New Term & New Arrivals

Welcome to our blog and thanks for supporting us by reading our updates and keeping in touch with your news from home. It is so important to us to know people are supporting us and are interested in our news.

We have now restarted our language training and are back at school 4 days a week for general and private lessons. The other days we work at the hospital. We have hopefully improved but sometimes it doesn't seem like it particularly when in Church and we can only pick out odd words we recognise in the weekly sermon. Our class this term is much smaller than in the summer, so Sue gets picked on quite often as our Professor likes saying "Madame White" in a stern fashion, which causes great amusement for our fellow Chadian students.  The class of 7, 4 Chadian men and 1 lady can all speak French but struggle to write, which means when copying notes from the board can take a long while, so patience is needed and we don't appear to cover much in each lesson. The heat also adds to the problem as now that the rains have stopped the temperatures have risen to the high 30's so concentrating for long periods proves challenging. We still get the odd heavy downpour and is a welcome relief as helps to lower the temperatures but apparently will stop completely very soon. The area is rapidly turning back to its normal brown colour and the air is full of dust and sand. But we have been told that the temperatures will cool a little for the next 3 months and we should then be able to do without mosquito nets.

Sue with the children who live in our compound

We have now moved home, just upstairs to the guest house accommodation. This means we no longer have the luxury of private facilities other than our bedroom and now share toilet, bathroom, kitchen and living space with 3 other bedrooms which has the potential for a further 7 people to be here with us. We are allocated our own shelf space in the bathroom and Kitchen for our food, so feels a bit like being in student accommodation. People seem to come and go at irregular times and stay for up to a week or just overnight. Despite asking we never get notified of when people will turn up and are often surprised to find new people here in the morning or being woken late at night by their unexpected arrival. Despite this the flat is very nice and in a great location for the hospital, which is 10km away, school and local shops and when just ourselves here is very comfortable and homely.

One unexpected arrival we could have done without arrived at around 5am one morning. Sue went to the toilet and was surprised to find a rat swimming in the bucket of water we keep there at all times in case the town water supply is turned off, which does occur quite frequently. I was summoned to remove the distressed visitor which instead of dumping over the balcony and into the bushes below, I emptied onto the balcony hoping he would recover and scamper off. Unfortunately unknown to myself the compound cat was also around so she got an unexpected breakfast as she pounced as I turned and returned to bed. So much for trying to be helpful and compassionate to one of God's creatures.

Local Children awaiting the unloading

The hospital has recently had a major delivery of materials and equipment sent over from the USA, all safely transported in 2 huge shipping containers. This was been made possible by Exxon Mobil agreeing to transport these at their expense and to deliver them to the hospital compound. They had been delayed due to the rains and the roads not being passable but are now safely on site and with a planned opening ceremony scheduled for later this month.

They contain much need equipment such as hospital supplies, generators and a portable X-Ray machine, plus supplies for the school on the hospital grounds, all kindly donated by supporters in the USA. They will be please to know that their generous gifts have now safely arrived after the long journey. The arrival of 2 huge lorries and a crane caused great interest and excitement both at the hospital and within the local community. Many local children and adults turned out to watch the unloading, which ironically included the crane getting stuck in the soft dry sand and needing to be dug out.

Stuck in the Sand

Unloading, finally

We are still coming to terms and adjusting to our new lives here and one of the biggest hurdles is not being able to simply go for a walk in the country. Most of our lives are now spent in doors trying to keep cool. We are truly blessed in the UK with such a diverse range of landscapes and weather, in time we hope to discover more of what Chad has to offer other than heat and dust.