Last Friday (Aug. something that is…) our friends from the States arrived here in Yaounde. Later that night Patrick came home from a week work trip in S. Africa. The next morning, very early, we started out on our 5 day road trip around the NW region of Cameroon.

Our drive started out pretty uneventful.  The drive from Yaounde to Douala is the most dangerous road in the country. Logging trucks and drivers with no patience fill the narrow roads.  We all coped well though. Aydan listened to music, colored, played with her stickers and watched Blue’s Clues on the iPad (best purchase ever).

After fighting through the Douala market we found ourselves on the other side of the city crossing the bridge into the SW provence. As soon as we crossed over we were welcomed by a naked man trying to cross the bridge. There was a police man there telling him he could not go and to go home and get some clothes on. Naked Man did not seem to care he was wearing no clothes. Maybe he was told he was wearing a very fine cloth that only very fine people could see…

We continued on our way to Limbe. Once in the city limits it looked as if we were heading into a war zone. There were Cameroonian solders on each side of the road marching in  a line towards the city with their machine guns.  I’m sure they were just training but it was a bit erie.  I was ducking and covering in case of a misfire. Thankfully we made it past the longest line of solders I’d ever seen.

We had lunch at the  Limbe Wildlife Centre. They have a GREAT cafe there with amazing food for cheap. You can eat while watching the gorrillas. It is a very fun experience.

We stayed at Tsaben Beach Hotel in Limbe.  It was perfect. It’s situated just across the road and above the beach.  The rooms are little bungalows and are nice and very clean.  Once there I put Aydan down for a nap and the others went to play in the waves. When Aydan woke up we packed up our beach stuff and headed down to meet up with the rest of our crew. Aydan hated the beach.  Again.

Here we are in front of our little hut

That night we went to the fish market on the beach.  We had fresh fish, crab, and shrimp, and beers for all. The total price was about $6 per person.  It was perfect.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel and headed north to Melong. The drive from Limbe to Melong as about 4 hours. Again, Adyan was a champ.

The directions we had for our hotel, Villa Luciole were as follows (their website says they have a pool and spa among other things that they did not have): “Drive to Melong, follow the signs to Villa Luciole”. That’s it. But it actually worked.

Here is the road that we took to the Villa Luciole

As we pulled up I was so happy to see they had running room for Aydan. The next thing I noticed was a little monkey running around. Cool. I took our stuff into our little grass hut where we would be sleeping and came out to find Kelly grabbing Aydan out from a little girl’s arms that was being attacked by the monkey! Kelly ran to me and the hut yelling, “Get inside!” When we were safely inside we went to the window and watched one of the little boys running away from the monkey, falling and punching the monkey as he jumped at the boys face. The kids were up at the hotel getting water to take back to their homes and the monkey guarded the water pump like it was his child. The kids finally won their water and walked back to their homes with huge tubs of water on their heads and blood leaking down their legs. Let’s just agree to never complain about our water back home. Unless of course, to get it you have to fight off a ravenous monkey.

I laid Aydan down for her nap, the guys went for a hike to some waterfalls and Kelly and I bravely ordered a picnic lunch by our hut so we could hear for Aydan.  We ordered chicken but what we first recived was very different. The lady brought us our food. It was a plate of four eggs on top of four circles of spam. Oh and the eggs were cooked like I’d never seen eggs cooked before. Let’s just leave it at that. Not knowing what to do and feeling too badly to just leave it we decided to eat what was left of Aydan’s Goldfish and then put our food like substance (if I can steal from M. Pollan) into the ziplock bag the fish were in. Just as we decided this the lady brought out more food! Some delicious real chicken and some amazing potato and chickpea dish. Redemption never tasted so good.

BUT just as we thought Africa had redemed itself it started to pour on us and our picnic. Now what? We couldn’t go inside bc we’d wake Aydan and I didn’t want to do that because she had been such a trooper on the drive. She deserved a good nap. After being rained on for long enough to scarf down our food it became clear we had to go inside.  In we went and sat in the dark with our head lamps and read for the next two hours while Aydan slept. Good girl.

The boys returned just after Aydan woke up and we decided to head over to the hotel next to ours.  It was an old dairy that the family gave to the village to make into a resort to make some money. We didn’t see much of the ground because it was raining but it looked huge and pretty cool. We arrived and asked when dinner was ready and if they had a menu. The man said they could have dinner ready in an hour. We were ready to wait for 2 hours before being served but they brought out bread, drinks and peanuts right away. Then our food came out very soon after. It was an amazing meal.

The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast, I got attacked and bit by the monkey (don’t really want to go into the crazy details of that story here, I’m fine- came away with a deep scratch that will turn to a scar) and then we got in the car to go to the crater lakes. Our guide told us we’d have no problems driving the 2 hours up this dirt road to where we’d begin our 2 hour hike. Keep in mind, we drive a RAV4 and it’s the end of the rainy season here so the roads are terrible. I’ll make this story as short as possible. As we make our way up the mountain the road becomes worse and worse until we hit the point where our tires are just two feet from the edge of the guardrailless cliff. I freaked out, grabbed Aydan, still in her car seat, and got out of the car, refusing to go any further. After the guys investigated and saw, especially if it rained while we were hiking, we’d never be able to safely make it back down the mountain we turned around. We were all muddy and the car was the dirtiest I’d ever seen it but we made it bad down the swampy road to “safety”.  We then decided to visit the big waterfalls where a Tarzan movie was filmed. The park is named Ekom Nkam and it’s actually nicely mantained. It has a good man-made path to two different view points.  Entrance into the park costs 2,000 CFA, roughly $4.  We didn’t spend much time there because we still wanted to visit a crater and have lunch and then drive the 3 hours to the pottery village.

The guys were scouting out the terrain before we turned around.

This was the truck full of people coming down from their village. It was packed with people, kids and babies. Not to include all of their personal belongings.

After lunch we headed out to the Bamenda region.  It took us about 3 hours to get to Bamenda. It was 6:15PM when we made it down the huge hill into the city. We were told if we made it there before 6:30 then we should go ahead and head to the pottery village so on we went. The only directions we had were:  ”Head into the city. Turn right at the intersection. Continue on until you see a sign for the potter village.” Sweet.  I was pretty sure that a large city would have more than one intersection. The road was narrow and it was raining and very foggy. So we slowly made our way to what we could only assume was the PresPot Guest House. We got out of the car and walked around in the pitch dark until some man found us. We asked him if he knew where the house was and he said to follow him. I was a bit sketched out at this point but the guys convinced me they could take him if they had to.  Long story short, we met the night guard, Lucas, who was about 100 years old and we waited in our car for the caretaker of the house to come and let us inside.

The house was amazing. Beautiful.  There wasn’t any electricity but they had great little gas lamps set up everywhere. We spent the next three days hanging out at the pottery house, playing Yahtzee, hiking around the village and just hanging out. We loved the lady who is the caretaker there. Here name is Emma. She has a two young girls and a baby who we got to play with a lot. Over all this was the most relaxing and fun time of the trip.

Aydan was so happy to finally have a place to run around free of crazy monkeys.

This man gave us a tour of the pottery workshop.

Aydan with her new friends

We left the village early and made our way back to Yaounde. It took us 6 hours and the roads were very nice. We had a great trip and are so happy that Jon and Kelly were with us to share in these experiences.

If you are happening upon this blog bc you are planning a trip to the area, please feel free to comment with any questions and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Our first night in Limbe I walked into a hotel at dinner time to see if they had a restaurant. Kim and her mom were in the car with Aydan.

Me: Hi, do you have a restaurant here?

Desk lady: Yes we do

Me: Great (looking around), where is it?

Desk lady: When do you need it?

Me: (confused) Um… now would be good.

Desk Lady: (Silence)

Me: Is that a problem?

Desk Lady: We have a small technical problem in the kitchen.

Many of our experiences here have been come with a heavy dose of contrasts. The beach outside our hotel room was beautiful, but strewn with trash. The hotel was quite nice. But the DVD player, hot tub, minifridge, gate to the beach, curtains and stove didn’t work. These highlight a major contrast we’ve seen: while people here are quite ingenious about reusing items and letting nothing go to waste, very little is really maintained. There’s very little spent to fix something or replace a broken part. The idea that the DVD player, fridge, and curtains in a room could all be broken did not bother hotel management in the least. Perhaps they intend to fix them someday, perhaps not.

We visited the Botanical Gardens- it came highly recommended by our guard. The gardens were expansive and many of the trees quite beautiful. But again, most of it was overgrown. Some of the grass had been recently cut but making the place presentable didn’t seem like a real priority. A sign in front of the amphitheater said it had recently been restored. The sign must have been a few years old because the whole place was overgrown with moss and vines. Granted, in this climate moss and vines will take over anything that sits still for a few minutes, but still. As we were leaving the park we saw an old children’s play set that had fallen over. Next to the set was a nice new sign of metal and wood that had been helpfully erected. “Temporarily Out of Use for Children”. I am sure that putting the sign up took more effort than hauling away the broken play set would have.

I didn’t stick around at the restaurant to ask when they’d be up and running because I couldn’t see it happening any time soon.

Cameroon is a beautiful country and we’re glad to live here right now. But I feel like there are major parts of the culture and mindset that I don’t understand.

Kim insists that I actually tell you what we did this weekend, so here goes. Kim and her mom and Aydan came with me to Douala and hung out while I worked for two days. Then we headed to Limbe and the beach for a three day weekend. We stayed at the above mentioned hotel which, broken amenities aside, was a nice hotel in a gorgeous location. We did one day on the black sand beach (Aydan still hates the sand) and one day in Limbe visiting the gardens, the waterfront, and the wild animal park. It was a nice weekend although the drive on each end was pretty grueling.

It was nice to get home but I’m sure in a week or two we’ll be looking to head out somewhere again.

Patrick showing Aydan the black sand, she's not so sure about it though.

Aydan and Kim's mom sitting watching Patrick boogie board.

Why is Dad so far away from me?

Amphitheater in the Limbe Botanical Garden

The view outside our window

The beach house

• Aydan’s ability to communicate via sign language is incredible.  She’s been signing since she was about 9 or 10 months but it’s just taken off the past few weeks.  She wakes up, kisses me good morning, asks for milk to drink and Cheerios to eat please (all using sign), when I give them to her she then says thank you (using sign). She can tell me when she’s poopy… which is translating well into potty training… She can also distinguish between signing water and milk, she’s actually been doing this for a few months now.  As she’s signing she says the words the best she can. When she wants something she points to it and says, “Please.” We have signed with her since she was born and I was a doubter so it is so amazing to see it paying off so well. She rarely gets frustrated from a lack of communication because one way or another she can almost always tell us what she wants.
• I’m amazing at how well Aydan understands us. I can tell her almost anything and she’ll do it.
• Aydan, go wash your dirty hands in the pool. Done.
• Aydan, you finished your milk. Go put your bottle in the sink because you are done and it is dirty. Done.
• Aydan, take me to your bedroom. Done.
• Aydan, give this to Daddy or put this away. Done.
• Aydan, it’s time to go, let’s put your shoes on. Done
• (While getting dressed and she’s holding something) Aydan, switch hands so we can put your shirt on. Done.
• Aydan’s turn to brush her teeth. Mommy’s turn. She gives me the toothbrush, and sits in my lap so I can brush and floss her teeth every morning.
• I could go on and on and on. She understands everything!
• Aydan is very good at obeying. She knows the things around the house she can touch and the things she can not touch. I once heard someone say, “I house proofed the baby, not baby proofed the house. That way she’s good in every house.” I loved this idea and we try to remember that every time we direct Aydan. She is obviously a baby and not perfect but she really is a good girl. The best story is when I caught her walking over to our pantry, we keep empty glass jars on the lower shelves, she reached out to touch them and then said, “No, No” then walked away clapping and saying, “Good Girl!” Too cute!
• She is an athlete. She can climb, catch, throw and play with the best of them. We have a little play structure out back. She climbs up the slide and up the rock wall.  She’s been climbing onto our couch and coffee table.  She was standing on the coffee table and spinning around.  That was something we had to put a stop to even though it was super cute.  I found her climbing into one of our dining room chairs yesterday. It’s just amazing how she can do anything she wants, really. Just last year at this time she wasn’t even rolling over… amazing.
• She just has so many little things that she does that are so cute.
• She has this little play phone that she carries around and when it rings she answers it and says, “Hello” then nods her head and says, “Bye Bye.”
• When she gets some food that is hot she will blow on it until it’s cool. Which is another sign, blowing for “hot.”
• She LOVES books. Right now her favorites are a nursery rhyme book she has that she carries around and asks us to please read it to her. She also loves The Wheels on the Bus.  She does a lot of the hand motions and dances around while we sing her the book.
• When we are looking for something, usually Girl Two, she’ll walk around with her hands up like “Where is it?” and saying, “Girl Two,” which she actually says really well.

So there are probably 100 more things I could say about our sweet girl but I have other things I need to do right now. I’ll leave you with these pictures.

Aydan loves to help me make tortillas, bread and dinner in general. You can see her little play phone in this picture I was talking about earlier.

One of her many funny faces.

Her she is sitting in her little chair like a big girl. She's sitting next to her picture hearts I made for her to know and remember all the people who love her back home.

Aydan loves sitting at her table and coloring, finger painting and eating. Here she is making cards for her grandparents with Dad.

Here she is after finger painting. She's holding the first cucumber out of our garden!

Meet Max. After over 5 months of bed rest his mother finally delivered this healthy little miracle last Tuesday. The story is an amazing and personal one that Patrick, Aydan and I are so blessed to be a part of. We were so sad to have missed his birth. Susan was at the hospital and in our room seconds after Aydan was born. I wish I could have been there for her but I'm so glad it went well and everyone is home and healthy.

Jack with the new brother that he's been asking for for over a year now.

Then there is my friend, Lucy. She and her boyfriend have been dating for years now. They waited until after they finished college to get married, which was two weeks ago and this past weekend they were married. Lucy asked Aydan and me to be in their wedding. Patrick and I just couldn’t find a way to get home. We are so happy for Lucy and Andy and know they will have a wonderful marriage!

The beautiful bride driving off with her new husband!

We love you both and wish you and your new families very well. See you soon!

People sell all sorts of wild things along the side of the road. Palm oil is a common find while driving. The people make the oil under a tin, wall-less, shed that you can see from the road.  There is a palm tree orchard, if you would call it that, closer to Kribi. It’s neat to see the rows of palms. It reminded me of driving from my home in Walla Walla to my grandparents in the Yakima Valley, seeing nice neat rows of hops and vegetables. Another standard site on the side of the road was all sorts of random bush meat hanging from a stick in the ground or someone just holding it out… “Look, a wonderful cane rat for dinner, honey!” Mostly, there were people walking up and down the side of the highway, not safe if you ask me. The best part of the drive was not that Aydan slept almost the whole way, but looking out over the hills and jungle to see the tall, flat branched trees that are so typical of sub-saharan Africa. They were just beautiful and really made me feel like we now live in Africa.

We stayed at Hotel Ilomba. It was the perfect hotel, setteled outside of town, away from traffic, people and stinky cars. The beach was just outside our door.  We arrived hungry and happy to be on the beach. After settling in and ordering cheeseburgers we hit the waves. Patrick was particularly inclined to play in the water the whole weekend.  I don’t blame him though, the water was warm and the waves were perfect for body surfing and boogie boarding. Aydan, however, did not like the sand one bit. She screamed when ever we put her down to play. She spent a lot of time in our laps on the chairs, on a blanket or walking around on Dad’s shoulders. She did enjoy the waves, with a “oohh” and “wow!” with every wave that washed over her. The hotel also had a little kiddie pool where Aydan enjoyed playing with the other kids too.

After not receiving our dinners until after 8:00 that first night we quickly learned that we needed to order our food very early and expect dinner to take up our whole night.

Patrick playing football on the beach with some of the local kids.

Fisherman in his canoe with the oil rig and tankers in the background.

They have taken away the cabinets and housekeeping will come and clean all the mold and repaint.

Now we have a blank slate, kind of, and can have the cabinets rebuilt to our liking… exciting times.