It has been an interesting weekend and I mean that in all sincerity. I have been in Goz Bëida one month and so far and other than the party we hosted for our staff last weekend there has been very little ‘spontaneity’ and though I find many ‘creative’ ways to entertain and enjoy myself there is not a lot of what we would call traditional FUN. Considering where we are it makes sense and to be honest I never had any grand expectations when coming here. That is not why I am here. However, this weekend things changed a bit and now a whole new world is opening up to me in little Goz Bëida. First, on Friday at the weekly coordination meeting we (our expat crew) were invited to a party. It seems each of the NGO’s and UN bodies take turns throwing a bash and
all are invited. This is the first one I have heard of since arriving but it seems they can be pretty frequent. As sun was setting we set off for the party hosted by Oxfam. Once the party got going there were about 30 or so people having lots of interesting conversations, eating good food, drinking sodas, water and beer and then
there was dancing. Have you ever noticed how different we are all when it comes to the dance floor? Imagine, we had a mix of people from all over Africa, quite a few Brits and other Europeans, a few Americans and some from Latin America. Let’s just say the dancing was interesting and it was a fun night and for me a very resourceful one as well. Since I am new and everyone knows it I have the freedom to ask a million questions and that’s what I did. I felt my way around and tried to learn more about this place and what people do for fun and for comfort. I was pleased with what I found. Some highlights for me include: Pringles and much more are available at the EUFOR base (I am working on making friends there); there are croissants in town at the little ‘french bakery’; I gained some tips on how to stay cooler at night so I may be able to avoid waking up in the middle of the night in my sweat; I got invited to the gym (can you imagine, a gym) at the base and found out there is a crew that goes running on weekends on the airstrip and best of all there is a group that goes hiking every Sunday afternoon in the nearby mountains (large hills)!
Obviously, that leads me to my Sunday afternoon. After church I was off to the market with one of our staff to find some tennis shoes as I packed light and only brought my sandals. Younuss is happy teaching me Arabic while I teach him a little English. I had some success and found some used sneakers for 6000 CFA (about $12). I had some lunch, caught up on some reading and was finally off for my first hike in Chad!
There were four of us, 2 Americans, a Brit and a Congolese. The fun of being around so many people from Congo is I get to use my Swahili which is quite fun, especially when I often feel so inadequate with my lack of French. We headed out around 3 and had a big task ahead of us, climbing one mountain, going down, through the valley a bit and back up another mountain and back down towards home. 
On the way there we passed a number of camels and kids. Kinda cool! The air was hot as it was the end of the afternoon, there was sand under our feet early on but it quickly changed to rocks. We took about an hour for the first big hill, pretty steep and pretty quick but I didn’t notice much as I was so excited about being
outside and enjoying the ever expanding view of town. This was my first hike and major physical activity since breaking my leg last year. It felt so good to be active again and feel no pain or weakness in my leg.
We then walked in the valley between the two hills for a while passing women and children collecting firewood and a very exotic man on a camel rode by. Then we started working on the second hill which was more of a challenge, partly due to the fact that the trail was a bit overgrown with tall, golden grass but also as we were starting to get a bit fatigued from the first climb but mostly it was the slope. This was by far the steepest hill I had been on since I was on Mt Kilimanjaro. We were actually scrambling at some points, on all fours to keep our balance and to gain more traction. We eventually made it to the top but I had
struggled the last 10 yards or so, much more than the others and was not sure why until I looked down at my foot. 
My shoe was losing its soul! My shoes that I had just a few hours earlier bought in the market were falling apart on the mountain! What could I do, I just kept going, hoping they would stay together just a bit longer. Luckily they made it (barely) and I managed to make it down without going barefoot, I can’t say the shoe was that helpful. But, by six we were all home and pretty tired not to mention covered in a pretty good layer of dirt/dust/sand. Not a bad way to end a pretty eventful weekend in Goz Bëida.
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