Scariest thing I've seen yet...

9 foot long cobra...happy birthday to me! Epele, the (little) kid right next to Nathan, who is about Nandry's age, caught this in one of his traps in the forest.

Sunday Afternoon Nap

Nathan and I had the wonderful opportunity to take a nap this afternoon, and had dozed off for probably about 5 minutes when there was a knock on the door.

KNOCK KNOCK
Me whispering & nudging Nathan in his ribs: Someone's knocking on the door.
Nathan groggily coming up from the depths of sleep...and going into French right away: HUH? Who's there?
Voice at the door: Ngaa (which is Baka for "me")
Nathan: Oh, Sufiyo, what's up?
Sufiyo (the voice at the door): I want your pump.
Nathan: Hold on.
Nathan gets Boaz to take the soccer ball pump to Sufiyo. We close our eyes again and are almost back asleep when...
KNOCK KNOCK
Boaz: Dada, Sufiyo is at the door again.
Nathan: Sufiyo, what's up?
Sufiyo: I was wondering if I could take your pump to the village. We have a soccer match today and we need it. I have a bag that I can put it in to carry it.
Nathan: Hold on a minute.
Nathan gets up and gets the pump bag that has a small compartment for the needle and gives it to Sufiyo so that the needle wouldn't get lost.
Sufiyo: Thank you.
Nathan gets back in bed and closes his eyes almost falling asleep when...
KNOCK KNOCK
We don't respond right away.
Whispering voice in French: Go get your Dad
Boaz: Dada, someone is at the door.
Nathan: Sufiyo? What's up?
Sufiyo: I was wondering if we could borrow your soccer ball.
Our ball is sitting, flat, in plain sight in the veranda...the reason why he needed the pump in the first place!!!

Look on the right side. It's hard to see because of the trees in the background but there is a sack that is hanging completely off of the top of the car. Also, notice how the back is so full that the hatch is being held closed by some rubber strapping. We saw this on our way back from Bamenda a few weeks ago. I'm still trying to get a picture like this but with a live goat tied on to the top with all of the cargo, we've seen that a bunch of times but never when the camera was handy. We are so thankful for having our truck -- that it got fixed and is working well(!!!!!) so that we can skip the major hassles of public transport. Nathan and I rode in a bush taxi one time where we all (18+ people, sardine style, and it was just a little bigger than this car) had to get out of the taxi and help push it out of the mud. Another time in a bush taxi we were clipped by a logging truck. Travel here in Cameroon sure can be...exciting.

In the Kitchen

I am so thankful that our kids are big enough now to help out with so many chores and they can even make their own lunches. Though I'm still working on the "clean up after yourselves" responsibility with them.Nandry and Boaz are making PB & J and sliced apples. This kind of meal is actually one of the more expensive that we eat, because it is definitely not native to Africa! The little 16oz jar of peanut butter, which is a sorry substitute for Jiff or Peter Pan, costs about $3.25 and the jelly is about the same (though it tastes pretty good and you can get "gooseberry" flavored jelly). Apples are imported from France and small apples cost about 50 cents a piece.

Asher's contribution in the kitchen is making a cookbook of all his favorite creations. If you click this picture I think it will bring it up larger and you might be able to see his directions better. While he was experimenting the other day putting things in his cup, he exclaimed, "YUM, I need to write this one down." So, voila, Asher's recipe: Squeeze one grapefruit (or fruitgrape) into your cup, slice one banana and add it to the cup, crumble up a cookie and add it, then stir for an hour like he did (it's amazing how 30 seconds can seem like an hour when you are stirring!).

The Ants Go Marching...

...not just one by one here. And I should add that they are the "biting and devouring everything in their path" ants. It's that time of year again. Every black speck you see in this picture is an ant. There were definitely some making trails, but mostly they were completely covering our veranda floor, walls and ceiling (this picture isn't even an 10th of the area they were covering). Thankfully we spotted them before they came into the main part of our house, and were able to empty 3 cans of bug spray to discourage them from advancing any further. I snapped this picture of Nathan in mid stomp and spray. He had to keep moving or they would start crawling up his legs and biting. Normally this happens in the middle of the night when it's so much harder to combat an army like this, but we were fortunate this time to catch them in the morning.

The Game Boy

Once Asher had finished all of his school work for the day and his brother and sister were still working on theirs, he started creating his own board game. It's very cute and you can really play it. His rules work. Just don't land on the night-time square or you'll lose a turn because you have to "sleep" until the morning. It's been fun this time around that our kids are old enough now to enjoy card games and board games...and even come up with their own! One thing though about Asher's game, he's played all of us and hasn't lost yet...hmmmm.

What has 112 legs...?

Nathan got the boys a clear bucket with a clear lid so that they could have a giant "bug jar". It does NOT come in the house, but occasionally stays on our veranda. Well, the snake from a few months, their first inhabitant of the bug bucket, ago slithered away. Since then we've had a chameleon that crawled away and a frog that they eventually let go. This one beats it all. One afternoon, the boys were collecting spiders. YUCK! In a quick glance, I counted 14 in this picture. YUCK! I'm amazed that they got this many and I'm frightened that there are so many big spiders living around the outside (hopefully not inside) of my house. And then the brave souls that would hold the spiders...can you see in this picture of Kamatu how long those spider legs are? Gives me the creeps.

RIGHT HERE!!!

The kids and I were making paper chain cut-outs of people, Christmas trees and birds and decorating them. Well, in the process Asher wanted to make other things out of paper...so he made a huge arrow and stapled it together. I became busy in the kitchen preparing dinner and was only half listening to the kids and simply replied "sorry" at the comment that there were no more staples in the stapler. A little later, I saw that Asher decorated the wall with his arrow. Very cute, pointing to the stocking, showing what his priority is this Christmas. When I looked at it a little closer, I realize that he had fixed it to the wall using a glue stick!!!

Advent

We lit the 2nd candle on our Advent "log" that Nathan made for us. We are going through a book that has ideas for each day to focus your family on the birth of Christ. One of the fun activities we've done was played "I'm going on a trip to Bethlehem and I'm taking..." going through the alphabet. We made it harder and tried to think of stuff that Mary and Joseph might have taken. The kids are getting into it, but Asher is a little concerned that in all of this remembering the real reason for Christmas, we are going to forget about the "getting lots of stuff" part of it. Hopefully he won't be too disappointed this year as there are no Walmarts or toy stores around here.

Anyhow, we are making new family traditions and singing through the Birth of Christ section in our hymn book, and playing and replaying the 3 Christmas CDs that we have. Simple, but memorable.

Family Time

After having 3 weeks of different guests, we decided to have a little family outing in the forest. We took a bucket with plantains, coco-yams, matches and a machete to have ourselves a little picnic. We waded through the mud and muck for a while, then followed the path to an enormous tree that had been cut down and milled. Avele followed us and we were glad for his company, though I was surprised that he slipped off without any of the other Baka kids noticing and following too! The kids climbed around the felled tree, which made quite a fun playground, while Nathan started a fire and cooked our snack and I swatted the filaria flies. We are so blessed to be able to step into a National Geographic magazine and have such amazing adventures!