We live in the village of Chageen, about 250 miles to the south of the capital city of N'Djamena. Nowadays, the road is paved (sort of) for about 200 of those miles, and the last 50 miles are over dirt tracks in the bush. At any given time, at least part of those 200 paved miles are quite broken up. Those 50 dirt miles aren't too bad during the dry season but become impassable during the rainy season (June - September). We own a Toyota Land Cruiser which has the 4-wheel drive and heave suspension necessary for the rough roads. 

When the roads become impassible or we don't care to face the hazards of Chadian roads, we use the services of Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF). We have our own airstrip in the village - about 3300 feet long and covered with grass which we spend considerable time and effort to maintain. MAF normally has two pilots and two Cessna aircraft in the country - an 11 seat Caravan, and a 4 seat 206 or 185. We are always most grateful for the service our fellow missionaries in MAF provide for us. In case of medical emergency, they would be the first people we would call. 

Public transportation has slowly developed in Chad. Up until a about 2005, the primary means of public transportation was on top of a merchant's 10-ton truck. More recently, as the government has paved many of the main roads running between larger cities, bus companies have started up regular scheduled service between the cities. Smaller mini-vans run off the main roads to secondary towns. The only transportation to Chageen is still on the top of a market truck on Sunday's and Tuesdays.  Bandits and breakdowns are the common hazards of this mode of transportation.

Kwong territory  covers a crescent shaped area roughly equivalent to two American counties. There are three main towns - Ngam, Mobou and Chageen, where we live. The Kwong people number about 30,000 people, of which several thousand live in the larger cities of Chad.