The Carpenter

Nathan got this beautiful red wood from Bertoua (don't know the name of it) and made a shelf for Nandry. That's the real color, without any stain on it! Since the kids all share a room, this shelf goes next to her bed, giving her a little bit of privacy from her brothers. Nathan really enjoys projects like this where he can create stuff, and he's pretty good at it. Today he finally has some time to re-create the water tower that fell down shortly after we arrived. It's always neat for me to watch how carefully planned and purposed he is on the details of these kinds of things. Makes me proud!

Yet Another Thing...

Last night, after the lost in the forest trauma, and everything was calm, I was in bed and heard a crinkling noise. I wasn't going to pay it much attention, but then decided to check it out anyway. I turned on my handy flashlight that is NEVER far out of reach and saw this scorpion on the floor right next to where I'd just been walking and moving a plastic bag full of stuff. I don't know if it was in the bag, or on the floor when I had been there, but I'm so glad I didn't see it at that point!

This is only the 2nd time in my life that I've seen a live scorpion (that wasn't in an exhibit), first time in my house...but I guess this isn't impressive for folks from Texas. It was about 4 inches long from claws to where the tail curved.

I know this doesn't help anyone who is thinking about coming over to visit us, sorry! I really need to put all this stuff out there, because I feel like I am being bombarded by stuff that's trying to convince me how difficult and uncomfortable life is here. Keep us in your prayers!

Moment of Panic

This afternoon, the kids went for a hike in the forest with the Anderton boys (13 and 10). They were going to explore around a big tree in the forest. My understanding was that it wasn't far away...turns out it was over a mile away. As the sun started to go down, I expected the kids home at any moment. Nathan and I were getting dinner ready. We discussed going to check on them and make sure they were coming home, but we waited a few more minutes. Once it starts to get dark, it gets dark FAST. Nathan went out and started walking down the road in the direction that they kids left, and came across Reda Anderton also going in search of her boys. Reda told Nathan just how far away this place was that they were going, and Nathan rushed back, hopped in the truck and took off, hoping that the headlights would prove to be handy.

When I heard Nathan come back and say he was taking the truck, I started praying and shaking the whole time until I heard the truck returning. As soon as Nathan hit the main road, he saw Boaz and Nelson running to get home, and the others weren't far behind. Thank the LORD!

Lots of tears of relief from the kids and their Mama (me), lots of hugging, lots of thanks to God for His protection.

The kids made it to the tree earlier, played around for a while exploring the "cave" of another tree that had fallen, then decided to take a new path home. Aparently that path lead someone's field, and it was getting dark. The kids were coming up with survival tips like, "we can eat the macabo (root) so we won't starve" but they couldn't come up with how they would make a fire to cook it. They all stopped and prayed together at one point, then kept on walking towards the direction they thought the road was. Asher was crying alot by that point because it was dark and they had to walk across fallen trees through a swampy area. One of the branches he was holding onto broke and fell beneath him, and all the kids heard a hissing noise after that. HOW SCARY IS THAT? Nandry told me that she was trying to keep her emotions under control so that she wouldn't scare Boaz and Asher with how frightened she really was. She kept telling me when she got home how much she missed me and how bad she was shaking as she walked.

Finally they came to an abandoned house and recognized where they were in relation to the road and our houses, but they still had to make the long trek up a big hill and back along the road in the dark.

I think that Noah (the 13 year old) was pretty shaken up, and felt pretty responsible for the whole thing as he came to tell us what happened. We tried to calm his fears as much as we could that we weren't upset about it, just so relieved that they all made it back ok.

We are all the closer now as we "debriefed" with the kids tonight, and all the wiser as to what our limits are as to where and when we go into the forest, and how soon to start coming back!

Another cute thing, that actually set me more at ease, was that the Baka kids were playing soccer near our house, and they all joined in the search for our kids as night fell. I knew that if our kids were truly lost in the forest, the Baka could find them. My biggest fear was that something else didn't find them first.

I'm just babbling on and on now, but it's helping the tension release. Boaz, when he first got home, looked the least upset, just like it was another adventure for him. But later he told me he was very, very scared, just trying to be brave.

Ok, our internet connection is going to go off soon, so I need to wrap this up.

A Picture's Worth How Many Words?

Sorry, my brain is fried right now, we've had some exhausting days recently, but I really wanted to post some more pictures and stories. I'm going on the theory that a picture is worth 1,000 words (though Nathan and I were wondering if the phrase uses the word thousand, or million?). Well here are the photos to make up for my few words. Though I've already used over 50...
These are the mongulu (leaf huts) that are right near out house. They only take a few hours to make, but last a few months. I love this picture because it was just starting to rain and the Baka took their fires into the huts, so you can see the smoke coming out through the door and roof...does a leaf-hut have a roof?

In Contrast is our house, though very small and basic, it's still so much MORE than a leaf hut. Can you just hear the rain pounding on the tin roof? Deafening!

Nathan's being the hero here and helping tow our landlord's vehicle out of the mud with our Hilux (that's now white and working, mostly...though we haven't yet been reimbursed from the accident).

On his way to help the Andertons manage an army ant invasion around 11pm last night (though they were doing quite a good job even without him), Nathan found this snake in the yard. It's very docile and Nathan's trying to decide whether we are going to keep it as a pet, sigh. It's a burrowing python?

Ok, in this picture we are doing a reenactment of when the Pope came to Cameroon and the Baka people presented him a turtle as a gift. We didn't eat it...but some of our neighbors did AND wasn't it so nice of them to clean out the shell for us? Yes, it's now stinkily sitting on my window sill. I'm wondering if it won't make a good hiding place for the snake if we make terrarium.

And lastly, a good rainy afternoon activity for our kids and the Anderton boys: playing with the pattern blocks from the kid's math curriculum. Lots of creativity with squares, triangles, hexagons, rhombus' (rhombi? seriously?), and parallelograms.

And that was part of our week...

Someone's Dinner

Here's our teammate Jennifer with Joe and a (medium sized) jumbo rat that was caught with a jumbo rattrap in their house. Read the story behind this rat on Jennifer's blog. I tried to get Mixie to catch the mice in their house. Though she was intrigued with the smell, she didn't move from the time I put her in the house until 5 minutes later when she darted out. I guess she (Mixie the cat) could judge the size of the beast better than I and didn't think she had a chance.

This Week's Science Lesson

Nathan has the privilege to teach Science to the kids this year. Mainly because I can't do everything and he's so much better with the more hands on type learning/teaching AND he loves to play with stuff (they get to do experiments with batteries and also plant stuff and watch it grow). Our washing machine is not working, and we have tons and tons of laundry to do because of the smell and mold that is covering everything we stored for the last year. This past week when I walked out into the veranda and Nathan had the washing machine all apart, I heard him saying to Nandry, "well, after OBSERVING the washer and COLLECTING DATA, my HYPOTHESIS is that the balance switch gets triggered and stops the spin cycle, so lets TEST our hypothesis...how's that for an example of the scientific method?" It's still not working...MY hypothesis is that the circuit board is fried and we need to wait for someone to hand carry us a new one, bummer.

The Cat

Our most loyal and long-lasting pet we've had so far. Mixie the cat. As you can see, nothing, not even cobwebs on a high rooftop, will stop her from catching any lizard that dare show itself in her territory.

First Missing Tooth!

Boaz finally lost his first tooth! He's been waiting for this ever since the tooth fairy left money under Nandry's pillow during the last couple of years. Boaz has quite a thing for cash, especially free cash that he finds on the ground or UNDER HIS PILLOW!!! And, yes, the tooth fairy does come to Cameroon and leaves 500cfa for the first tooth (about a dollar).
The scab next to his mouth is from when Asher bumped the burning stick that Boaz was blowing on, right into his face. The kids are LOVING fire. They start at least one a day under the cooking shelter and now that we got them to stop throwing leaves on their fire, they are roasting their own plantains for a yummy snack.

Where to start...

I need to blog about this first month we've been back in Cameroon, but where do I start? Wayward washing machines, tumbling towers, badly behaved batteries, merciless mold and mildew, might-have-been malaria, dreadful doggie pooh, relentless rainy season, lacking language skills, scary surgeries back home... (Karen, we are trying to beat Jenn for the Ashia award).
Thought this was cute. Nandry wanted to extend friendship to the girls of the neighborhood so she got our her coloring books and crayons, locked the rough little boys out of the veranda and had a good time. The baby in the green shirt is baby Nathan, the only boy allowed in because he was being watched by his older sister. He was terrified of us when we first got here but is slowly warming up to our presence.

The Good Hurt & a Bittersweet Goodbye

Nathan posted on Facebook about some of our final preparations for Cameroon, including a last trip to Taco Bell. It is our preferred fast food, even over McD's. I can't believe how many meximelts, soft tacos and been burritos Nathan and the kids can down. I can't even eat the salads (which are insanely expensive compaired to the rest of the menu) because they are served on fried flour tortillas, and I have a wheat gluten sensitivity...though I take my chances some times and suffer for it. Ooooh, I just googled Taco Bell and am looking at the allergen list (wow, no MSG) -- not much I can eat but rice & pintos! So, I pretty much watched them scarf down their last instant tacos, took some pictures and sipped a strawberry-mango frutista freeze. I was reminding the kids about the few times we went out to eat in Cameroon, and what it was like. We would receive a menu, study it for a while, then order. The waitress would come back in 2 minutes and say, "we don't have that", so we'd order again and get a reply of, "we don't have that either". After about 4 tries, we finally ask what they do have and order accordingly. Next, we watch the waitress, armed with a market bag, leave the restaurant and return 10 minutes later. Then, after trying to keep the kids occupied for the next hour while the cook prepares the things they just bought at the market (still not sure why they claim to be "out" of certain menu items), and having long ago finished our drinks, our food arrives. It's usually pretty good, just beware of the fermented ketchup that's been sitting out unrefridgerated for a few weeks. Ah, we'll enjoy Cameroon but we'll miss the good hurt of Taco Bell.