{"id":6138,"date":"2023-12-03T18:53:12","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T18:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2023\/?p=6138"},"modified":"2023-12-12T08:05:49","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T08:05:49","slug":"chad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zoa.com\/2023\/travel\/chad\/","title":{"rendered":"Chad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chad was never high on my Must See<\/strong> list. It’s one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world. Most of its inhabitants are subsistence herders and farmers. Arbitrary imprisonment, extrajudicial killings, and limits on civil liberties gives Chad a poor human rights record. Chad joins South Sudan at the bottom of the Human Development Index<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Human Development Index, 2021 data<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Although the US State Department doesn’t give Chad its worst possible travel advisory<\/a> …<\/p>\n\n\n

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… wikitravel<\/a> is unable to recommend anything to do in Chad.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The watersheds that sustain Lake Chad<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I knew all this before coming here, which is why I planned just a three day visit — shortened to two days by a detour to Nigeria<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flying through the haze over Chad, I glimpsed the one thing I most wanted to see: Lake Chad. The lake — or what’s left of it — is a shimmering shallow sea surrounded by dry grasslands and patches of green where seasonal rivers flow. The Chari and Logone Rivers provide 95% of Lake Chad’s water. Since the 1970’s, the water in these two rivers has been reduced by half due to overgrazing, deforestation, large-scale irrigation projects and climate change. Consequently, Lake Chad has shrunk by 80% in the past 50 years. At this rate, Lake Chad will disappear within the century<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Chari River<\/figcaption>
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