Day 2

How to describe N’djamena? Dusty roads, crumbling buildings scrawled with French and Arabic. Men in long robes with pillbox hats or loose-fitting turbans sitting astride noisy motorbikes. Women in long patterned dresses with matching headdresses, or buckets delicately balanced on the crowns of their heads. Children selling nuts and handicrafts crying, “S’il vous plait, madame, achetez-en, madame!” Petrol being sold in 2L soda bottles on the side of the road. The usual African madness, people lying about at the roadside or milling in the streets, seemingly nowhere to go and nothing to do.

It’s dusty and muggy – God it’s hot here. And it’s not even the hot season. My clothes stink already. Fortunately or unfortunately, everybody else stinks too, so nobody will notice me.

And the poverty. I’ve never seen anything like it, not even in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal. More on that later, I’m sure, but I have a meeting now.