the winner is… not us.

Sorry I am posting this so late. I’ve been reeling from the news of our inevitable future and haven’t had the energy to write about Flag Day.

Flag Day was on Friday and I’m very thankful that my brother was able to join us for the big event.  We arrived and sat in the back with another mom. I had my bid list and highlighter in hand. The ceremony started and with each city called I highlighted it off the list. As we hit the mid way point I was feeling pretty good. We still had  a lot of our high bids left unhighlighted. Then the list grew smaller and smaller until the only city left on our high list was Prague with only a few mediums left that I was really excited about. That had me anticipating that we would for sure be going somewhere that we really wanted.  The presenter raised his little Cameroon flag and said, “Yaounde, Cameroon….” I got ready to highlight if off my list when I heard the next thing he said, “Patrick…” I dropped my highlighter and the paper mid highlight  and put my head between my knees. I thought I was going to pass out. I was able to get it together fast enough to look up and see Patrick wave his little flag at me as he walked back to his seat with a “I can’t believe this!” face.  I told him I loved him and forced a smile.  I sent out a few text messages and sat in silance as I thought about the next two years of our lives in Cameroon.

Here is what I know now:

1. We will be leaving this spring. Meaning Aydan will have her first birthday there. Which crushes me.
2. Patrick doesn’t need much more French training and our CDO told us that is why they posted us there. “I know you didn’t want to go to Africa. But we need your French in Cameroon.”
3. I’ve read some post reports and they are all positive. They say it is safe and a family friendly city.  Which makes me very happy and excited.
4. Patrick will qualify for the student loan repayment program.
5. Cameroon is beautiful with beaches, rainforests, mountains, grasslands, and deserts.
6. We’ll probably have a nice big house or duplex, perfect for visitors. Which leads us to #7.
7. Tickets from Seattle are $1700.
8. The few people I’ve talked with who have lived there really do love it.
9. We looked into flying to see our friends who are posted to Madagascar and the flight is $5,600 for one person.  We’d leave Yaounde, head to Paris, then to London, then to Johanasburg, then finally to Madagascar.  There might be more direct routes but none that we could find this morning.
10. Since this is a hardship post we will recieve priority bidding for our second tour.

 I really am getting excited about going.  At first I was worried because I knew nothing about Cameroon.  It would have been very hard had we come home and read the post reports and found that everyone hated living there.  But since that is not the case, I’m ready to start preparing our family for the big move.

 So begains our journy.