Birthday Weekend

Bus Stop

Road trip to N’Djamena?  Yes please. Jessica an awesome volunteer nurse from Oregon is out here for the month of February and is living with me while she’s here. She has been so much fun and this weekend she was making a trip up to the capital city to see some friends and invited me along.

5:45 a.m. we are on the Motto headed for the hospital

6:05 Dropped jess off at the bus stop to buy tickets and save seats.

6:30 Dropping the motto off at the hospital and trying to find a Klondo to take me to the bus stop.

7:00 The bus filled up in Lai so they headed straight to N’Djamena without stopping in Béré.

Front window of the car that drove us to Kelo.

7:30 We are taking a taxi to Kélo to try and catch the bus from there.

8:30 We made it in time and got front row seats.

The bus driver has readjusted his rear view mirror so that he can look right at me. Creepy.

 Jessica to my left two Arab men to my right my back pack on my feet and about 4 Arab women with babies right behind me and one is throwing up everything she’s eaten in the last year

Tchadian Pride. 

11:45 a.m. we stop at the halfway point to find food and use the bathroom. The bus driver says 15 minutes. We look for bathrooms, which of course is a hole in the ground.  This toilet is a concert floor with a drain. My pee is splashing on my feet. GROSS!!

We stop 5 different times for the Arabs to pray which is convenient cause my butt is killing me and I feel like I have a DVT in both my legs.

The bus driver has bought jess and I 2 bottles of cold water but no one else on the bus has gotten one. I feel bad for accepting it. I want everyone else to get one too.

The bus driver is outside praying and I’m sitting in the bus and I can tell from the other side of the street he’s watching me. When he’s done praying he makes his way over to the window and try’s talking to me in French. I pretend not to understand so he’ll go away. Now he’s winking at me in the mirror. Can this bus go any faster?

Camel!!!

There are so many camels all over outside and I get so excited every time we drive pass a group.

4:30 p.m. After an 8 and a half hour hot, sweaty and stinky road trip we finally made it to our destination. This is going to be a great Birthday with a great new friend in a very dangerous city. I love living abroad.