Photos here are a little hard to take because the government of Chad discourages them – and sometimes I’m just not fast enough with my camera as we drive by – so I might have to describe some of the things I see around N'Djamena. One morning I saw three men hunched over a rusty wheelbarrow running their hands through a soapy nut mixture to sell them with the rest of the nuts drying on blankets on the ground next to them. I see kids playing with all manner of homemade toys, as well as swimming in the lakes that form after heavy rains. There's a containerized car wash system with a picture of Hannah Montana on the side - wtf? The most striking image I wish I could have photographed was a naked child perhaps four years old washing himself alone with a small hose of clear water on the side of a trash-laden alley flooded with a mixture of stormwater and sewage. It was surreal. Following is a photo I did manage to take of a man trying with little success to herd his goats across a busy street through a small break in the street’s Jersey barriers.
(This post written while listening to Bruce Cockburn Dust and Diesel.)
