Traveling south from N'Djamena over the dark smooth road on my way to Darda, I had trouble recognizing the countryside.

The village located about 60 km south of the capital, 5 km from the paved road, was the former site of a Peace Corps training center before the program pulled out in 2006. Now, it is a private retreat used by government ministries, NGOs and schools.

In 2006, I had spent 10 weeks there learning the skills I would need to teach English in secondary school in Chad. During the latter half of my training, my fellow volunteers and I had spent weeks commuting from Darda into N'Djamena where we practiced our new skills at different high schools in the capital. I can remember a slow commute, making painstaking progress, by way of detours through villages and jolting movements in the sturdy Land Rovers needed to navigate the dirt roads. Now five years later, the dusty paths have been replaced by new roads connecting the capital to the rest of the countryside, changing the scenery to the point that I’m having trouble associating this luxurious, smooth travel with Chad.

The recent construction of roads in Chad has been a process with ambivalent outcomes, but certainly a mark of progress for this struggling sub-sahelien country...Read more

In 2005-2006, when I was a Peace Corps volunteer stationed in Mongo, traveling the road from there to N'Djamena was a worrisome task. From Mongo, I heard firsthand accounts of “coupeurs de routes” or bandits and people being shot for their motorcycles. The voyage used to also take much longer not just because of the lack of paved roads but also because of the dangers of traveling at night.

In the past few years Chad's government has made some attempts to catch up to its neighboring states. Improvements in road infrastructure implies more than a reduction in travel time but the opening up of many opportunities for people living in the Chadian countryside. Transportation access benefits not only commerce, allowing people to get goods to larger markets, but also means that people with serious injury or illness might have a chance to get to health facilities in N'Djamena for treatment. The new maternity hospital under construction suggests a beacon of hope provided the government is able to outfit and manage the large structure once it is completed. Finally, the new roads will improve the capacity of the government to police the countryside.

Roads in Chad were once a myth of representation. The most common map of Chad used to mark a road to Abeche or to Moundou that until recently did not actually exist. These roads had been planned at the time of Independence but because of war were never actually completed. The realization of those plans will undoubtedly bring much benefit to the people of Chad and represents a great step towards unifying the country through greater ease of transportation. They are welcome for their potential to connect the bureaucratic capitals to the rest of the population and hopefully increase awareness of the needs of people in Chad's rural areas.

However, there are also reasons to be wary of roads; their carry the potential to enable the movements of diseases (HIV/AIDS) or armed rebels. The rapidity with which this sudden road expansion is being enacted in N'Djamena as part of a hasty program of urban development seems increasingly hostile to its inhabitants. Entire neighborhoods have been decimated and with the cost of living on the rise, many are finding themselves homeless. Land titles being rare, few are those who are able to be remunerated for the homes they have lived in for generations and are now seeing destroyed in a glimpse. The destruction seems for the government but a small price to pay to modernize the capital city.

- Kimberly S.