Chad!!!!! ( and Nigeria, too)
We had left the village of Pouss and its market and ventured over to the Logone River which separates Cameroon from Chad in this area. There was a sandy beach on the Cameroon side with a few people waiting to load into a large pirogue. Across the shallow, but wide river was the Chad side looking much the same as the Cameroon side except more people. I turned to our guide, Abdou, and asked if we could rent a boat to go to Chad. He thought I was joking. I was not. We were soon crossing the river headed to war-torn Chad in a boat holding the three of us plus a captain.
Actually, the immediate war issues in Chad had subsided and we were 150 kilometers south of N’Djamena anyway! We had been with tall Chadian nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples including Bororo. Many of them were now returning home from the market to Chad via pirogue while others crossed the river with the tops of their heads loaded with goods. The Bororo live in both countries and the border is meaningless as a boundary. These may be the tallest people I have been around.
The crossing was easy and the driver wanted to take us over to the main landing area where there was a policeman (yikes!). Upon beaching, he went to speak to the policeman. In the meantime, the hundred people or so above the river were staring down at us, nasara and his not-from-around-here African companion. Most were smiling and waving – the place did not look like a war zone. The policeman came down to the boat and eventually asked where we were from. All I thought once I formulated what he was asking Abdou was please do not tell him we are French and Sudanese! Abdou reported America and Kenya and the guy smiled and welcomed us to Chad. He ended up being very friendly as were all of the people at the landing and back at the market. We walked a couple of hundred meters into Chad and there was really nothing to see other than a village near to the landing so we went back to the riverbank. I don’t think the eyes stopped staring during this whole time. Some kids wanted their photos and I knew there was going to be a blitz. I took the first photo of 4-6 kids and when I pulled myself back I looked up to see about 50 kids now lined up. The universal scenario in this situation (kids want to pose, parents don’t mind) is kids clowning for the camera or sometimes acting overly serious and then everyone laughing when they see the photo being displayed on the screen… photographer is crowded by the laughing kids and loving every moment of it. It has also been witnessed where none of the “kids” are under 25.
The photo I really wanted was a group of fat ladies sitting on top of market goods especially bags of grain in the back of a pickup truck. I didn’t even ask because this is animist and Muslim country and they just don’t like the photos. But I was fooled because they soon asked for their photo to be taken. Without any hesitation I just started clicking away. Yeah, they laughed like the kids upon seeing their shots just before the pickup left. Most eager of all, though, was the policeman wanting his photo taken. Pamela and I lined up with him and his partner and everyone laughed. We gave him 1000 CFA for allowing us to enter which normally would not be something I would do (tipping police!?!), but I was just very happy to be allowed in so I did that. We soon returned to Cameroon after getting a nice and warm sendoff. More people were making the crossing by foot and pirogue including a guy sitting on his motorcycle in a pirogue!
My definition for officially visiting a country is going through passport control. I once landed in Copenhagen on my way from Stockholm to U.S.A. and I don’t claim to have been to Denmark. Although we did not get passports stamped, I think we were officially in Chad and I am claiming it as my eighteenth African country. On another day when we were between Mokolo and the Rhumsiki area, we were on a road that separated Cameroon from Nigeria. We approached a church on the Nigeria side that had a sign stating that it was in Nigeria so we got out for a photograph. The border was so non-existent that we decided to confirm with two girls standing near the sign. I want to see Nigeria more than any other country in Africa, so I will wait until a real visit occurs before saying I have been to Nigeria. By the way, Nigerian money is the most accepted in this part of Cameroon because it is more stable and there is more of it floating around due to Nigerians buying in Cameroon and black-market petrol being sold everywhere which was smuggled out of Nigeria. We bought this petrol a couple of times and the last time must have been bad stuff because the vehicle’s spark plugs kept plugging requiring frequent cleaning after the engine stopped running. Uggh!
Tags: Africa, chad
vagabondrick
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