horse and camel races in N'Djamena

K: Horse racing is pretty serious sport in Chad, especially in the North. Every year, they have the mega dunka grand prix race of all king kaiser Wilhelm II races in N'Djamena races and I scored some tickets for myself. Julia was not there yet, so it was just me. Here are some photos. The whole thing lasted about 4 hours and there were about five races, with plenty of waiting and occasionally some camel races or some dancing horses or something. There was also a pot-bellied dancey singy man who sweated a lot and people would tuck money into his pants or plaster it on his sweating face. Why not? Sometimes there were dancing horses dressed up in drag, but that seemed normal after dancey dude. There was a camel race too, but the whole herd started running in the wrong direction across the soccer fields instead. When I say fields, I mean the packed dirt in the middle of the hippodrome, with iron poles in the middle as goals.

Camels are horrible creatures. They bite, smell, spit, and generally hate people, life and your mother and your mother in law. There was no obvious betting in a heavily armed society with the last rebel attack only two years ago, and all bets were made at the bank before the actual races occurred. The chef of the bank was hoisted up on a camel as a show of respect, but he's a southerner obviously not comfortable sitting on a camel. Nobody does Schadenfreude like Africans and you can see in the photo that everyone is laughing at his misfortune. It was pretty hot, and eventually young women came around with cokes and tonics, but I realized that I really needed a white turban to fit into this crowd. At least the jockeys seemed comfortable. Even in Tchad they are little men riding crazed beasts.