My ADD-style career has never before left me with a traditional "vacation," until I started working with MSF.
In theater, you don't have a job; you have a gig. You work until the show goes up, or comes down, then you find more work. Or go do something else. Or go have an adventure.
On cruise ships, you work 7 days a week, for 6 months straight, then you leave and have 2 months of unemployment before your next contract.
I have never before left a job/project, gone and taken a break, then returned to take up the same job/project. It's a luxury never afforded to the theater world or the ship's company. But with MSF's non-emergency missions, it's a necessity.
So I'm bound to Istanbul for a week, with nothing in particular planned, with no grand itinerary or ambitious adventure ahead of me. I'm off to Istanbul because there is a direct flight from Ndjamena, and I'm pretty interested in traveling the least amount possible. I've never been to Turkey, and it sounds like an amazing place. I'm sure the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and all the other wonders, along with a new-to-me culture, cuisine, and language, will make my stay memorable and adventurous.
Maybe I should look up how to get to the hotel from the airport...
To get to my lovely, easy, hassle-free direct flight, I would normally take a 4-hour car ride in a 4x4 vehicle over dirt roads to get to the nearest city with a large landing strip for the domestic humanitarian aid flight up to the capital. The ease of this route is denied me, however, due to the end of Ramadan, which conveniently cancels the flight Monday. We think. I'm still looking for the moon.
That means that it's a delightfully-easy two-day car ride from the project in Moissala up to the capital. 14 hours in a 4x4 is not how I pictured my vacation starting...
But the countryside is interesting, and different as we head north, closer to the Saharah Desert. Less malaria-belt tropical vegitation, and more open plains and yellow, clay-y soil.
