We recently went on a family vacation to southern Spain. Getting there was quite the experience. We took our guard’s family in our vehicle to their village and carried Josh’s Arab language helper all the way to N’Djamena. It was a two day driving trip plus a day by air to get to our final destination. Along the way, we had a few first experiences I thought some of you would enjoy hearing about!
We had to drop our guard’s family off in a village, and of course that involved bathroom breaks. When I asked where I could use the bathroom, they handed me a shovel and told me to go behind their (mud brick) house, use the bathroom, and then shovel it over the grass fence. Typically, you find Chadian style (hole-in-the-ground) toilets in villages and in towns here. I assume this is a new village and they just hadn’t gotten around to digging a hole!
The family we visited offered us drinking water that looked like it came straight from a lake. There was no way I could touch it, but it broke my heart, knowing they were giving us their best and this is the best they had to offer.
They tried to give us a duck as a gift for bringing the family to their village (they were so happy because they hadn’t seen the family in four years). We had to turn it down because we were going to the big city and had no way to cook it (not that we would have known anyways!).
Last but not least, we also tried camel’s milk later that night. Our Arab nomad friend stayed in the guest house halfway to N’Djamena and shared dinner with us. He was very excited to have found the camel’s milk in town and couldn’t wait for us to try it. My kids wouldn’t touch it, but I had a small drip on my tongue just to be polite. It was disgusting! I think it was a few days old, because it was very sour. Josh tried it once before and said it wasn’t quite so strong.
