Another Asher Quote

I love this one! I was looking in the kid's ears with the otoscope because Nandry & Boaz were complaining that their ears were hurting. Asher wanted to look in my ear since I looked in his ear and declared that there was alot of wax in his ears. As he looked in my ear, I asked him, "Do you see any wax?" His response:

"Nope, just ONE wack!"

(If wax is plural...then of course it would just be one WACK)

Live Shrimp -- 5$ for 2 lbs

Nathan found a way to keep the boys amused as we were crammed in the car during our 4+ hour trip from the beach to Yaounde...he let them hold the live shrimp that we bought during a toll stop. Grandma's comment was, "how funny is that, buying live shrimp in a bag from your car window." The boys giggled and hollered (while Grandpa was trying to hear while on the phone with his office...I'm sure they won't enjoy those phone bills!!!!) as the shrimp crawled around and wiggled their legs like they were trying to swim away.

The Most Beautiful Beach

I think I spelled the name of our beach hotel wrong in yesterday's post. We were at the Semme New Beach Hotel in Limbe, Cameroon. It was beautiful!!!

Here's a picture of Asher, Grandpa and Boaz being brave and facing the on-coming waves without fear.

Here's Grandma & Grandpa posing in front of the ocean (by the tree that's growing through the concrete).

Vacation with the Conrods

Mom & Dad Conrod are here for the next 2 weeks and we are having a blast. I'll post a bunch more pictures when I get a chance (maybe Friday). Here's one of Dad in the pool with us all. We had great fun hearing Dad laugh (squeal, more like it) like a 5 year old during our water gun fight in the pool at the resthouse in Douala. We are currently at Limbe Beach at the Seme New Hotel (do a google search). We go back to Bakaland on Saturday.

NO FEAR

Last evening, while we were waiting for Dad Conrod to get off the phone with his office, we were getting ready to leave for a restaurant. We locked our hotel room door and walked down to Mom's room and chatted for a bit while we waited. About 10-15 min later, Nathan went back into our room with the boys because someone forgot something. When he unlocked the door, he noticed that one of the windows in the room was left open. Knowing that HE didn't leave the window open, he asked the kids about it. Boaz said he opened the window because we locked him into the room and he couldn't get out. Nathan was SHOCKED!! "Boaz, were you scared when you got locked in the room?" "No." Unbelievable...this is the window that he opened, decided it wasn't too far to the pipe that ran across the wall, then not much farther to the ground...so he climbed out, came around and joined the rest of us in Grandma's room. We would never have even known if the window hadn't been left open!!!
Our little daredevil....or as Nathan puts it when he personally does stunts like this (um...I guess that's where Boaz learns it from!) "calculated risk taking".

Resourceful

This is Pajero. He came to Mama Lendo's house to ask if he could use her big plastic bucket. There were a few holes in it, so he took some time to fix it. He heated the blade of his machete in the fire until it was good and hot, then placed in on the bucket where the holes and cracks were so that the plastic would start to melt and he could smooth it and patch it. It took him quite a while to fix, but he succeeded. It amazes me how much "broken" and "useless" stuff we throw out that the Baka look at and say "that can be fixed". Another thing they do (I'll try to get a picture to post soon) is use "dead" batteries to play their radio. Say their radio takes 4AA batteries, and they don't have money for new ones. They will come ask us if we have any used batteries. They will make a battery holder and align 8 or more "dead" AA batteries together just to get enough charge to run their radio for a few more hours. It's amazing!

Ambili Update

So many of you have been praying for Ambili and we are sure this is the reason that he is still aound. He's happy, walking and entering into toddler-hood. Just last week we were happy to see his bigger brother (Angu) leading him around by the hand, following the other kids. This was the first time we noticed Ambili away from his Mama and the other adults.

Speedy Delivery

We're here in Yaoundé for a few days. It’s time to get a couple things done while having internet access and maybe do some shopping while in the Big City. And, of course, time to just relax a bit from the demands and such of bush life. So, Friday morning we drive to the ERC (Educational Resource Center) to take back some of the children's books we had borrowed and pick up a few more. As we pile out of the truck and gather our books to return, a man sitting close by says he has a question for me. As Laurel starts to walk down the hill past the first few buildings to get to the ERC, I start to talk with the man. There are three people there: the man, a groaning, pregnant woman (His wife) and the guard for the compound that contains the ERC. The man tells me that he and his wife need help because they are from Central Africa, he just had surgery and can't walk and she is sick. I asked her how many months pregnant she was; she said "8."

[break in story: note that we have to always be careful when asked for "favors" since 1) we are asked so often that they can take up every day and not leave us time for the things we need to do and 2) many times the folks who ask can get by in their normal fashion with the help of their families, etc. and they just ask us because of our white skin and their thinking that all whites are extremely wealthy.]

I told him that I couldn't just leave my family there and that besides; I didn't know where any hospitals were in the city since I live in the East Province and don't know Yaoundé very well. They tell me that there is a clinic very, very close and that they just want me to give her a ride. I said "OK" and started to walk down to tell Laurel but realized that that short walk would take just as long as the short drive and the woman did seem "sick." So, we helped her get into the back seat of the truck (in the one open space on the driver's side - there were two car seats taking up the rest of the back seat). The guard opened the gate and got into the front seat. The husband stayed behind. We drove the two miles to the clinic. It looks closed and the guard gets out to be sure. I ask the woman how she was and she said "It's coming." I turned around to find her scooted up/leaned back in the seat and I saw the baby's head starting to protrude. I yelled at the guard to get in quick - we had to go. He asked "to the hospital?" I said "No, it's coming right now!" So, we raced right back to where we started from (the ERC compound) and as the guard jumped out to open the gate I turned to see how the woman was doing. She was holding her newborn baby boy. So, we parked and I tried to assess (in my limited medical expertise) the situation. Seeing the color of the baby I asked "How many babies have you had?" This was her eighth. I said "I don't know what black babies are supposed to look like - is the baby's color normal?" She said "Yes." So, I talked her through what we needed to do and what we didn't need to do (the folks here have a tendency to want to rush the placenta by pulling on the cord to get it out).

While waiting for the placenta to come I thought I should go tell Laurel what was taking me so long. I walked into the ERC and the librarian asked me how I was doing... I said "interesting…a woman just gave birth in the back of our truck”. You can imagine how startled Laurel was to hear that!

In the end they called some other folks they knew who came to transport them to the hospital and we wrapped the baby and placenta up together, said our good-byes, piled all of us in the front seat (because of the bloody mess in the back seat!) and left to get our truck washed out.

PS - (This is Laurel's comment) Now re-read this story with the image of Kemi, our monkey, sitting on Nathan's shoulder the whole time! Don’t I wish I had brought the camera!

Here's our muddy, bloody truck...the kids weren't even phased at all. When Nathan asked Nandry if she thought it was neat that a baby was born in the back seat of the truck her reply was, "Not really, babies are born all the time."

Conversation @ Lunch

Boaz: Mama, are there bad doctors?
Me: I suppose so.
Boaz: Oh...witch doctors are bad doctors.
Me: Yes, I guess so.
Asher (confused): Which doctors are bad doctors?
Me: Yes.
(Nandry starts to giggle.)
Asher (really confused): WHAT doctors are bad doctors?
Me: Witch doctors.
Asher (changing his question): Which doctors?
(Nandry laughing out loud)
Me: Yes, witch doctors.
Asher: WHAT?
Me: Which witch doctors?

Finally, after explaining using the French word "Maribou" and Baka word "Nganga", Asher gets it and keeps repeating "which witch doctors?"

Little Language Helper

This is Joe. I think he’s about 6 years old. His baby teeth which look rotten and discolored are starting to fall out and his healthier looking adult teeth are coming in. He was named after our missionary friend Jose whose family lived where we lived for a few years before we arrived. He’s one of my favorite “language helpers” because he giggles and laughs at everything I say instead of just giving me a blank stare. I have fun sometimes when I’m cooking dinner and the Baka kids are playing on the veranda just outside our kitchen window. I repeat them in Baka and they giggle and keep throwing out little phrases just to hear me say it. Then I start saying or singing something in English and they try to repeat me. It’s a fun game. One day, Nathan and I were having a conversation in Baka, for their benefit, all about how we were going to cook the kids on our veranda and what we were going to eat them with (plantains, cassava…etc). They all just giggled and giggled knowing that we were being funny.

Smart Little monkey

Kemi, our little monkey, is getting a lot more active. She seems really small for her age (about 3 months) and we wonder if it’s because she didn’t get the right nutrients when we first had her (we were bottle-feeding her cows milk) or if it has something to do with her head wound from the hunter’s bullet. She’s a good little monkey, but always very curious… She LOVES the kid’s toys, and will attack toy cars and try to taste them. She likes when we read to the kids and always tries to get up close to the book and see what it’s all about. In this picture she’s “helping” Asher with his puzzle. Actually, she doesn’t have a clue what a puzzle is and is only trying to pick the pieces up off the floor and taste them. She plays hide-n-seek with the kids too…well actually it’s more like just the “hide” part while the kids are chasing her around the room. It’s really cute when she hides behind a curtain or chair, because her really long tail always sticks out. She must be thinking, “How did they find me this time?”

Amazing

This 10 year old Baka girl (Kinge – pronounced sort of like “key-ngay”) is getting her ear pierced by her grandmother (Mama Lendo). Kinge’s friend showed up this morning wearing a cute pair of earrings that someone must have bought for her. They asked me for a needle because Kinge wanted to pierce her ears. So after I put alcohol on the new needle, she threaded it with a thick black plastic thread and squatted down next to Mama Lendo. All of us were grimacing and saying, “eeeeeeeee-yikes” or something to that effect as Mama Lendo tried to poke the needle through her ear lobe. No ice, no quick little prick then it’s over. It took about 25 seconds before she got the needle through. OUCH. Kinge is a tough girl, she sat there without flinching and didn’t even make a face. Then they tied off the thread. When they threaded the needle a second time I said, “Hold on a minute, I’ve gotta a picture of this” and I ran to get my camera. On the way to grab the camera, I saw a hair band that had tiny little beads on it that Nandry and I never wear, so I cut off 3 little beads (green-red-yellow, Cameroon colors) and brought them out for them to tie onto the string for her second “earring” made from a loop of string. She loved it! This picture is of her second ear being pierced…notice the grimace on Mama Lendo’s face and the lack of expression on Kinge’s.