Life in the bubble

N’djamena has changed since last I was here. That surprises me, since places as underdeveloped as NDJ change but slowly. Unless they’re at war, that is, so perhaps I should have expected it.

The streets are empty by sunset. Gone are the cheerful fires at the roadside where people gathered to grill meat and roast peanuts. Gone are the vendors selling gasoline in 2L Coke bottles. In their place is a heavy silence, like the whole city is holding its collective breath. It was never particularly safe for foreigners to wander around after dark, but at least the locals used to feel secure. Now, according to our driver, even Chadians are afraid. “Meme nous, nous sommes exposes,” he says – even we are exposed.

Are the rebels likely to attack the capital anytime soon? Probably not, but that’s not really the point. Fear is fear, however irrational. And besides, there is nothing more dangerous than bored, ill-disciplined soldiers, and N’djamena is lousy with them.

Not that any of that affects me. No, here at the Hotel Le Meridien, things are calm. Pleasant, even, if not totally insulated from the general stink of NDJ. Today is a Sunday, so the pool is crowded. Fat white people in various embarrassing swimming attire lie draped around the pool skirt sipping cocktails like so much liquor-infused flotsam and jetsam. Outside the barbed wire fence, the river ambles by, dotted by the occasional dugout canoe being poled downstream by lanky youths with hungry gazes. On our side of the fence, the grass is green and the trees are heavy with flowers and fruit. The other side is nothing but sand and refuse. The fence is a line between two worlds, as abrupt as if it were the difference between black-and-white and colour film.

The humidity also has a hand in the surreal atmosphere. The sky is thick and grey, like everything is covered in gauze. It heightens the impression that we’re living in a bubble here, we internationals, separated from Chad by an impermeable barrier that we couldn’t breach if we wanted to – and we don’t, at least judging by the French and South African oil workers who laugh too loud, smoke too much and generally make themselves obnoxious, especially to the staff. Here it is Europe, with camembert and bikinis and pedicures. Outside is blackest Africa, where peanuts are a hardy meal and even the men are covered from wrist to ankle.

I was invited by some colleagues to go to a club this evening. Apparently it’s the place to be on a Sunday. “All of N’djamena is there,” they assured me. “You can really see the culture, what it’s like to live here.” Right. The only Chadians in the place will be bartenders and prostitutes.

Not that I begrudge expats a good time – far from it. It’s essential to keeping them mentally healthy enough to work. It’s just that I would hate to think that I, personally, would ever lose perspective enough to imagine that my life bore any resemblance to those of the people in whose midst I was living. No, these people have more in common with me, with my life in NYC, than they do with the locals. Perhaps that’s as it should be. Or perhaps not.

I’ll say one thing for traveling to difficult places like this: it sure makes you think.