Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

It's surprisingly cold for a Chadian morning. I'm glad for the fleece that Olen has lent me. I swing my backpack filled with Christmas gifts onto my back, grab my computer bag and head out to where Jonathan has left us his motorcycle.




Olen tries to start the bike unsuccessfully. The ignition is hanging down to the side by it's wires and despite all our efforts it won't start. Even Frederic can't get it going. Finally, the engine sputters to life only to die within a few seconds. In the ensuing silence we hear the sounds of the "scalded dog" rumbling up the road from Bendele. Gary is borrowing the Toyota minivan to go to Moundou so he gives us a ride to the market.

I sit on a wooden bench as the bush bus taxi roars up from Lai, swinging from side to side. There is a mad rush for the door as there are only five places and about twenty of us waiting.

"Hey, we have tickets since yesterday!" I shout out in French to the man holding the list.

"Ca c'est vrai," he replies and makes everyone come back out. He reads of the list and my name is first on the list followed closely by Philip's. I squeeze down the aisle to a seat that has been rigged to fold down into the corridor with a tiny seat back that folds up. It's worn and the padding has all but disappeared. If I shift my weight around I can almost get my butt off the metal poles making up the skeleton of the chair. It's going to be a long trip.

A large woman pushes down the aisle making me stand up and lift the seat to let her in behind me. She is yelling in Nangjere that she can't sit there, it's broken. Many people yell back until she grudgingly accepts her fate and plops in behind me. A toothless man bangs on the window. Tobacco breath pours into the bus as he tells me to give him money to put my bags on top. I start yelling back and move out the crowded bus to the outside where I lift my bag up to the roof rack myself as the crazy man yells to his colleague not to tie it on and the chauffeur yells at me to get back in and let him handle it.

As we get bouncing down the dirt road to Kelo, I have a pleasant conversation with Philip about his film project on Samedi and his plans for the future. In Bongor we stop for a 15 minutes. I cross the road, avoiding the weaving motos. I buy two yogurts in small plastic bottles. As we get moving again, the fat woman behind me asks me in Nangjere if she can have it when I'm done. I give it to her. When Philip finishes his yogurt, the beautiful, thin girl sitting next to me asks for it almost causing a small war between her and the fat woman who wanted both.

In N'Djamena, I jump off and head for the latrine. My bladder is about to explode. The hole in the ground is no longer a hole. It is completely filled with human waste and urine is lying in puddles around the edge and flowing out under the tin roof nailed haphazardly on as a door. I empty my bladder and get out of there as fast as possible. Philip and I sit in a bench in the shade drinking cold Hibiscus tea as we wait for Fatchou.

Dr. Fatchou walks up with a big smile on his dark, wrinkled face and begins talking a thousand miles an hour about all his projects as he hustles us into to his beat up Camry. We drive around Chad's capital as he shows us his old office at the National Leper Program and his new one down by the river. FInally, he drops us off at Farcha at David and Sarah the Swede's house/cheese factory.

Sarah greets us and invites us in to some cold meat and french fries left over from their lunch which we devour. On TV that night I see that a huge snowstorm has closed or limited flights to many European airports including Paris, Copenhagen and Frankfurt. Not good news for my plans for tomorrow. I sleep well despite the incessant barking of the dogs and the dive bombing of mosquitos in my ears. The next morning one of David's workers takes me around on a moto. I'm supposed to meet the DIrector of the Organization of Health Services in Chad. He shows up an hour and fifteen minutes late to our meeting. Good thing I was 30 minutes late so I didn't have to wait long. After hearing a 30 minute diatribe on national politics I turn in the papers for the Moundou Surgery Center, remind him of his promise to go on a mission to see our problematic Distric Medical Officer and ask a question about our project in Eastern Chad.

I hand in the photocopies of mine, Gary and Jonathan's passports to Aime so he can help us get authorization to fly to the Chad side of Darfur where the Sultan has invited us to reopen some medical work there. Now I have barely enough time to catch my plane. I tear off my Arabic Djallabiya, put on pants and a t-shirt, grab my back pack and computer bag again and Sarah drops us off at the airport.

In the line out Chad's one international gate I spot a short Phillipino girl I recognize! Caitlin was a volunteer at the Koza Hospital who I met just a few weeks ago. We chat and I find out she's heading to England before going to Bangladesh. In Addis Abeba I part ways with Philip who's headed to Washington, D.C. and Caitlin. I wander the airport and watch a movie to make the 5 hour layover pass quicker. My flight to Rome leaves at 20 minutes after midnight. I spend the 4 hours talking about Africa and NGO's and what kind of hope is there with a Swedish girl working for Unicef and an Indian businessman from Zanzibar.

In Rome I realize I not only don't have a ticket for the rest of my trip but I don't even know what airline I'm on. Sarah's brother Kim bought the tickets and the next leg is either at 9:35 to Zurich or at 12:15 to somewhere in Germany. I try SwissAir first but they have no reservations for me. I then try Lufthansa but they can't find me on flights either to Frankfurt or Zurich. Finally, they find me on a flight to Munich at noon. The agent with the cute Italian accent comes to help me check in at the automatic check in modules. Suddenly, as if having a brilliant idea, she turns to me and asks me if I'd like to go to Munich now. There's a flight leaving at 6:10 and if I hurry I can make it.




I run, barely catch the flight and find myself descending into Germany at a little after 8am as the sun is just barely sneaking over the snow capped peaks illuminating the snow dusted fields and rooftops of Munich. Inside the airport, I find a flight to Copenhagen that leaves at 10:45am. My flight is scheduled for 2:30pm. I head to the gate. The woman at the counter is not too optimistic.

"We usually can't modify this type of ticket," the woman says in English with just the slightest German accent. "But I'll see what I can do."

Munich has free hot chocolote, hot milk or hot coffee and not having eaten breakfast I down about 10 cups of hot chocolate mixed with hot milk. And I wait. The woman calls me up to the counter.

"I've put you on standby, but just leave the ticket here."

I go back down to sit. Soon the flight is delayed, not due to snow like I'd expect since 30% of flights into Copenhagen have been canceled, but rather due to "technical problems." The woman motions me back up to the counter.

"I've given you a seat, but just leave the boarding pass here, I need to..." Her voice wanders off. She seems distracted. I thank her and go sit back down.

The plane keeps getting delayed. Finally, at 11:50 we're ready for boarding. I go up to the counter.

"Here's your ticket, but there are kids sitting around you and I'd like to get them all together. Just wait a minute." I sit back down again. I wonder if I'll actually get on the flight after all.

Finally, the woman motions for me to come back up. "I hope you don't mind, I had to put you in Business class."

Oh yes, I mind terribly. Give me my ticket! I think as I calmly reach out for the boarding pass and settle in comfortably for a well hydrated and well nourished flight to the land of the Vikings. Instead of being delayed like many European holiday travelers or even having my flight canceled, instead I arrive 4 hours earlier than scheduled!




My friend Henrik is there to pick me up and takes me to his apartment near the train station. I get a bite to eat finally for the first time that day. A cheese a red pepper sandwich with Thousand Island dressing has never tasted so good! Henrik, Pernille and I take the closest train to the main station where I buy a ticket for my 4 1/2 hour train ride to Aalborg.

I descend the elevators to Quay 7 and enter into the chaos of the holiday travel season complicated by record low temperatures and snow fall. The train pulls up 20 minutes late and a surge of humanity rushes the door creating a standstill that lasts almost half and hour as we push and struggle to get on the train bursting at the seams with Danes (and others) trying to get home for Christmas. If it had been 40 degrees Celsius warmer I'd have thought I was in a crowded Indian or African train station rather than a European one. I finally managed to wedge into the doorway, make it up the stairs and stand with my back pressed into the wall of the entryway. Suddenly, everyone starts rushing out, not in a panic but rather quickly. I hear a Dane speaking English and ask him what's going on.



"There's smoke, a fire maybe, it's ok, we have to get off." Just then Henrik and Pernille come back up and explain that now we have to evacuate the quay as well. The train station is now more crowded than ever and rush hour is about to start. Another announcement tells those of us without reserved seats to not get on a train but they'll send a bus. We go and change my ticket for one that leaves tomorrow at 6:50am and go back to the apartment. Pernille later finds out that her sister took 10 hours to travel to Vejle, a trip that normally takes 2 1/2 hours! Instead of spending my evening in stop and go traffic all night to northern Jutland I spend it wandering the beautiful, snow covered, Christmas decorated streets of Denmark's capital culminating in a magical promenade through Tivoli which has been transformed into a winter wonderland.




A good night's sleep behind me I step out into the dark streets of Copenhagen where a gently falling snow welcomes me. My face is almost frozen off by the time I walk to the train station and get on the train to Aalborg in normal, organized fashion. I don't have a seat, but there are three fold-down seats in front of the bathroom. One of them is occupied by a Ghanian girl who immigrated to Denmark 7 years ago and is now studying Optometry. We have a stimulating conversation about the positive and negative aspects of life in Africa versus the West. After 2 hours she gets off and I find a regular seat where I stretch out my legs, watch a couple movies and enjoy the snow covered farming scenes rushing by outside the window.

Kim, Sarah's brother, meets me at the train station in Aalborg.

"James, this is Eva, a film student. We have to film something. It shouldn't take more than an hour and then I have some shopping to do. Then we'll go surprise Sarah." I jump into the car, glad to get out of the cold. Kim takes us to the edge of the fjord next to a cargo ship unloading grain into a 12 story silo. We take a tiny elevator to the top of the silo and enter a long room with pipes and rumbling machinery bringing the grain up and dumping it in the huge storage tanks. At the other end is a small door leading out to a spiral exit stairway and a fabulous view of North Jutland's largest city and industrial center. The fjord is iced over, but the ice is starting to crack leaving the surface like a kaleidoscope of ice chunks with tiny lines of dark green ocean in between.




Kim goes up and down while Eva films and then they switch places. My role is to try and stay warm as I wrap the scarf Henrik lent me tighter and tighter around my frostbitten, running nose as my glasses fog up. Finally, Kim goes to get his shopping done while I'm supposed to help Eva. This consists of my tired, hungry body going up and down 12 stories of snow covered stairs outside a concrete silo in below freezing weather (not counting the wind chill factor) not once, not twice but 2 1/2 times!




Finally, we head off the 40 minute car drive to Ostervra. We pull up outside Sarah's mom's apartment. The door is open. I don't knock. I'm in the entry way. The door to the living room is closed. I open it. I still don't see anyone. I go around the corner to the kitchen and there, stretched out on the couch, covered with a blanket facing me is a curly, red headed Dane. Her eyes widen. Her hands fly to her mouth.

"No way, are you serious? Is it really you?" She gasps in surprise, then in Danish tells her mom to come from the kitchen and see what's here.

And thus ends an incredible journey, and begins a very merry Christmas season indeed.