D squared + J squared = Anderson

Countdown

Posted on March 5, 2015 by David

I saved some M&M’s so the boys could have a countdown til departure starting at 100 days. Each day they each get to eat one M&M from the container. I also marked on the calendar in increments of 10, counting down til departure. Tuesday marked 90 days. That seems so far and so close at the same time. I feel the crunch of trying to line out things like housing, transportation, etc… in the US while trying to sort, organize and pack up in Cameroon.

We are looking forward to seeing people and doing many things we can’t do here, however, at the same time we aren’t looking forward to the many goodbyes to say here and leaving other people and things behind.

Posted in Cameroon | Tagged Cameroon | 2 Comments

Clothing Battle

Posted on March 3, 2015 by David

I’ve never had so many clothing issues before. The environment is so hard on our clothing. I guess it makes packing lighter. I’m still having problems with undergarments being chewed on by ants.

I discovered in the past that if I didn’t wear something for quite some time, a mysterious hallow, kidney bean looking thing would attach itself to my piece of clothing. I removed one abruptly and learned not to do that again since it made a small hole in my shirt where it was attached. Recently, when I removed a shirt that I haven’t worn in months, I found another one of these appendages and decided to find out more about it. It’s a cockroach egg. There are tiny hairlike structures on the left hand side of the egg sack that attaches to the clothing (pictured below). It’s not a nice thing to find, however, I also find it interesting.

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged Cameroon, clothing, Home | 7 Comments

Barefoot

Posted on February 27, 2015 by David

Soon after we arrived to Cameroon in 2010, Jonah didn’t want to keep shoes on his feet. I noticed that the majority of the MK’s (Missionary Kids) were running around barefoot. Jonah liked this idea. I also noticed that MK’s feet are generally dirty looking, wide and very calloused. Joshua didn’t join in on the barefoot thing, however, he liked wearing baboush (foam slip on shoes very popular here), so his feet are usually muddy on the bottom (dirt mixed with sweat). Jonah thinks you only need shoes for getting from point A to point B. At school shoes are slipped off as line place holders while the kids run around playing. It’s not unusual to hear kids asking where their other shoe is because they can’t find it. It’s also normal to use a shoe in capture the flag (capture the shoe). Shoes are littered everywhere at school and on compounds where children are.

When the boys need to wear socks and sneakers, they both complain about how hot, how sweaty, how confined their feet feel and they can’t wait to take them off. A man who grew here as a MK, returned to be the speaker at the RFIS retreat – notice his feet.

Posted in Cameroon, home, Kids | Tagged Cameroon, No shoes, Shoes | 4 Comments

Full Moon

Posted on February 23, 2015 by David

You may be a bit scared after my last post about underwear of what this post may entail. No need to fret.

The other morning when I woke up and was doing my morning routine of opening curtains, opening doors, etc…. for air flow, I saw a perfect full moon in the early morning blue sky.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” Psalm 19:1

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged Cameroon, Home, nature, sky | 2 Comments

Underwear Troubles

Posted on February 20, 2015 by David

Attention: this blog contains TMI (Too Much Information) about us.

In our mission community virtually no topic is off limits. It’s not unusual to talk about bowel problems while sharing a meal. It’s not unusual to share intimate details about a health issue, because we only have each other to share with or glean from. So blogging about underwear doesn’t seem unusual (I’ve (DeAnna) blogged before about bras). I like underwear. I like the comfort it brings and the support it gives when it fits properly.

Before we left the USA in 2009 to come to Cameroon, we were told in advance to bring lots of underwear that the supply is limited and difficult to find the right fit, plus quite expensive if you buy new not used. We decided to go to Wal-Mart and stock up. I tried to predict sizes the boys would grow into so we would have enough to get us through. In 2012 when we were in the USA briefly, I again spent a crazy amount of money at Wal-Mart on underwear. This time, my calculations were off and now we are in a bit of an underwear crisis. Not only is our environment hard on the elastic of our underwear, but it’s hard on the material itself. Today after thinking I’ve seen it all with underwear deterioration, I saw something new. Last night when the water was turned back on in our neighborhood and we had electricity, I did laundry. Since the last load didn’t finish until it was time to go to bed (we can’t keep it in the washing machine because we have to unplug the machine to protect it), I didn’t have the energy to hang up the last load around the house and decided to put it into the laundry basket. This morning I started hanging up the laundry on the lines outside when I uncovered ants feasting on our underwear (mine in particular). The ants here are horrible and won’t die – we’ve tried every kind of poison and remedy and they won’t die. Anyway, I shook out the underwear one at a time before hanging it on the line. I came to a pair the ants seemed particularly fond of and found that they ate little holes in the material of this pair. It brings a whole new meaning to ants in your pants.

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged ants, Cameroon, underwear | 10 Comments

Cooking with a Gas Bottle

Posted on February 18, 2015 by David

I grew up in a home that always had an electric stove/oven. My only exposure to a gas stove was my grandma Zumalt’s. I remember her lighting her stove/oven with a match. I also remember being told to stand back when she would light it. I was scared of her stove/oven. Her gas was housed in a huge propane tank in her yard and I believe it only needed refilled once or twice a year. We used to sit on top of the propane tank and pretend it was a horse or a blimp or any other imaginative thing.

When David and I were married awhile, we decided to switch from a charcoal grill to a gas grill. I was nervous about the gas tank to the grill. I was scared it would blow up or something. When we arrived in Cameroon, we had both a gas stove/oven and a gas bottle. That’s the only way you can get gas here, it’s sold in bottles and you hook it to your hose, check for leaks and twist it on. At first I was nervous about lighting the stove/oven with a match. I started to like the gas stove/oven, but I didn’t start to love it until our first power outage (which is frequent). I was so happy to have gas because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to cook or heat a meal for our family when the power is off. I have to admit, I’ll really miss my gas stove/oven because it heats things quickly and once you turn off the burner, it’s off – it doesn’t need a lot of time to cool down like electric, but the heat is off and the item stops cooking. I won’t miss the gas bottle though, it still freaks me out and I think I’ll always be scared of it, but maybe it’s a healthy fear.

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged Cameroon, gas bottle, Home | 5 Comments

A Foot in Two Worlds

Posted on February 16, 2015 by David

If you receive our newsletter then you know our big news. We will be seeking a Stateside assignment with Wycliffe and not be returning to Cameroon.

Even before the decision was made that we would be staying in the USA, we were already living life with a foot in two worlds. We started preparing for our furlough about six months ago. I’m a planner and really enjoy making plans and am thrilled when the plans actually happen. We started making plans with buying airline tickets, scheduling a church camp, receiving dates of others vacation time and special dates to save, we started thinking about where will we live, where will the boys go to school, what home assignment will we have, etc… In preparing we start to put one foot in the USA, while our other foot is in Cameroon. We aren’t fully in either place and it’s stressful. It’s stressful to be questioning where we will live there, when we are trying to find people who will live in our house here or vehicle to drive or furnishings for living (beds to lay our heads down) or finances and the list goes on and on. We know we are to be fully present here, however, it’s difficult when we still need to be thinking about there too.

Posted in home | Tagged Home, two worlds | 6 Comments

Will You Be My Valentine?

Posted on February 13, 2015 by David

We were sent conversation hearts that arrived here in December that were purchased last year after Valentine’s Day. We are excited about having conversation heart candy this year for Valentine’s. In the years past we’ve celebrated many different ways. I do miss the going out to eat part that we used to do in the USA, but I don’t miss the waiting hours for a table part because everyone seems to go out on Valentine’s in the USA. We switched from going out to eat to getting heart-shaped pizzas to go from Papa Murphy’s.

This year I’ll probably make heart-shaped pizzas again and I don’t know what else, but one thing I’ll try to do – shower love on my husband and two beautiful boys.

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged Cameroon, Home, Valentines | 1 Comment

Fluoride

Posted on February 11, 2015 by David

I never thought about the things added to the water sources in the USA. When we lived in the USA, we took for granted that the water out of the tap was clean (meaning you weren’t going to get amoeba or giardia or cholera using it straight from he tap), we took for granted that fluoride was added to the water source, along with other vitamins and minerals.

When we were preparing to come to Cameroon and met with a doctor who wanted us to get any and every kind of medicine to take with us, he said the boys would need to take fluoride daily for dental health. I just never thought about how it’s automatically added to the water in the States. When we can find the fluoride (it’s not always available in the pharmacies here), we buy several containers. The boys take a tiny fluoride pill daily to help their teeth.

Posted in Cameroon, home, Kids | Tagged Cameroon, fluoride, Home | 1 Comment

Nems

Posted on February 9, 2015 by David

In the USA, I think it’s great how many different foods Americans are exposed to. There isn’t much that an American living in the continental 48 can’t find in a restaurant, grocery store, online or in a specialty store. Having had that wide exposure to foods from around the world growing up, we tend to crave those foods. We dearly miss Mexican food. Our homemade version just isn’t the same as El Mazatlan. Another kind of food we tend to crave is Chinese food. I’ve gotten much better at Chinese cooking and can crank out the American-Chinese version of cashew chicken (only no cashews here, so I use peanuts).

Here there are many people here who make different things to sell to us foreign people. It’s all about who you know. There is a woman who we have a standing order of tortilla chips (they are flour, not corn) and salsa (pico de gallo) each week. She comes with our order and we delight in eating them. I couldn’t keep up with our family’s salsa and chip pace. I was making 12 pints every two months and the chip making takes a lot of time because one has to make the tortillas first to cut up and bake to make the chips. We also like bagels that are delivered to us when we order them and plantain chips that Rosalie makes. One of my friends has a source for nems a.k.a. spring rolls-ish. I tried making my own egg rolls, however, it took several hours because I first had to make the wrappers from scratch and then the filling before completing the process. I enjoy the nems this Cameroonian woman makes because they don’t have spicy shredded carrots on the inside (other nems I’ve had here are mostly shredded carrots with piment (ground habenero), but these have ground beef, shredded carrots, onion and other veggies without piment. I make a homemade sweet and sour dipping sauce and we have a meal. My friend places the order and they come in batches of 25. They are packaged in newspaper. I freeze them in the newspaper and all, so I can pull them out in the batches to reheat in the oven to enjoy.

Posted in Cameroon, home | Tagged Cameroon, Food, Home, nems | 2 Comments