Leaving Chad

The hardest part about my trip to Chad was leaving. It was even harder than I expected - after all, I know very little as yet of the languages and culture, I was there for only a few weeks, and life and ministry in Chad has its share of difficulties and obstacles. Yet I found myself shedding lots of tears when the time came to start my return to the USA. It was the end of an amazing experience in a country and people that I'd already come to love.

The area of Chad in which we are working is quite remote, many miles from any commercial airport. But the town of Sarh does have a small airport for private planes, and the easiest way to travel between Sarh and the capital, N'djamena, is to use the services of the Missionary Aviation Fellowship to fly in a small plane - a two-hour flight. However, this is rather expensive, unless several are traveling at the same time and can share the cost. The other option is to take the bus - a much longer and more difficult trip, but less expensive. I arrived in Sarh by MAF plane, but left by bus. A Chadian lady traveled on the bus with me for safety.

One of the interesting things to me about overseas travel is the way one's entire environment gradually changes at each stage of the journey, until by the time you get to your destination, it's like another planet. This was especially noticeable on my return journey, as I traveled through Africa, Europe, and across the Atlantic Ocean to the USA. In Balimba, the village near Sarh where I was staying, we had running water and electricity for just part of the day, concrete floors, and roofing partly of tin and partly of grass. There are very few other foreigners in that region, so we worked and lived among our African friends. The languages used for communication are French, Sara Madjingaye, and a mixture of other local languages. In the village of Balimba, the people live in homes of mud brick with grass or tin roofs.

I got up at 3:30am on Friday morning, and left Balimba at 4:00 to drive to the bus stop in Sarh. The bus isn't fancy but it does have cushioned seats, sliding windows, and curtains for shade. In the long, over 12-hour drive to N'djamena, we passed through many villages of huts, and the occasional town with their small shops and tin-roofed buildings. The countryside becomes more open and arid as we get closer to the Sahara Desert, and we see more Muslim villages. Rest stops are not like those in the USA or Australia, but they do have what we need - bathrooms (i.e. holes in the ground, with walls and doors around them for privacy), and some food and drink for sale (barbecued goat meat, bread, fruit, soda). The road is dirt for the first few hours until we get to the little town of Koumra; after that, the road is paved all the way to N'djamena. The sun also gets hotter as we travel - it was over 100 F in N'djamena that day. Chad is warming up for the hot season (March-May).

N'djamena is a city, and seemed strange after getting used to Sarh and Balimba. The roads that I was on, the main downtown roads, were paved; there were streetlights, signs, and billboards, and many vehicles on the road (compared to Sarh, anyway). People speak Chadian Arabic or French, as well as their local languages. In the missionary guest house where I stayed, we had electricity most of the time, and running water the whole time I was there (a night and a day).

Late on Saturday night, I find myself sitting in the waiting room in the N'djamena airport. Many of my fellow travelers are foreigners, mostly French I think, as that was what they were speaking to each other. I hadn't seen that many foreigners in one place for several weeks! On the Air France jet, the announcements are in French and English - nice to hear my native tongue again, but sad too since it meant I was really leaving Africa. The airplane food is French food, including baguettes and cheese.

We land in the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris the next morning, and it is quite a different world. Electricity, running water, European stores and decor, and of course, mostly European people. The airport signs are in French and English, and the staff are also bilingual.

After a 7-hour layover, I board a United Airlines flight bound for Chicago. Many of my fellow travelers are American, including my seating partner. The announcements are still in French and English, but the French is spoken with an American accent. The airplane food is American food.

I know I'm in the USA when I land in Chicago, over 9 hours later. The language, people, and style of the airport are distinctly American. Though as I walk around the airport, I hear the occasional person speaking in French. Perhaps they had just arrived from Paris, as I had.

After a minor delay, I board my last plane, bound for Louisville, Kentucky. Now I don't hear anyone speaking French; I'm really and truly back in America. It's been such a long trip. By the time my plane lands and I meet my friend who came to pick me up, I am, as she said later, a walking zombie. The hour drive to West Baden Springs, Indiana, seems very long. It's well after midnight by the time I get to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, I couldn't help realizing right away just how different it was from waking up in Balimba. No mosquito net, no grass roof, no noises of little animals crawling about in the roof, thick warm covers for winter nights, no need for a flashlight ... but the list is too long. I think you get the idea. It's a different world out there, so don't be too hard on us missionaries from Africa if we look a bit dazed when we get back to the USA (or Australia, for that matter).

At first I was dreading getting back to deputation, but now I'm actually looking forward to it. I have many more stories and pictures to share with people in the churches I go to, and every mile traveled on deputation takes me closer to the day when I will return to Chad!