Things that go bump in the night

In England, I used to complain about the cars passing in the street outside my bedroom window which I claimed used to keep me awake at night. Since coming to Chad I have discovered that there are much more interesting sounds from the neighbourhood that can keep me awake. Normally, I manage to tune it all out but once I’m awake I can’t help myself from listening to the unusual sounds around Guinebor II at night.

Wood delivery

About two months ago, a new shop opened about 100m away from the hospital compound. It sells hardware supplies like paint, hammers, spades and also large planks of wood. For some reason, the wood is delivered at night time and so in the early hours of the morning we hear the sound of it being thrown off the back of lorry, one plank at a time. Unfortunately, this sounds rather like gun shots and so can be quite worrying in the middle of the night!

One of the most important animals in rural Chad is the donkey. Chadians use donkeys to carry water, people and large quantities of straw! Guinebor II village has about two donkeys in it (normally there’s one per family but Guinebor being close to N’djamena has lots of water pumps and so doesn’t need them as much). So does the village to the North of the hospital. So does the village to the West of the hospital. You get the point. At night, especially when we first arrived, you can hear the occasional donkey braying, funnily all the other ones upon hearing it start to bray as well so sometimes you get woken up by whole donkey conversations! Thankfully camels don’t make much noise.

Water delivery at Bitkine

Our cats are also pretty good at waking us up. The other night Ruth and I woke up to a great yowling and screeching noises coming from the roof! We soon found Farid up there fighting another cat! Ruth went out to try and coax him down while I tried to get back to sleep but unfortunately it was 4 o’clock and time for the call to prayer from the mosques around the hospital! Different ones call out over about a half hour period and once you are awake it can be very difficult to get back to sleep especially when the speakers aren’t working properly!

Ginger sleeping during the day

Our neighbour Rebecca North complained once that every night a man whose house is just outside the compound came home every night for a week at one o’clock in the morning! Apparently she used to hear the car driving up, honking its horn at the gate for about five minutes to wake up the guard then the screeching of the metal gate being opened and closed again! Some other neighbours of ours have regular large parties at late hours with the music blasting out till midnight.


At one point, a small Koranic school was set up under a big tree just outside the hospital. Every Saturday morning Ruth and I used to wake up to chanting at 7 o’clock so not much chance of a lie-in! Another good alarm cat sorry clock is our Ginger who every morning at dawn comes home from her night out hunting lizards. She meows at the window bars until one of us stumbles out of bed to let her in. This is fine when dawn is at 6 which is my normal waking time for school but when dawn is at 5 or 5:30 I can never get back to sleep before my real alarm goes off!

Something I’d like to wake up to is the sound of rain pitter-pattering on our tin roof. Unfortunately we are just at the beginning of the really dry and hot season and so not much chance of that for at least 4 months!

Guinebor II during the dry season



Guinebor II in the rainy season

With all this you’re probably surprised to hear that we ever get a full night’s sleep. 
Actually it’s amazing how you get used to tuning out sounds at night. Unfortunately for Mum and Dad, they have to keep half an ear open when they’re on call in order to hear the nurses and midwives who call at the window if there’s an emergency at the hospital!
Thankfully they have got a week off as we are staying at a missionary compound in town, TEAM for a week's holiday. Here we get a rest from noisy nights at Guinebor II, there is however a handy construction site just next door which makes a good alarm at 7 each morning!

Stairway to heaven

 

 

Christ is risen, hallelujah!

We’re going on an egg hunt...

Earlier this week we got quite excited when we were told we had a parcel waiting for us in the post office. We were hoping that it would be from our Grandma, containing long awaited Easter eggs! Only one shop sells them in town and they are very expensive as they are hand-made.

A parcel!

When we went to pick up the parcel the next day after school, we were surprised and even more excited to find there were two more! In the evening, we opened the three parcels and discovered the long awaited Easter eggs but also an early birthday present for Ruth and… a rather late birthday present for Mum from last June! This is a perfect example of Chadian post: one day we’ll get a newspaper from a few days ago and the next a six-month-old letter! Who knows how it works, it can be very entertaining! We’re just glad to receive things.


Melting the chocolate

Squeezing the choccolate out

So this year, despite being saved at the last minute, we’re quite short of Easter eggs. Luckily, we have some emergency Easter egg moulds for such occasions and have spent the afternoon first melting chocolate in the solar cooker and then either squeezing it into small egg moulds or painting it onto the big one! It’s been very fun, much better than just buying some! 

"Finding" small eggs

Dad "found" a big egg!

We’ve been back at school for about 3 weeks now. We don’t get “Easter holidays” as they don’t fit into the French school year but we will get Monday off.

To celebrate Easter, we will get up at dawn on Sunday morning to see the sun rise like last year. As there aren’t any nearby hills to climb up, we all stood on the table tennis table and even got out a step ladder! We often try to do a small Easter egg hunt (when we have some) even though we have to rush before they melt.

Easter Sunday 2014

After that we will probably go to our nearest Chadian church and celebrate. In the afternoon there will be a sort of concert with songs, short sketches and bible readings. In the evening we will have our weekly bible study with the other missionaries on the compound, singing, and praying together. 



A card for Ruth

Our latest Christmas card!

Dad has just come in with some more post, a Christmas card from 2013, another early birthday card for Ruth and news of another parcel. I wonder what we will find in it this time!

Our Easter garden, a collection of just about every green plant around the banana tree! 

Joyeuses Paques and Mubrak Id from hot Chad!