145. Cadeau

145.

I arrange the proper visas, buy a plane ticket and find the airport. None of these “easy” tasks are easy in N’djamena.

I am ten minutes late for my afternoon flight and am at first refused a seat but finally am allowed aboard and--in an ecstasy of relief for me--the clean twin-engine fanjet heads east over ant-nest villages and through cloud canyons. But the going gets rougher and rougher and after two hours of flight, the captain announces that because of severe storms ahead we must return to N’djamena—a town I fervently hoped I would never see again.

An airport taxi driver says he will take me back downtown for 150 franks. When we arrive midtown, he stops, demands 500 franks and says that was the price we agreed on at the airport! We argue for fifteen minutes attracting a large crowd of spectators who want to see a white man bamboozled. A policeman finally comes up and stops the discussion by making me pay 250.

As I walk away from the cab a crowd of shouting children follows, pulling at my clothing and yelling “Cadeau!”

Like a cornered animal, I shake them off and holler at them to leave me alone. Of course this excites them even more and they race around me screaming obscene remarks about Americans in general and me in particular.

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