Busy (for once)

This will be a real quick message, because I'm really busy. David is ready to start working with Emanuelle tomorrow, so, I had to help him out the last couple of days. Therefor we haven't been online a lot lately.
And even now, I've got so much to do in very little time that I will make this rather short.

This weekend we finally went to the Hotel Sanaga here in Edea. It's about the only hotel in the region. What's really interesting to us is that they have a restaurant and a club with a swimming pool and squash and tennis field... So we went swimming and afterwards we had the most wonderful roasted shrimp ever! We went there with Cédric, who is also a colleague of David.

The garden at David's factory is slowly becoming something more than just a wide space of earth and dirtyness... Some of the managers have already said they like it. We're really starting a beautifying offensive... Next up is David's office space and the factory itself.

Happy housewife

At the risk of upsetting a few feminists, I hereby declare that I am completely and utterly happy because I have finally managed to put new lining paper in my kitchen cupboards. You cannot imagine what a relief!!! Before they were lined with just ugly and dirty wallpaper... Not very hygienic.
I think I must have done about seven stores to find lining paper though. Well, I've been looking for it for more then two months now.

And I must also add that I am quite happy with the programming on sattelite television. (FIY we've got canal Sat) I didn't quite like the fact that everything is dubbed in French, but it is true that you do get used to it. And there's always a good movie on, at any time of the day. And we can still follow most of the shows we were watching in Belgium (exept for Cold Case).
It did get quite annoying during French presidential elections though!

Info on Douala

We've been to Douala again this weekend. It's funny how we discover new things everytime. This time we even went to the fruit and vegetable market. Normaly this is not really a recomended tourist visit, but we found it to be really nice. The people were maybe a little more annoying than at other shops or markets, but it was quite enjoyable and we got to buy a lot of fruit & veg very cheap.
On the way home, I saw a stall selling crocodiles. They were alive, hanging by their tails on a shabby stall. Trying to get away offcourse and squirming. It's kind of painfull to see, because they're babycrocodiles, they're so tiny...

Some info on Douala:
At first glance it isn't such a nice city. It doesn't even seem like a city, because houses rarely surpass one floor, most of them are just shacks really. There isn't a real touristical appeal at all. You can't walk around, you have to drive, but for that you need a driver. (White people aren't recommended to drive there). You can imagine the traffic. And they don't really have regulations or anything, accept maybe survival of the fittest. Red lights are only there to decorate the road and next to that, there are pedestrians everywhere.
As I mentioned, no touristical appeal whatsoever. There's just one little market where they sell art and flowers, but apperently these things are better in other places of the country.
Hotels are really expensive in Douala (the same for Yaounde). There are of course some less expensive ones, but they're really bad, so it's not very enjoyable to stay there.

We had our first encounter with a real living snake yesterday. It was crawling just a few meters from our house so we didn't want to go out any more.

Weekend at Kribi

Barbecue man at the fish market. Best fish ever!
We went to see Jean-Marie's footbball match. (Jean Marie is the tall white guy, Etienne- middle- is also a colleague of David and had to play referee)
The falls of the Lobe river into the ocean

Even though we had been trying to get to Kribi for my birthday, it kind of happened out of the blue, when Friday night; we got a message from Jean-Marie saying he had a football game on Saturday and that they could come by to pick us up. We were very exited, because we had a 4 day weekend with the 1st of May.
We changed hotels after the first day, because even though the first hotel was really cheap (10 000 CFA, which is about 15 euros a night), the rooms smelled of damp and the toilet didn’t even have a seat and there was no hot water. Nevertheless, the terras at that hotel was really beautiful, but the lack of service made it again kind of annoying.
On Saturday, we went to eat fish at the marina. The fishermen come with their small boats and deliver and you can choose what you want. Then there are some women with a barbecue who grill it for you. It was the most wonderful fish I ever had in my life. Especially the barracuda and the rouget (I don’t know what it is called in English, it’s quite a small reddish fish) were delicious.
Our stay was kind of a feast, food wise, we had crab and shrimp, the latter we ate shell and all. Might seem weird, but most of the flavour is in the shell and it gets really soft when cooked. I even had crocodile and porcupine (which is really superbe). And we had the Mbongo, which is a local sauce. It’s black and full of flavour. Next time we get to Kribi, I’ll ask the lady from the African restaurant to give me some lessons.

When we went to the Lobe falls wefound a magnificent beach where the water was really calm and clear. Hardly any people around!!! Superbe.
I finally got a little bit of a tan. Can you imagine it takes me two months to get a tan. We can't go out at the plantation because of the insects. But in Kribi there aren't a lot of them, so...