Day 1 – And were off!
Friday, January 20, 2012
Today we had a very early start; we woke up at about 4:15 and were headed down to the bus station. We arrived at the bus station half awake; we saw a big bus running so we asked the driver where it was going he replied “Yaounde” so we got on it. I had a feeling we weren’t on the right bus, come to find out…we were on the WRONG bus, we got off and got on the right bus with our big bags on our laps. When we left for Yaounde we had 30 people on a 20-person bus, gotta love public transport in Africa.
On our way to Yaounde we had several good laughs. Mary sleeping on some RANDOM guys shoulder, Mary, Tabby and Sarah trying Kola nut for the first time, which let me tell you, I wouldn’t advice anyone to try it, it is nasty, tastes like dirt or maybe even worse and then best of all, the 3 white girls using the bathroom along side the road. Just as I was finishing up the bus horn started honking, so I was running back to the bus while pulling up my pants.
We finally arrived in Yaounde after 5 hours of being CRAMPED and uncomfortable. Thankfully when we got to Yaounde one of the guys we met on the bus was also headed to the train station, so he took us there. We got our tickets no problem and then headed to the hotel. Lewis took us there as well, and we said our goodbyes, exchanged emails and went our separate ways.The hotel didn’t have our name, so we sat around for a bit, then we were finally able to get into our room. The SIL Bible Translator compound was like a safe haven, everyone there spoke English and it was all fenced it; I felt SAFE and didn’t want to leave.
The hotel was very nice, and we felt comfortable there, it even had a kitchen. We explored a little but after all it’s very difficult when you don’t speak any English. We crashed at about 8 pm, traveling is exhausting.
Exhausted after Day 1 of traveling!
Hmm, didn't realize that people stood on the toilet seat to use the restroom.
Day 2 – Beautiful People
Sabbath, January 21, 2012
Bon Sabbat. This morning we decided it would be a great idea to go to church in Yaounde, I wasn’t too keen on the idea, but I was against it either. We told a taxi to take us to an Adventist church, so that’s what he did. At first we weren’t sure if we were at a church or at a school, but since we heard music we figured there had to be a church someplace. We found the church and were more than welcomed. They even had an English Sabbath School class just for us girls.Mary, Tabby and I did a special music for church, we sang “All Things Bright and Beautiful”, when we finished they were all so thankful to have us sing for them and they made us feel super WELCOMED. When the sermon began they even had someone translating for us. The service was absolutely amazing, the music was beautiful, the people were beautiful, and the whole experience was so wonderful. We talked to several people when the service was finished; we exchanged emails and had a very pleasant time. One family invited us over for lunch, but we couldn’t make it because we had to get back to take the train in the evening.
We all napped and then headed for the train station. On our way to the station just as we were leaving the SIL compound we met a white lady who was headed into town and was more than WILLING to take us to the train station. So we piled in and headed to the station; she was kind of a scary driver, but everyone here is.
It took us a little while to get to the station because there was an accident that caused a lot of TRAFFIC! We felt pressed for time, but we soon realized it was hurry up and wait. We finally arrived. Got our tickets and boarded the train. It was so EXCITING at first.
We got situated on the train; even though we weren’t in our correct seats we figured people would switch with us. They did. We sat on the train for about 1 hour and then Mary and I decided to go out an EXPLORE. We spent a ton of money and got a bunch of junk food, remind us NEVER to go out again.
The train finally left at about 6:15, basically on time, which is a surprise to me because after all TIA. When we first started moving it was awesome and we were all super stoked to be heading to the north. On the train ride up, we started slowing down and we soon realized that there were tons of people outside of the train selling all kinds of food and tons of fruit. We thought it was the coolest thing in the world. We bought bananas, pears, and other random things that we wanted to try that were wrapped in banana leaves, but we soon found out that most of those had FISH or MEAT because of the communication barrier it was hard to ask that.
Throughout the train ride to the north we had some really good laughs. It was great for the first couple hours, but it got kind of old after awhile. It was then time to try and sleep so we all tried to get as comfortable as possible even though it was UNCOMFORTABLE to sleep.
Day 3 – Thieves and Fake ID’s!!!
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Well, didn’t get much sleep last night because I was awakened at 2 am in the morning to people selling things along side the train, but also the fact that I was EXTREMELY uncomfortable didn’t help at all. We ate and just a couple hours before arriving in Ngaoundere we discovered that Sarah’s bag was missing. We looked all over the place trying not to FREAK out; we attempted asking someone, but no luck, that was useless. Mary and Tabby then start going through their bags and find out that Tabby’s little bag that was in her backpack was stolen along with Mary’s camera that was in her backpack as well. We all took a moment to pray about it. We made some phone calls. What a GREAT way to start the morning!We arrived in Ngaoundere, with two people missing identification that is NECESSARY to get around in Cameroon and we had no idea what to HECK to do now. We got a hold of someone who lived in Ngaoundere and they met us at the train station. They took us to an Internet café to print off a copy of the girls Visa and Passport, but no luck, the Internet was all done! So we got the BRILLIANT…idea to use someone else’s copy of their Passport and Visa. We got them and headed to catch a bus to Mokolo.
We got to the bus station and immediately someone took Sarah’s bag of clothes, she went and got it back from him. It was so CHOATIC, people were yelling and pushing and it was so overwhelming, especially since they all spoke FRENCH! We went to Mokolo Express, bought a ticket and waited for about 5 minutes then loaded on the bus. It was perfect timing.
We were on our way to Mokolo, FINALLY! However, we weren’t there yet and we still hadn’t tried out the new passports yet. When we got to our first checkpoint, they took the passports, looked at them and then took them back to one other POLICE to look at it, came back and said “Bon Voyage”. We made it past the first one, but barely...
On our way Mary and I talked with some guy sitting next to us, or at least we ATTEMPTED to. We learned quite a bit while talking with him, it was entertaining to say the least.
We made several stops along the way to either let people off or to let the Muslims PRAY. There were a ton of Muslims in the North, I was amazed by how many there were. We got stopped THREE times by the police and one time they told us to get OFF the bus. As we started to get off everyone on the bus told us to STAY. The guy was super grumpy and so he took “our” passports and took them back to the 5 other police. They brought it back, gave it back to us and said “Bon Voyage” we replied, we will greet YOUR PEOPLE in Koza. FIVE people looked at the fake ID’s with expired Visas, but said nothing, SOMEONE was watching over us.
We arrived in Garoua, but still had a lot of traveling left. While we were stopped in Garoua there were a ton of people coming to the window selling things. We bought one thing that was actually pretty good; I think it was a fried cocoyam. The cutest little boy was trying to sell us plastic bags filled with juice that he had made. We kept telling him “No merci”. He would just stand there and smile at us with his ADORABLE smile. He walked to the other side of the bus, where some JERK pushed him and he fell into the gutter and let me tell you these gutters are NOT small! The poor thing was crying, so we decided to buy the juice from him. We gave him 100 francs thinking we would get 1 or 2, we got FOUR so lucky for us we all got one…not! When we bought them from him, his face LITE up! It was so cute! We drank our juice, however Mary and I didn’t finish ours all the way because there were BLACK-floating things in the bag. This could end very badly!
We finally left and were on our way to Maroua, I think we may have been stopped once more with no problems. The last three – four hours went by SOOOOO slow! We dropped people off wherever they wanted to be dropped on the way and we were super worried about having to show our IDs. We bought sesame patties along the whole way because we were so hungry.
We finally made it, at least to Mokolo! Our new name for Mokolo Express is Pokolo Express, because it took FOREVER! We were all so thirsty from not drinking water because we didn’t want to have to use the restroom along the way. We were all so thankful to see Spencer. We got on the motos at 10:00pm and headed for our 1 hour MOTO ride to Koza. The breeze felt so nice, and the moto ride was a good CHANGE.
We finally arrived in Koza and we were so THANKFUL to be there, it was a long trip!
Our new home for the next week! This is Spencer's house in Koza, it was beautiful!
Day 4 – Tour of the Hospital
Monday, January 23, 2012
Nothing to exciting happened today, we were all EXHAUSTED from traveling! We took a tour around the Adventist Hospital in Koza. The hospital is HUGE compared to the hospital in Buea. It was really neat being able to see it. We had the opportunity to met Spencer’s colleagues and see some of the things that Spencer was working on. The hospital has an Urgent Care unit, a Maternity ward, a Pediatrics ward, two surgery rooms, pharmacy and an X-ray room. It is a full functioning hospital with currently two doctors from Congo. In a couple day they are going to be doing a hysterectomy on someone who has had way too many kids.After the tour of the hospital and meeting tons of people we headed back to the house. Spencer fixed a crutch for a family, however they were UNABLE to buy it because it was too expensive and they couldn’t afford it.
When we got back we ate some pasta with tomato PEANUT sauce, surprising it was super good, I was very impressed by Spencer’s cook; he made some really delicious food.
We took the rest of the day easy, played some Dutch Blitz, hung out and called it a night.
Day 5 – Tribal Songs
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Today we went to Maroua to check out the hotel with animals. The only way to get in and out of Koza is by moto, so we got some motos and headed for Maroua about 2 hours away. When we arrived in Maroua, we found some motos that would take us to the HOTEL. Mary and I got one and Tabby and Sarah on the other and Spencer on his own. Mary and I soon disappeared from the rest of the group; they could no LONGER see us in front of them. We had no idea where we were going let alone the name of the hotel. LUCKILY we arrived at the hotel with the others to arrive a few minutes behind us.The hotel had a tortoise, monkeys, peacocks, ducks and two ostriches. One of them was really nice and we were even able to touch it while the other one was super mean! The one ostrich got mad and was kicking the fence and rammed into the fence trying to ATTACK the “owner”. All of the people at the hotel were very nice and extremely welcoming. The main guy was calling peacocks for us and he even CHASED after the ostrich with a stick.
When we finished we returned to the tortoise and we were looking at it and taking pictures when one of the guys just comes over and stands on it! We then all wanted to stand on it and pick it up. We all took a turn, we STOOD on it, picked is up, RODE it, it was great fun! Poor thing probably hated us!As we left the hotel, there were two motos that had come, so we asked to have them take us back into town. After being observed by the moto driver, Sarah, Tabby and I all got on one moto. They didn’t know where we wanted to go so we went to the Artesian market.
We ate lunch at some little street vendor then went to the bakery and got some pastries. We used the restroom in the back of the bakery, it was quite disgusting, but at least it was a “TOILET” or a private hole in the ground.
We got some refreshments then headed back to Koza. We grabbed some bread in Mokolo then rode back to Koza. The ride back to Koza was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! It went really fast, we were going soooo fast. It was a great ride, we saw people playing volleyball, the sunset of the Koza valley was STUNNING, and our moto driver was singing tribal songs the whole way back!We went to a little concrete building to get some tea, all of us girls thought it was a bar when we came to it, but when we went in there was a little table with cups sitting there. The cups were kinda DIRTY, but you definitely get used to that when living in Africa. Surprisingly the tea was super good; but anything with lots of SUGAR is good!
Today was a good day, it was neat being able to go to Maroua, and the sunset this evening was just spectacular!
Day 6 – Barefoot in the Operating Room? and COOKING with Zara
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Today we went to the Hospital to see a surgery. Began the day with eating bean benye from the ladies pictured to the right. I wasn’t feeling so hot, I felt very nauseated this morning, so I decided to head back to the house. I napped for awhile and then decided to try and go back to the hospital with Lauren.We “scrubbed” in and went into the surgery room. I wore a cloth around my face as a mask, a hat and then since there were no more shoes left, I went into the operating room BAREFOOT.
After a while I was getting tired of standing, so I went and sat on the counter next to Lauren. As we were sitting there, we were observing, the nurse was picking out FUZZ balls from the patients hair. Once they finished taking the uterus out of the patient they laid it on the table, so we all went over to observe it and the surgeon kept playing with it, poking it and touching it, it was quite gross, especially when it would stick to his finger.
This evening we went to Zara’s house to learn how to cook AFRICAN food. We helped prepare the meal, while the GOATS ate what we didn’t need to cook. Zara’s son Audrey was the most ADORABLE thing ever, we played with him, did gymnastics, threw him in the air, it was lots of fun together with him. Zara was a kick in the pants, she demonstrated to us, how an American WALKS (fast) compared to how a Cameroonian walks (s…l….o…w…), we all laughed extremely hard. We helped her with the grinding of the garlic and the mashing of the cous cous. Her and her daughter did the rest, and it was then time to eat.
We all sat down on the mat, washed out hands in some water, and then Zara brought out some HAND SANITIZER, I was so surprised. However, it was nice to have because we were eating with our hands. Which BY THE WAY is my new favorite way to eat, SORRY MOM. Zara sang a song to bless the meal and we dug in. The food was amazing; it was cous cous and some African peanut sauce with vegetables. We then ate squash with peanut paste and sugar in it, it too was good, and I was stuffed to the brim!We sat around with everyone, Jumaka (one of Spencer’s friends, now ours as well!) and Zara taught us some French. Jumaka speaks English, however Zara doesn’t, but it was such a WONDERFUL evening, filled with laughing and great people. Zara then walked us home and we called it a night.
Barefoot in the operating room...check!
The surgeons/physician assistant doing an hysterectomy.
I love this little guy, he is so cute!
All of us sitting around the food ready to dig in with our HANDS! It was amazing!
Day 7 – Visiting the Chief of Bardom
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Today we went out to a little VILLAGE about an hour moto ride from Koza. We left thinking it would be further away, but it wasn’t as far as we thought. The village was closer than we thought, however it was a long moto ride due to the terrain. Mary and I picked the WRONG moto or we are too fat, because the first big hill we came to, well we couldn’t make it up it. Mary and I got off and ran up the hill. Mary and I made sport all morning long, we had to get off the moto at least THREE times on the way out to the village; it was definitely a good laugh!We had to walk a little ways to the village, when we arrived we sat and had everyone translating, Spencer translated English to French and Vambi translated French to Mafa, the local dialect. We gave the Chief Top, his EIGHT wives maggi and TWENTY-EIGHT kids bon bons. We started to walk around the village, us girls tried to balance the clay pots on our heads, the women in the village got a good LAUGH from that.
The men were bringing a goat to the house, and we all thought they were going to kill it and cook it for us right then and there; instead, they gave it to Spencer as a GIFT. This is not just a small gift; the goat was a huge gift for them to give to us. It was an amazing experience! We walked around the village, seeing where they made their beer, where the women cooked, where the wives lived, and got to experience a little bit of the African CULTURE.
Before leaving, Spencer danced with two guys who were super drunk at about 11 in the morning, everyone got another good laugh and then we headed back to the motos. When we got back there was no goat, but we met them further down. They tied up the goat and put it in Spencer’s lap.On our way back to Koza we stopped at a little village that was making clay pots. It was so sad, all of the kids had catarrh (basically a runny nose), they had distended stomachs, one boy had one leg shorter than the other, but yet these kids were so HAPPY. It was just heartbreaking to see them, but I think we made their day. The ride down from the village was extremely TREACHEROUS, but we all made it back safely.
This evening Pier came and made some bwe in the kitchen and he wanted all of us to try it. I was the last to come into the kitchen, but he very quickly got me a bowl and put some bwe in it. Good thing he only gave me a little bit because it wasn’t very good. He then started eating off of the spoon that he served me with, Sarah finished hers, so he gave her some more, with the same spoon, I started laughing super hard, but only to have him put more in my bowl with the SAME spoon he had been eating off of. Gotta love Africa. I gagged it down.
Once Pier finished his bowl of bwe, but practically licking he clean, he helped Hache finish the egg salad and bowl of onions. Pier wasn’t going to let anything go to waste!
What a great day! We had some GREAT laughs and really good times together! I love it here!
Spencer getting his new goat from the "Chef" in French.
Vambi with our goat "Mazda" or something like that in French means black, so he got the name Madza.
