We are well into rainy season now! This means frequently washing my feet, sparse variety of veggies outside of greens, and I’m lucky if my towel dries between uses. I bet you wanna know how often that is…

It’s also the season for lots of comings and goings. We have a variety of short termers come through during the summer as well as lots of longer term taking vacation or leaving. Needless to say, I’ve been busy tripping to and from Kelo, Moundou, Ndjamena and back to Bere too!

Our lone Student Missionary left this past month as well. I like to think that she was inspired by my public health work to return to the US to do her MPH after she fell in love with this diverse and rewarding career. In reality, she liked public heath before she arrived at this district hospital next to the middle of nowhere. In leaving, she left notes for many of us on prescription pads. My prescription was frequent shopping with occasional chill pills and a vacation after three months!

So yes, I’m coming home….on vacation in October!

But I’ve been trying to continue searching for a new pair of pants as my “Doctor” recommended some shopping. Recently I’ve had a couple pairs wear out and I really just need a good pair of non-ethic, non-dress, non-jeans pair of pants. But that doesn’t mean I need missionary pants.

Thanks to an old college crush, I’ve learned a new category of pants: missionary pants. I didn’t know they existed until last month when Sarah Macomber was explaining that my old crush (who apparently had a crush on me too!?! I find this out only after Sarah arrived. They were inseparable in college) called my pants “missionary pants.” I’ve come to learn that this means those khaki travel pants that have lots of pockets and dry fast are missionary pants. Funny how life works out that I had missionary pants and now I’m in the mission field. But just to clarify: I don’t have any now. Just not my style and it’s way too easy to be picked out. Now I just wear my Arab robe and get called Alhaj Zach and then get a free drink. But it’s nice to have an actual good every day pair of pants too!

So in the weeks to come, I keep looking for that pair of pants.

Zachary Gately, MPH
zchgtly@gmail.com
zgately.com
+235 68920884
+235 91122492

L’Hopital Adventiste de Béré
ATTN: Zachary Gately
52 Boîte Postal
Kelo, Tchad
Africa