Shopping Anyone?

If you need a new lounge chair or sofa all you have to do is go to the furniture area of town. These shots happen to be in Duoala, but it is the same here in Yaounde. All of the furniture is made on the side of the road and then sold in the same spot. It just gets covered with plastic sheet at night and when it rains. The left shot is of wagons full of flip-flops, which are called slippers here, jelly shoes, and those plastic shoes that were popular in Colorado over the summer (the name escapes me right now). If you get thirsty while perusing the plastic junk, I mean shoes, you can get a drink from a Nescafe cart (instant coffee). Definitely not Starbucks, uhhhh, just typing it made my mouth water!

Class Shot

This is my class with the owner, Cletus. The colorful mats are actually the place mats they got to take with them after the demonstration. It was 1,000 cfa per mat, about $2.00 each. Some of the kids brought extra money and got their Mom's Women's Day Gifts. I got myself some shoes and now know where to got to get some more things!

Dye Job

The raffia is put into the metal bucket with boiling water and the natural dye. They let it boil for 15 minutes, remove it, and then let it dry for several hours. To dry it is hung on the railing. To the left of the garbage pile is the "shop" where they weave and sell the raffia items. The little boys in the shot are students of mine.

Raffia Field Trip

In February I went with my class to a local shop to see how raffia is used to create things like shoes, place mats, purses, bags, and lampshades. It was led by the man in the shot and he owns the "shop". They first showed us the raffia plant and how they strip it to make the raw raffia. It is then dried for a few hours and dyed different colors--natural dyes from other plants. The shot on the left shows how they set the loom up to begin with and the shot on the right is the actual loom. It can be adjusted to different sizes in length, but not necessarily different shapes.

Yummy!

On Saturday we got a treat. Our friend, Izumi, made us some home-made food from her home country of Japan. Her special assistant, Meredith, helped to make the food too. It was a nice time and delicious too!

Happy Birthday Rich!

This is the hotel in Limbe

Here in Cameroon it is a national holiday on March 8th, which happens to be my brother, Rich's birthday. All the women get outfits made with the material my skirt is made out of. It is International Women's Day. The three colors of the same pattern are pink, yellow, or green. On my skirt (I will get a close up sometime) are different phrases and pictures in English and French, about how women should be celebrated and for what. We got to see all kinds of celebrating on the way back from Limbe. We even got in a traffic jam as they close the roads to have parades. It is all they talk about on the radio and in the newspaper. The compound next to us had singing and dancing. It is very neat to see.

Happy Birthday Rich! You are in our thoughts daily! Love, Theresa and Peter

AHHHHH the Beach!

After another tortuous van ride, we made it to Limbe. We got to go back to the Hot Spot with our friends. They loved it, as they should, and we went back the second night. YUMMY!!!! This time though, there was much haze and we couldn't see out as far. I had a nice birthday with them and got lots of nice gifts before we left. THANKS!

Van ride out

We left on Tuesday morning and we all fit into the van this time--the guide and porters too. As we headed back to town the workers for the palm oil plants were walking to work, with their long sticks with scythes at the end. Pete and I were crammed in the front seat with the driver and all the windows were open, we were going slow because of the condition of the road. Inevitably, wherever we go, someone shouts, "hey white man!" at Pete. This time I shouted back, "and women too!". The Cameroonians all laughed.

Supsension Bridge

We had to cross a much smaller, but more wiggly bridge inside the park.

This is Marianne, go! go! go!

Tough Guys

Pete and Harry are taking a breather and another "Big Boulder". This time it was an area where the elusive Rock Fowl was rumored to nest. Alas, all we saw was the nest, not the bird, some of its scat, and a feather. We don't know if the feather was legit, or a plant to make us feel better about not seeing the actual bird. Pete's shirt is not tye-dyed, we just sweat that much. We hiked all day on the second day in and were pretty tired.
The right shot is another termite tower--you can see other ones next to it that had toppled over.

More trees...

OOOPPPSSS! The one on the left is upside down. Just more shots of the awe-inspiring trees.

Pit Stop

We took breaks throughout the days and had some snacks. We did not eat any of the many types of fungi we say. The right shot is of a log on the forest floor with pretty mushrooms on it.

Day 2

We are off again. In the left shot you can see Meredith with big purple socks up and over her pants. We all did that beacuse the ants crawl quickly up your legs and BITE! Also in that shot are Harry, Izumi, and Marianne, with Peter.

By water? By air?

Meredith is rinsing her feet off in a little pool. The hard thing was to decide whether to do it or not. We did not have to pack in a lot of water because there were several sources throughout the trip, so we could just filter it. We were so hot and sweaty we just wanted to jump in. However, all the books say not too because of all the parasites in slow moving water. Pete and Marianne just got right in and the rest of us just splashed ourselves to rinse off. On the first day at about 4:00 we hiked up to an opening in the canopy and got a view of the rainforest from up above. Unfortunately, we only saw one bird and heard monkeys from a distance.

Collossal

The left shot is of a giant tree root . The trunk of the tree goes off towards the right. I hope you can see the giant spider web that's illuminated by the sun--a little off from the center/right. We stopped for a break at a spot aptly named "Big Boulder". It was cool to see these giant boulders in the middle of the rainforest, with things growing out of them.

Trees

I know that these shots are very dark. However, I hope that you can see the size of the trees we were going past. It is two views of the same tree. Pete is standing near the base. The tree's edge is where he is standing, but I couldn't get all of it into the shot. We tried to be quiet as we trekked through, but there are so many leaves on the ground that we were all really loud anyways.

Crazy Trees

Both of these shots are upside down. Sorry! The one on the left grows sharp, hard spike to keep it protected from animals rubbing it and knocking it over or from eating it. After it gets to a certain size, it stops growing them. The right shot is of a tree that flowers on its trunk.

The hike was easy going compared to Mount Cameroon, but we sweated just as much due to the humidity. Surprisingly the bugs weren't that bad and we just got bit up at dusk. We camped in mosquito-netted cabins with wood bunk beds. It was so hot we all just slept on our mats.

Onward....

Pete went right after the guide and I was next. Along on our trip were also Meredith, Marianne, Izumi, and Harry. The shot on the right is of a termite tower. They make them out of mud and are as hard as cement. They reminded me of smurf villages or fairy huts.

Korup entrance

When we arrived at the park entrance on Sunday, we had to cross this supspension bridge. We climbed the tower and then across what would be a raging river during the rainy season. Since the roads are impassible at that time of year, we had to come now, at the end of the dry season to get there. The right shot is of Pete and I with our guide, Joseph. The unfortunate thing about the whole trip was that because it had been dry for so long, almost all of the wildlife was gone to other water sources and all we saw were butterflies, fungi, and then heard monkeys and birds.

On the way up to Korup

The left shot is of typical houses here. They are made of wood or mud and have tin roofs. You can see all the trash in the front. The houses are so dirty becasue there is so much dirt kicked up by cars on the unpaved roads. The right shot is of a bar. You can tell because the only decoration is that of alcohol advertisements. These shot are of the typical things we saw on our way to Korup National Forest. It is the oldest rainforest in Africa, 60 million years old. It is still preserved because it is so hard to get there. We drove for 11 hours on Saturday. On what was paved roads, at one time, but now is really just pot hole next to pot hole, just awful. Our driver, Eric, did a great job, but was barely able to get out of second gear (you don't think I know what that means, but you're wrong, it means that he was jerking to a stop every three seconds) for about 5 of the 11 hours. Each time we stopped for directions, as there are no road maps here and don't even think about maps.com, we were told a longer and longer amount of time. We finally arrived in Mundemba at about 6:oo pm and checked into our hotel. Relaxing right? Nope. No water or electricity and the only food avaiable was chicken and plantains stew- not anything I can stomach, so we made do with a warm beer and snacks we brought along. We spent a sweltering night in "the best" hotle in town and got a bucket of water to bathe with, utter luxury.