Limbe Beach, Part 1

There are so many reasons we love the beach...and the fresh fish, chips and fried plantains are just some of the many. This is our family's favorite vacation spot; we've made the best memories here over the years and it just keeps calling us back. If you come and visit, we'll take you there!

The black sand, from volcanic rock, is pretty great for making castles, especially drip castles.




We saw many people at the beach rubbing the black sand all over their bodies and then washing it off in the ocean. Supposedly, it's good for the skin. I tried it on my feet and it rubbed off all the callouses and made them soft and smooth.






Nandry collected our individual Jelly serving containers from breakfast and used them as forms to make bricks for sandcastles and a sand pyramid. I think we could have done something larger scale without the jelly containers, but it was still fun.





One of the highlights of the beach (as if the food, ocean, freshwater stream, playground, room with TV & A/C aren't enough) is horseback riding. When the horses aren't saddled up, they sometimes run and frolic along the water edge, it's a cool sight. The caretaker of the horses (in the yellow shirt) has been trying to convince Nathan that we need to buy one of his horses and take it back East with us to Bakaland. I'd love to do that, if not only for the shock factor of introducing an animal that the Baka have never seen before.

Finding Friends

On the way from our place to Yaounde, we stopped by the ever elusive village of Bonando to see if we could find some of our long lost friends. It was actually a large village, but you have to be paying careful attention to see the sign. We even had to make three stops along the road (it was a long, spread out village) to get to the "Baka ghetto" part. But we were so glad we did. Last year, while we were in the States, our Baka neighbor and friend Koeseni died. She was the mother of Ambili and his big brother Angu, two kids that became very dear to us during our last term.
The Mama with the baby (Baby Desma, even) hugging her legs is the sister-in-law of Koeseni, who's family is now responsible for raising Angu (on the right) & Ambili (middle). Angu had a little smile for us, but Ambili wasn't really phased when he saw us. It broke my heart to see their physical condition...Angu only walking on his heals because he has so many sores on his toes; and Ambili with an open, infected sore on his foot about the size of a quarter, complete with flies swarming around it. Keep these kids in prayer. They live too far away for us to have much input in their lives...but they are so precious to us.

The Perils of the Post

We LOVE getting mail! And our family (and some churches) have been especially wonderful/generous lately to send us some big packages....though we know it probably costs more to ship it than the worth of what is actually in the package. Well, this last package from family in PA came with a fairly large hole in the side (see in the picture), where apparently a rat got in while it was sitting in the post office and had a feast. FYI, rats really like blueberry muffin mix as well as chocolate chip muffin mix. Fortunately, the dry roasted edemame was hardly touched and the gluten free bread mixes my mom sent were left alone (guess rats have a thing for gluten?). The kids got some activities books that went along with us on our trip and helped keep them busy in the car, and they also got a "bug vacuum" that we haven't yet tried. It's probably hard to tell in the picture below, but everything was covered in powdered batter mix...but it smelled really good. :)


I should add a PS, that even though there are many things not readily available to us like muffin mixes and often missionaries are known to...um...be frugal/not picky/not throwing away what others consider trash...well we DIDN'T make and eat the muffins. I just draw the line at getting leftovers from rats, know what I mean?

Travel in Rainy Season

This was on our way back from Nkolbikon after we had been camping for a few days. We were anxious to get home and eat cereal and take showers. This truck full of sand was completely blocking the road and left us no way to get by. Fortunately for us, these guys had been digging themselves out for a while and were just about to try moving the truck forward again. We were only there about 5 minutes before the truck was on it's way!

Nkolbikon - Part 3

Here's Nathan with Sufaio, our VIP (see his hat?), who helped Nathan with the Likano times. We told Sufaio what a VIP was and ask him if that was him, and he said, "Oh no, that's my cousin" and pointed to one of the girls about his age. ??? Maybe we didn't explain well. Anyway, Sufaio did a lot to make us feel welcome, and introduced us to all of his extended family. It was actually his step-mom's family that we were staying with this week, and they who fed us lots of plantains and cooked greens. On the last Likano (Oral Storying) night, Sufaio actually led the meeting. Nathan introduced the story, and afterward, Sufaio wrapped it up with questions and restating the main points. It was encouraging.

One of the cool things Nandry and I noticed right away in the village was a heart-shaped tree. It stood out really well against the sky, especially at night when all the stars were out. Oh, a side note, this was the first time I ever saw (and realized what I was seeing) the Milky Way. In our area, where we live, there are so many trees around it's hard to see much of the sky at night but this village was a fairly open area in the middle of the forest.

These kids were loving the camera and thinking of all kinds of poses and places where I could take their picture...in front of a door, next to the plum tree, wearing a basket on their head...but for some reason, I thought the most random was this one: "take our picture in front of the corn we planted".

We had a great time. When Nathan asked Sufiao what everyone thought of us, he replied, "They are surprised that you eat Baka food, but I told them we (the Baka) eat it all the time and it hasn't killed us yet!" :)

Nkolbikon - Part 2

Nathan was in Nkolbikon for 3 nights and set up camp for us to join him. He bathed in the river with the guys and carried his own water up to the camp each day. He is pretty amazing and I'm positive that there will never be a picture of me doing this!


Here is what our camp looked like. Nathan dug a "potty" pit next to where he parked the truck and put up this structure for us to have our own private toilet and place to wash off. It was interesting to have the tire of the truck as our toilet paper holder. I was impressed too, even though I'm sure they thought we were crazy, they respected our privacy!

It rained our second day there. The river of mud ran right under a portion of our tent. Fortunately, only a little water got into the tent, but it was from the rain above, not coming from the muddy flood below.

We all were at least 2 inches taller and a couple pounds heavier with all the mud that stuck to our feet. Nandry, Boaz and Asher finally had enough and shed their shoes and went barefoot.

After sitting around watching the rain, the boys decided to play in the mud. The Baka kids had a little more sense then our boys, but it was entertaining nonetheless to watch Boaz and Asher slip and slide and get muddy hand prints all over each other. I wish I had a good picture of that!

After the rains stopped, and we were still sitting around, we got out balloons and they were a hit! It was so neat to see the splashes of colorful balloons amid all the brown mud.


The kids seriously had a great time. It was so good to see them enjoying the Baka kids. The thing that Nathan and I remark about this picture below, is Asher is 6 years old and the Baka boys he is walking with are probably more like 10 years old. It truly is amazing how big we are in comparison to the Baka.

Nkolbikon

This is the pre-trip tent testing picture. We set it up in our yard to make sure everything was ok with it and our kids and our neighbors had a great time in the mongulu na mbungeo (foreigner's hut).

Nathan left on Monday for a Baka village about a 50 min drive down the road. His goals were to establish relationships with the Baka of that camp, start sharing some of the Baka Oral Bible stories with this group and get ready for the kids and I to join him there for a few days.

Nathan said there was alot of sitting around during the days for the folks who didn't go out into the forest for hunting and gathering...so lots of time to practice his language skills and ask lots of questions.

These guys are sitting under their cooking shelter, which looks like some day is going to possibly be finished into a house. The guy on the right is Bado, the traveling musician of our area. He has actually been in our neighborhood for a while now and went along with Nathan for the ride. He is blind and is always sitting around strumming on his stringed instrument (Iyeta) and making up new songs. We really enjoy his music...and we've noticed more and more he is starting to learn and add to some of the Baka songs that sing praises to their Creator, or other songs that tell of Jesus' death on the cross.
I don't have any pictures of the Bible story times that are done in the traditional Baka style (called Likano) because they would start gathering for these around 8pm and the only light besides the millions of stars was a dim lantern. The Baka LOVE singing, and before Nathan would even get to play the stories (we have received them in mp3 format from a SIL missionary who wrote them and recorded them with a local Baka story teller) they would sing for over an hour.
More to come...

My Youngest is 6 Years Old!

Asher turned 6 this past week. Wow. Not sure what else to write. We celebrated his birthday back here in the bush and did some games outside with the Baka kids. It's kind of a tradition for our family to do water balloon activities for Birthdays.

This is Nathan's namesake watching over the bucket of water balloons. He's really starting to warm up to us and didn't cry the entire time, even when his balloon burst.

After water balloons, Nathan got out his home made bubble mixture that he's been perfecting for the last month and everyone blew bubbles for a while.

And then for a cake, my strange child insisted on a Walrus theme...so I did my best with what we had. :)

And what Birthday party is complete without Pin the Tooth on the Walrus? Seriously.

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Spring SCA

SCA = Sonshine Christian Academy, 2 weeks in Bamenda with 17 kids (K-8th) from 9 families that use the same curriculum that we do. We are having a "classroom" experience, art, music, swimming and a special unit on the Olympics. The kids are having a BLAST and the parents are having a great time too...even though we have to teach and the kids have to, um, learn. :)
Here's a picture of K through 3rd. Check on my FB page for more pictures.