Au frigo

So I thought I would show you an interesting sight of Chad......the inside of our fridge!!  (frigo is the French word for fridge).  Just thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast to the inside of a fridge at home and give you an insight into my ‘Chad life’.

So we have a gas powered fridge, the gas bottle isn’t in the picture.  One bottle of gas last about 2 weeks.  There’s no warning as to when it’s going to run out, so you have to keep an eye on the flame at the bottom of the fridge to ensure it’s lit and the fridge is still working.  As you can imagine, if the gas runs out it’s only a matter of hours until all the food is ruined because of the heat.  Another thing you can’t really see in the picture are the two towels we have draped around the outside and which we keep wet all the time – this helps to keep the fridge cool.  We have to wet the towels with water about three times a day as they dry out really quickly.

Ok, so the main thing you’ll see in the fridge is water!  We can’t drink the water from the tap and even if we did, it’s luke-warm at best anyway.  All our water is filtered and the water that comes out of the filter is room temperature (i.e. about 35 degrees centigrade).  We therefore always ensure we have a continuous supply of water in the fridge.  I probably drink about 5-6 litres of water/squash/cold tea (bottom left of pic in jug) a day.  In the bottom right of the fridge is a bottle of d’jino, which I stumbled across in a shop the other day and was very excited about!  It’s made in Cameroon and I drank loads of it there, it’s kind of like Lilt.  I bought myself a bottle as a birthday treat!!

Next shelf up on the left is some left-over rice which we ate at luchtime, and on top of it in the bowl is some home-made crème fraiche type stuff, which my housemate made from gone-off home-made yoghurt (she’s very entrepreneurial!).  Behind that is a bottle of ‘chilly willys tomato ketchup’ – grerat name!!  Haven’t braved any of that yet...... On the plate to the right, with the pretty red doily is the remains of my birthday cake that Andrea made (it’s very yummy).   Ah, next shelf up is eggs, mayo, some salad dressing, in the bowl is a local lemon (the yellow/green thing, it’s kind of a cross between a lemon and an orange), also in the bowl are tomatoes, then some watermelon and behind that a mango.  Top shelf on the left is some cheddar cheese (yep, another treat, not always available so I buy it when I can!), in the blue food bag is lettuce, duly washed in disinfectant last night, then there’s a jar of home-made mango jam which we made a few weeks ago, then in the brown bag is my chocolate stash, given to me by the girls here for my birthday!  On top of the paper bag is half a cabbage. 

So there we have it, an insight into my Chadian fridge!!  This has got me thinking about what I miss from my UK fridge and the first few things that spring to mind are – proper milk (we only have powdered milk or UHT), sausages and bacon!!  I guess my Chadian fridge is more healthy, apart from the chocolate!

My new surroundings

OK so I thought I would try and describe my new surroundings as best I can. I am living in the Guinebor II area of N’Djamena, at the hospital there. The hospital has a 10 foot (ish) wall around the perimeter, with barbed wire running around the top of it. There are two entrances, one for vehicles and one for pedestrians. People coming to the hospital to consult a doctor or nurse usually arrive by taxi or motorbike which drop them off outside the pedestrian entrance. It’s usually just us missionaries going in and out of the vehicular entrance and trades-people such as the builders or the solar-panel engineers.

The hospital is situated in a very dry and dusty, fairly barren landscape (although I am told that most of the sand/dust turns to mud in the rainy season, which should be interesting!).Since the hospital was built, more and more private houses have been built in the area. These are typically one room mud-brick buildings with galvanised iron roofs.There are also a few small shops (boutiques in French, although they’re nothing like you would expect a ‘boutique’ to look like!).These shops sell basics like bread (fab baguettes, a hang-over from French colonisation) and milk powder (the only way to have milk here apart from UHT that doesn’t last long).Oh and also Coca-Cola!Oh and mobile phone credit, which is really useful as else it’s a 20 minute trip into town. There’s a mosque about 500 metres away from the compound and we often hear the call to prayer.Below are 2 photos.  One is of the main hospital entrance and the other is of the area outside the hospital compound. The second one was taken at 5.30am one Saturday a few weeks ago! It was fab to see the sunrise and it was so lovely and cool at that time of the day – about the same temperature as at midday on a sunny summer’s day in the UK!


Main entrance to hospital



Area outside hospital (compound wall is on the right of the pic)
 

Inside the compound is a carpet of sand. To the right-hand side are the houses us expats live in. Single storey houses with tiled floors. All have solar panels and we generate enough electricity to mean that that is our sole source of power. We have gas-powered fridges and cookers. To the left of the compound is the pedestrian entrance to the hospital and triage area. Then there are gates through to the admin office, payment desk and pharmacy and a waiting area for the outpatient consultation rooms and the laboratory. Behind the pharmacy are the maternity rooms and operating theatre (called the ‘bloc operatoire’ in French, it took me ages to work out what people meant when they said ‘they’re in the bloc’!!). Via a link pathway are the 4 hospital wards – around 8 beds in each – and 3 private inpatient rooms. Just outside the compound is a covered area where the carers of the patients stay and prepare meals for their relative who is an inpatient.

So there we have it, a brief overview of my new surroundings! Add the daily temperatures that are still around 40 degrees by day and 30-35 degrees by night and you have a bit of a picture of where I’m currently living!