The last month has been difficult for many Chadians living in N'Djamena, including a number of our national staff and our house-help, Sarah. People who live in Walia (shown in the above photo taken from the air) and Kousseri have been displaced from their homes. There has been a lot of rain during the wet season, which recently ended, and it has caused the river to flood areas such as Walia, which lies on the flood plain between two rivers. It is likely remain uninhabitable for 2 months so our colleagues and their families need to find temporary accommodation. A tented village has been set up but without any sanitation or clean water. For the first time since we have been here, the road next to our compound has also flooded. A couple of weeks ago, the water was rising by the day and approaching our walls so we laid sandbags and made a barrier to protect our compound and our neighbours from the water/sewage. Thankfully it hasn't yet got as far as our barrier and has remained at around the same level for about a week now. We can get in and out of our compound in our 4x4 but people living further down the road are badly affected.
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| We have renamed the compound 'our lakeside property ' as we drive through some of this water to get in and out daily. |
Thursday October 20th was a dark day in N'Djamena and other cities around Chad as many people were killed while protesting. This was the day that marked 18 months since the death of long-serving president Idriss Deby Itno in 2021, which was the time scale given for when elections would be held. In recent talks these elections were postponed by 2 years. Opposition groups called on the people to protest on the streets, so school was cancelled and everyone stayed at home. We awoke to sounds of gunfire and the smell of tear gas. Later we heard shocking stories of what took place on the streets of the city. At times like this we appreciate the democracy and right to protest that exists in our home country. Since that day, life has seemingly gone back to normal but we will have to wait and see what happens next. For more information the Guardian published this article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/20/chaos-chad-police-protests-journalist-prime-minister-democracy
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| Home schooling during the protests |
We welcomed Sundar and his wife Pushpa, who arrived in Chad earlier this week. Sundar will be the country director for MAF Chad in the new year, taking over from Leon who has been here on a temporary basis since March. We will have plenty of people visiting the program over the next month so our compound will be a busy place once again.
I (Matt) have been helping out at Bethan and Luke's school, which has been very enjoyable. I have been helping the students (grade 6,7 & 8) with maths and last week I taught science to Bethan's class. While still busy with compound maintenance, I have also started a distance-learning carpentry course with a view to making furniture in the future.
We are making the most of our compound pool at the moment as the temperatures are in the mid-30s. The kids have been learning some British history at home with Becki in the last few weeks. We have a time line in our living room and each weekend, they chose a person or event from history to study, do a related craft activity and make a sticker for the timeline. So far we've learnt about King Henry VIII, the Great Fire of London and Stevenson's Rocket, this weekend they made crowns and learnt about the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Next week...Guy Fawkes!
