone went to get her. Finally there was only one passport left, and it was another guy also sleeping at the hotel. I don’t know how they do it, but they must have slept through wake up phone calls and door pounding. The harried Ethiopian Airlines Kano-based official, a very nice Ethiopian man who was very grateful to me for my help and very appreciative of my appreciation for his country’s food (we had a little conversation in the midst of the chaos), told me he found the guy crying at the door that he was going to miss his flight. So that was sorted. 

Eventually we got on the plane, flew the 1 hour flight to NDJ, and we were home! Poor Sharon, though—the Commerce Ladies charged through the plane the minute it touched down as it was still moving towards the terminal, throwing bags down no matter whose head might be in the way. My lady, who was much nicer to me on the last flight and even kept her elbows to herself, climbed over me before I even got my seatbelt off. Sharon was pushed out of her seat and standing in the aisle while the plane was still moving, which she was not happy about at all. The commerce ladies forced themselves into the business class bus, ignoring the protestations of Chadian airport officials who they definitely understood, and I heard later, really annoyed the business class passengers who had paid for their expensive business class flights. I was happy that most of them weren’t in the commoner immigration line with us upstairs because it was much calmer without them. Also the airport now has line dividers up that really work against line cutters. I did have one older commerce lady come out of no where and try to cut in front of me. I said, “you need to wait in line.” She whispered conspiratorially at me “we’re together, ok?” She was cute and old and so I let her stay pressed up behind me, telling me to put my passport on the counter while the guy in front of me was still getting his electronic fingerprints processed. I told her I would wait until he was done. When we got downstairs, we still had to wait in piles of luggage until our bags came off. With 3 planes arriving and leaving at about the same time, it was packed. 

This guy told me that they watch movies during slow times,
but he had to pause the one they were watching when things got
too loud on screen and we couldn't hear people screaming their names at us.
It was a good 10-15 minutes after I joined up, so I'm thinking maybe they
watch all the time, even we we are in long lines, and maybe if they watched
films that were a little less exciting, immigration might go a bit faster...

Manon had been planning to pick me up on my original arrival day with Sabit, Joe, and Pika (we don’t let Zig in the car anymore as she always tries to jump out the window or stand on the driver’s head), but she couldn’t come, so Anurag picked me up when he came to get Sameer. Pretty handy to be friends with your travel agent—especially if he has an Indian chef and sometimes the Indians invite you to dinner…

I have since received many messages from one of these guys,
assuring me of his undying love for me and proposing immediate marriage.
It's not the worst marriage proposal I've ever had, but once again, it was done over the phone.
I told him I am too old for him, but he said age is not important.
More poetic than the Chadian guy who asked me to be his second wife.
I told him that I was too old, and he said, "Mais non! Tu connais Macron?"
(TCK tip: if you want to know why Sabit and I laughed til we cried over that,
google French President Macron's wife.)

She's so cute. Still recovering from being spayed on my coffee table
(I am too), but mostly back to normal. 
Joe and Pika refused to be photographed for this blog post.