Yesterday I got up in time to fast for the day because of a physical exam that I had scheduled at 5:30. I spent the day starving until after 5:30 when I had to go to Kroger's to buy the mixes for a bazillion cupcakes I had committed to making that night. Currently It is 1:05 AM and I am finished making cupcakes and I can honestly say that, outside of licking a bit of icing off of my fingers,t here was only one casualty...a vanilla cupcake took a nosedive off the counter and onto the Kitchen floor...sooo, yeah..I ate it. Five second rule right?
An-e-way...I finished off yesterdays red beans and rice with chicken this evening in between rounds of cupcake frosting. Tomorrow I get a reprieve of sorts. The coworkers at my job provide a breakfast each Friday...one of the highlights of my week each week will be free food that is available to me to gorge myself on. So I am caught in a quandary of sorts. The food id obviously no cost to me, but to remain true to the spirit of the challenge should I just forgo the Friday freebies and focus on my own food? Let me know what you think in the comment section below...I will let you know what I chose to do later on tonight. For now, Here is Chad...the country, not the person.
The Republic of Chad is a landlocked country in Central Africa. 61.95 of the people in Chad exist on a buck twenty five or less. This is due to many factors, some environmental and some political.
The political reasons are many and varied. Since its independence in 1960, it has had to endure civil war, threats from Lybia and other neighbors and even when a regime manages to bring stability, it does to at the cost of dictatorial power. Currently ethnic violence similar to that which has plagued the Darfur region of Sudan is flaring up in the eastern provinces. That has been mixed with various rebel attempts to capture the capitol leaving much of Chad in power vacuum. In this environment, trying to improve your standard of living is like trying to build a house in a hurricane.
The environmental factors that have contributed to the problems in Chad center around the misuse of water during the 1960s and 70s that led to the shrinking of Lake Chad. Lake Chad, when it was first surveyed amazed early Europeans with its immense size. It was generally shallow but it was teeming with fish and it was a freshwater lake. It began as a lake that once covered over 400,000 square km in its ancient history. but by the 1960s it had shrunk to only 26,000 square km. Currently is covers only 1350 square km. The pictures below show the progression of Lake Chad from 1973-2001
This shortage of water has caused violence and conflict among those that dwell along the lake shore. This conflict over the water and the resources of the lake is a constant drain on the economy of the region which continually drags down the ability of the people to provide for their families. These are the everyday challenges of the people of Chad. Please pray that the problems of nearby Sudan do not spill over into this country that faces so many challenges already.
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