his is about the other Chad.
It is a place, rather than part of a punch-card ballot. It rarely garners much attention in the United States.
From the time the Central African country won independence from France in 1960, it has been the setting for civil wars, border disputes with Libya, and poverty.
The country, about three times the size of California, is landlocked. Most of its 8.4 million citizens can't read. About 80 percent of the population live on less than $1 a day. The infant mortality rate is 14 times that of the United States, and at birth, a Chadian's life expectancy is 50.49 years, compared with 77.12 years in the United States.
Less than 1 percent of Chad's 20,000 miles of road is paved. The country has about 7,500 telephones. The Toubou, Hadjerai, Fulbe, Kotoko, Kanembou, Baguirmi, Boulalal, Zaghawa, and Maba - most of them Muslims - live in the north. The Sara, Ngambaye, Mbaye, Goulaye, Moundang, Moussei, and Massa - most of them Christians or adherents of other religions - live in the south.
There is much political unease here. North has battled south, Christians have fought Muslims, with the conflicts being complicated by intervention by France and Libya.
In 1990, rebel leader Idriss Deby overthrew the president and has led the country since. But opposition activity is brewing in the northern Tibesti region, where former Defense Minister Youssouf Togoimi is leading an effort to unseat Deby.
Democrats and Republicans won't be found here, but there are other divisions. Chad is where the African tropic meets the African Sahara. In the south, the land is rich and green, home to plentiful rainfall, wildlife, and a thriving cotton industry - Chad's one source of foreign exchange.
In the north, daytime temperatures soar to 124 degrees, camels remain the preferred means of transportation, and the Sahara's blowing sands reshape the landscape hourly.
Chad's two worlds meet in the capital city of N'Djamena, on the banks of the muddy Chari River. N'Djamena still shows its wounds from three decades of civil war. Buildings display bullet-pocked facades from the street fighting during the 1980s. Unexploded shells occasionally kill or injure children playing in the former battlefields surrounding the capital.
The city has no dependable water or electric service. Most city streets are unpaved, muddy, and filled with potholes. During the day, the city bustles with vendors hawking vegetables, clothing, and fresh-baked French bread. At sundown, city life disappears in most quarters as Muslims gather for prayer. In the center of the city is the gleaming Grande Mosque.
With its economic and political woes, Chad hardly distinguishes itself from the central African lands that surround it. It is telling that it takes another country's election crisis for Chad to make the news.
But its fortunes might be changing: Construction is underway on a $3.7 billion pipeline to carry up to 250,000 barrels of oil a day west from southern Chad's untapped oil fields into neighboring Cameroon, where it will be shipped to the West.
In June, the World Bank agreed to lend $192 million to Chad and Cameroon to help finance their investments in the pipeline project. When the oil revenues arrive, Chad has promised the bank that 80 percent of the money will be used for education and social services.
At least once, Chad has had a detectable influence on Florida: This summer, a cloud of reddish-brown dust swept across the state, creating hazy skies and colorful sunsets. Scientists determined that winds were kicking up the dust from a drought-shrunken lake in Chad - 6,000 miles way - and carrying it across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean islands and Florida.
