The sun began to rain

A gentle patter of rain on the roof wakes us and we wonder what is happening .More confusion as I realise I am in my bedroom and not on my camp bed on the veranda the normal place to wake up to the bird song and the sun in the hot season. Yes it is raining not, I concede, a rare event in England in May but here we are having our second good rain in 3 days .Temperatures have plummeted to 23 degrees and humidity shot up to 90% and more. Little shoots start coming up out of the ground and butterflies have been seen flying around. Soon the frogs will join us singing in the rain as we did on Thursday when it arrived.

It made me wonder how it would be when it rains in Bardai (meaning cold) in the North of Chad. There it rains but a couple of times a year and sometimes not at all. It is a very small town surrounded by mountains in the middle of the Sahara desert not so far from Libya.



Thanks to Dave Forney MAF for flying us there and this photo of Emi Kosi

We flew there a few weeks ago to have a look at the hospital, meet the missionaries and see if we might feel called to work there. Flying over the desert in a small aeroplane was an experience never to forget with miles of sand dunes and then rocky mountains. We even got to fly over the highest mountain in Chad an extinct volcano.

On arrival after being fed a delicious meal made by one of the very versatile missionaries with dried meat (no meat available in town except occasionally camel) we visited the governor. He was extremely welcoming, then to our delight we were taken to see some prehistoric carvings in the rocks just on the edge of the town no entry fee or queues just there for all to see. Strange to imagine that elephants roamed the area at one time.

The next day we visited the hospital a surreal experience it was an exact copy of Goz Beida but empty .It has been open since 2011 and as yet no operation has ever been performed despite having 2 fully equipped operating theatres. Most of the very good equipment was still in its original packing. The doctors there have about 10 outpatients a day 7 deliveries a month and anything complicated is referred to Libya a 12 hour drive across desert or Faya in Chad a 24 hour drive through the mountains. Many staff who are transferred there are not keen to stay because it is so isolated and the doctor in charge of the area has no surgical experience and has only been qualified 3 years not an easy situation.

The need is obvious but the population small and life there would certainly be different, houses are very simple and we slept outside under mosquito nets to avoid the scorpions,(they are such a problem that the hospital stocks anti-venom). It was a welcome respite from the heat of Ndjamena as we huddled together under a sheet, Bardai living up to its name even in the hot season.

The next day as we left looking down over the town surrounded by the date palms it was hard to imagine the wadi filled with water but apparently just  2m  down there was water available and last year the centre where the missionaries work was flooded. Meanwhile we continue to ask where God is leading us and enjoy the water all around us here in Ndjamena as we finish our time here.