Sights and Sounds

The home-school group session ends tomorrow; I'm "down" with some kind of stomach bug, but I can still hear the sounds of activity going on around our room.  I can hear the honk of taxis as they travel through the intersection at the bottom of the hill, Cameroon Pidgin spoken by Cameroonian kids playing in the playground, and a guitar and drum being played by parents waiting for supper.



Flag football - note the yellow flags

Soon these parents will "scatter" as they return to their various places of work.  A sign of the coming end of the group sessions is that fitness testing started today - our long and lean kids excel in most of these tests (except the flexibility one - it's hard for K to reach all the way to his feet, with those long legs!).  During P.E. they have also learned how to play flag football (American football, that is :) ).

And soon we will exchange the beauty of the flowers/plants here in the Northwest Region with the lush rain forest of the Southwest Region. 




Some of the plants will be the same, some different.

What I really like about our area is that plants seem to grow easily - stick a shoot in the ground, and it will take root and grow.  Except for vegetables... it is too wet there for most veggies.  Ah well, we'll enjoy the tropical fruit :).  What we are really looking forward to is being able to settle in one place and unpack!  Perhaps on Monday we will brave the muddy roads....

Kenneth all "organized" in Yaoundé (the only place so far he's had room to unpack much at all)

Enjoying the Moment

In the middle of traveling and home-school group sessions, here are some miscellaneous fun photos...



Laura enjoys drinking pop out of a GLASS bottle again - and collecting the bottle caps :)

[photo above...] Sunday lunch - soya/meat on a stick (bottom left), half a roasted plantain (to the right of the soya), bananas, boiled ground nuts / peanuts (in the middle), bread, and filtered water to drink. 

 

Kenneth went on a day trip with friends and got to hold a chimp!



Kenneth got some experience using a machete...

Jenny got to learn a bit about playing the BAGPIPES!!  Here she is learning on the practice chanter (for all you musicians, the fingers need to be FLAT - goes against everything you learn in band!!).  She did get to try to play the real bagpipes, but I didn't get a picture :).




Jenny improvised - needing dowel rods for dramatized songs, she cut bamboo to the right lengths.



Laura's favorite way to do homework - with a WORM SNAKE keeping her company :).  She'll be sad to see it go to its home at the end of this week....














On the road...

Preparation and flexibility seem like opposites, but it is good to have some of each when you are traveling in Cameroon.  Be prepared - with change for the tolls you will need to pay as you pass from one region/province to the next, with hand sanitizer for eating in the car, with either meds (Dramamine) or a spit-up bucket for car-sick kids, with lots of filtered water in bottles, and with toilet paper for those bathrooms that don't have any.  And be flexible - willing to "hold it" until a gas station with a decent bathroom can be reached (a very nice change from 5 years ago is the increased availability of these; the first one we stopped at did not have running water but did have a bucket of water you could dip from to wash hands, and the second one had running water but no toilet paper).

Choices to be made - one can of Pringles (at a gas station) for 2000 cfa (equivalent to about $4), or a whole stalk of bananas (from a roadside vendor near a toll gate) for 1000 cfa ($2).  Hmmm. :)

This was our fast-food lunch stop.  Behind the displays of raw foods there are people cooking food over open grills.  Mike bought plums (African plums - look them up :) ), plantains, and soya (strips of meat on a skewer).










And just for your interest, on the other side of the street, there were other stores.  Many of them sell cards of cell phone credit; the main two companies are MTN and Orange.

Leaving Yaoundé, Headed for Bamenda

Another post about Yaoundé, but this one about leaving the city and traveling to Bamenda, which is in the Northwest Region (province/state).  After conference was finished, we packed up and headed out of the city; we had to go through the main round-a-bout, which is very confusing for most drivers (and where a lot of people get tickets!), made a stop at a bank, then continued through the city.  Here are a variety of city shots....

Finally we were free of the city.  We continued to travel on paved road, swerving around large potholes and stopping suddenly for speed bumps.  Remember that Cameroon has a variety of climates and vegetation, and these road shots show a bit of that.

Ok, now it's time to talk about Yaoundé.  Yes, it's a city (and I am NOT a city girl!), but there is still  beauty.




A Kingfisher outside my window

 

 

Beautiful

 

 creatures,




and

beautiful

flowers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some are perhaps not so beautiful, but are still interesting...

 

Jackfruit - yes, it's edible, but it wasn't ours to eat :).

A parasitic plant growing way up in a tall tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Our kids have really been enjoying the "back to nature" part of living here, including handling all kinds of creepy crawlies.  These two worm snakes (yes, you read correctly - SNAKES!  But they are harmless, and lots of fun to play with!) are Laura's favorites so far.

Our arrival in Douala, July 31st...

The Airport – the humidity hits you when you walk off the airplane in Douala, though for some of us, it was like a handshake welcoming us back. Through the long hallway from the plane to the actual terminal, standing in line for the health check (yes, we all had the mandatory up-to-date yellow fever vaccination) and then immigration (Mike said the official suggested we really didn’t need visas for the children; but back in Calgary, they checked every passport carefully and probably wouldn’t have let us on the flight without that pricey stamp).  During this process, we saw some familiar white faces on the other side of the glass – some of our teammates, come to pick us up J. Now into a cooler room (well, cooler off and on) where we waited to see if any of our luggage really made the connection.  Finally, more than 2 hours after the plane touched down, all our luggage - 11 checked bags/boxes and 5 carry-ons -  was piled onto 4 luggage carts.
 
Aggressive porters gradually joined our trail of people wending through the crowd - not when we were waiting for our luggage, but after our loaded carts had passed the scrutiny of the customs people (after opening one box, they saw that the random contents WERE indeed personal effects and not imports to sell for a profit).  One porter tried to take the cart from me, insisting he was with our group (“I’m the driver!”) – NOT!  Another one started giving directions to a fellow-worker, like he was the boss.  Confusing!!  But our teammate helped Mike navigate the luggage to his waiting truck, and Mike tried to be fair in paying those who actually were asked to help (hint: you’ll never make everyone happy!).

NOTE: no pictures from the airport – you can’t take pictures just anywhere you please….

We slept in one of the rooms in this building.

Air-conditioning once we got to the rest house (after a quick stop for Cameroonian money – CFA – and some breakfast food for the next day).  A time of talking with our teammates, and actually a pretty good night’s sleep.  Notice the "effect" in this pictures - NOT intentional, but rather the humidity affecting my camera.  My camera malfunctioned about a week later, but 24 hrs. close to a light bulb with the battery & memory card removed dried it out enough to work again.







We didn’t have much time to enjoy the beautiful rest house (and no dip in the pool), as we packed up to head to Yaoundé the next morning.  

 

A driver had brought our Toyota Land Cruiser to Douala from Yaoundé, and he drove us back to Yaoundé as well, allowing Mike a chance to observe the traffic instead of having to drive through it right away.

We're Back!!

Hey, we’re back – back writing again, as well as in Cameroon again!  I'm not sure how this will work with slow internet (and we don't want to hog the internet that IS available...), but I'll try :).  Here’s a glimpse of our trip over 2 1/2 weeks ago….



Waiting in the Brussels airport...

Views out our window included clouds, mountains, and forest.




Trying to sleep...

Or just giving up and taking advantage of the entertainment :).

Flights were uneventful (thankfully!), and it was MUCH easier traveling with older kids who could generally take care of themselves and their luggage, and amuse themselves :).