On the field trip we sat in a room that is normally used as a classroom. On the chalkboard was a section entitled Practical Life showing bathing equipment. There are small drawings under it with the towel, bucket of water and bar of soap. Most people here bath outside with these 3 pieces of equipment. We are so blessed to have indoor showers. There is a second section entitled Nature Talk with drawn pictures of two different types of trees; apple tree and paw paw tree.
Last Friday the boys and I (DeAnna) went on a field trip to the Rainbow Innovative School. This is a private Christian Cameroonian School. I was able to get more experience driving today as we journeyed across Yaoundé. The school is bright and the teachers work so hard with their students. They had a playground area (very unusual for any Cameroonian school) and they had nice class rooms.
Our students have been having spiritual emphasis week at school with the focus being around 1 Tim 4:12. Our students have been having chapel time every morning this week with each class having a different day to present a skit, sing songs or something. Our students presented what they did during chapel and their students presented what they have been working on. They had a time when one of our students was paired with one of their students and they read books to one another. Their library was a triangular shaped rack that held maybe 15 books, they have 60 students. Each of our students donated a book to their school to help them have more books in their library. The children had a chance to play games together and just play. They treated us like royalty with the lunch that was prepared. Tables with white tablecloths, square chic plates and nice glasses were set around outside for all the students with a huge buffet of rotisserie chicken, pizza, fried plantains, French fries, rice and a beef stir fry dish plus many difference kinds of drinks from a Kool-aid type drink to a frozen smoothie to juice. We shared cookies for dessert.
It was a wonderful time together. There was a little girl age 6 who befriended me and asked what color am I, she played with my hair and was very curious why it felt different than hers and kept touching my face and arm. Looking at all the children together, I couldn’t help but think of the beauty of how each one of us are made in His image.
Last week I left for one week for Maroua in the Extreme-Nord of Cameroon for helping our regional office with some ongoing computer issues. The journey north requires several steps to get there since there is no online booking system to make reservations. The first step is to go down to the train station 2 days before you want to leave to make a reservation. Then the day of travel you go down to the train station once the train has arrived from the night before they will sell you your ticket for that day, but you still have to wait in line. So I headed down to the train station at 7 am in the taxi for a 6pm train departure. Thankfully the train had arrived and they had begun selling the tickets around 8:15 am so I only had to wait 45 minutes or so then I got a taxi and was home by 9:30 am.
I left the house at 4 pm with the luggage to get in line to wait again to get on the train. Luckily I had a Wagon Lit ticket (sleeping car) so there was a special air conditioned waiting area for us. So after waiting for about an hour I boarded the train. Then the train left on schedule at 6:10pm and the journey north began, the train stopped every hour or so for a few minutes to pick up and drop off more people and at some time in the middle of the night the train shook and we sat without moving for a few hours, I just went back to sleep because there wasn’t anything I was going to be able to do about it. They did have 2 meals on the train that you could buy and dinner was a nice chicken diner, but my omelet for breakfast had something interesting in it that it took several bites to realize it was sardines. So after 15 hours on the train it was time to go the bus station.
There was a man selling bus tickets on the train but somehow our train car was missed so off to wait and buy tickets at the Touristic Express bus counter. They don’t actually give you the ticket when you purchase it, or a receipt. They write your name on the ticket and when they sell enough tickets to fill the bus they call everyone’s name that is going to be on that bus and then they give you your ticket and tell you to get on the bus and they leave. Well there were 3 big busses waiting for people when we got there and since we didn’t get our tickets on the bus they called everyone’s name for those busses and they left and we were waiting… and waiting… and 4 hours later another bus pulled into the bus station and they called out our names and we got on the bus.
But, before we left the train/bus station we had to find a person by the name of Majesty, I now have his cell phone number in case you’re ever in Ngaoundéré and need this service, to buy our return train tickets a week later since we would not be there to make the reservations or wait in line the day of our return trip. After paying him the money and giving him a photo copy of our ID, which you need to buy the tickets, we hopped on the bus.
The bus ride across central and northern Cameroon for 8 hours allowed me to see some more of the country side and some of the mountains. The views were very beautiful and quiet, unfortunately the bus drivers choice of music to share with everyone left a loud ring in my ears and since I couldn’t identify the language it was a very long 8 hours in a very cramped seat that had very little comfort.
Finally at 10:30pm the next day we arrived safely in Maroua.
Living in a cash only society we are very familiar with the money here. The problem we run into frequently is that we don’t have exact change, not only do we not have exact change normally we only have a 10 000 ($20) cfa note and we need to purchase something for 300 cfa, like bananas. Well the banana salesman probably only sells 3000 cfa worth of bananas all day and I guarantee he does not start the day with a register full of change or even a register. He keeps the money he makes under the tray that he has his bananas on. Normally unless you have small change you will not be able to make some of these purchases from the smaller vendor.
What happens when you go out to a sit down restaurant where they give you the bill after you eat your lunch and you give them 10 000 to pay for the 4400 bill?
First they look at you with a look of great sadness because now they are going to have to find change for you. This process can sometimes be a labor intensive process for the restaurant, first they go to their neighboring stores and try and break the bill, then once they have 2 5000 cfa notes then need to break one of them down smaller. Many vendors go up and down the street selling their goods and after waiting for 30 minutes there was finally a vendor who agreed to break one of her 5000’s. I couldn’t stop laughing when I realized who had the change for her. It was the used sock cart that goes up and down the street. Now she only had 6500 worth of smaller bills but she still didn’t have a 100 cfa coin to give us the rest of our change. We decided that she could keep the 100 cfa even though we were curious which cart going up the street would be willing to give her change.
On the way back from church this morning we encountered a new dilemma. We came upon a stoplight that was both red and green at the same time. I asked DeAnna what light I should obey and we came to a quick conclusion to follow what the taxi in front of us did – we buzzed on through. What would you have done?
We’ve had our cat about 3 months now. At first, he was very sweet and didn’t bother us while we slept, then he started sleeping in our bed and attacking our toes when he thinks it’s time for us to get up. He’s a strange cat because he likes water and eats everything (fruits, vegetables, anything). He has been jumping on our countertops in the kitchen and we continually are telling him to get down and trying to train him to not go on the countertops. Yesterday during lunch we noticed that when Fluffy was on the countertop, Sophie said, “Descend,” and Fluffy got down. Last night when we wanted him to get down we said it in French (descend) and the cat did it. We realized that his language is French and now we know how to get him to respond to our requests.
During Social Studies in class last Friday we (DeAnna & Jonah) covered cities. We talked about how cities have buildings, stores, churches and roads. To help them understand, they built their own city using blocks and train track pieces. After the city was built they played with it. Jonah asked Deborah how she pronounces her name in French. She responded with the same pronunciation as in English. Jonah continued asking her questions and the two only spoke in French during their play time. With toy cars in hand they discussed how the city is nice, but they need to go back to their village because they like to be in their village. I chuckled as I listened and it dawned on me how different their world view than mine. Here the majority of people will work in Yaoundé and go to their home village on the weekends. During FES sessions at the school, the families who live in the villages come into Yaoundé for two weeks of school with the students who are based in Yaoundé.
During reading time I decided to take Jonah to the library to do some CD Rom reading games. We were working on the computer when the lights flashed off and on. Electricity is frequently shut off, so we didn’t think anything of it. I looked up at the shelves that house 3 large voltage regulators. The top regulator looked like it had flames inside, but it’s housed in a covering so it was hard to tell. I called out to Mary about the regulator. She and I both in disbelief watched as it became obvious it was on fire. Mary ran out the door to cut off all power to the building and I frantically searched for a fire extinguisher. I found an extinguisher mounted to the wall; removed it, then it had a zip tie on it, so I searched for scissors and cut the zip tie. Next it was time to remove the pin and start extinguishing. I’ve never used a fire extinguisher before and just aimed and started. I never knew it comes puffing back in your face. Mary came back in grabbed the fire extinguisher and mounted a tall chair and fought the fire from up higher. After the fire was extinguished, I kept thinking of the song Pass It On (it only takes a spark, to get a fire going). I’m thankful that Jonah & I were working in the library or otherwise it would’ve been discovered later in the burning process. I’m thankful it didn’t happen at night because it would’ve destroyed the library and the school. I’m thankful no one was hurt and the fire was extinguished quickly.
We received the 6 action packers we took to North Carolina in July 2009 to be shipped to Cameroon. It was exciting to go through all the things we packed. You might be wondering, what we decided to pack to send to Yaoundé; the list is below.
Now you have it, that’s what we packed, stored in North Carolina and had sent to us here. It was a delayed Christmas present that came on the very slow boat from the USA to Cameroon! Many thanks to JAARS shipping for all the hard work they do in helping missionaries around the world!
We had a burnt out fluorescent light. I went to the local hardware store to buy a new bulb. I used the word ampoule (light bulb). The man behind the counter asked some clarifying questions and came to the conclusion I needed a tube. I chuckled that he called it simply a tube. Later we discovered it wasn’t just a burnt out light, the whole unit needed replaced. David went to the hardware store with all his vocabulary ready to go and knowing to use the word tube. He went and asked for the unit. The man asked some questions and came to the conclusion that David needed a Mazda Complete. The name brand is Mazda. David returned laughing and he played 20 guesses with me as to what he bought was called before he told me Mazda Complete. Thanks to my skillful husband we now have a working light again in our back room.
D squared + J squared = Anderson 