05 December 2008

goodby cameroon

The time has come to make our bags. We’ll be going on holiday on the 15th of december and this time, we won’t be coming back. About a month ago, I said to David: ‘we’ve told too many people we’ll be in Cameroun for another two years, something’s bound to go wrong.’ At that time I was actually joking... But I was right.
At the general assembly, the project David was working on was disapproved, so we have to be moved. We don’t know where we’re going though. Three options: Liberia, Ivory Coast, or Brussels the time they decide where to put us. The latter would kind of fit into our schedule, because we were planning on buying a house, and that would give us some more time to get that sorted out.
So yet again, I have been taking pictures of our house when we’ve already started packing for a move.
Apparently nine months is about the maximum amount of time we can spend in one house... You would begin to wonder why I even bother to redo the painting and stuff... (anyhow, otherwise I would be miserable for nine months). I’m happy that I never got to hemming my curtains, that would have been in vain... Maybe in the next place I’ll have hemmed curtains... who knows.
All things together, I am happy to leave Cameroun. More so because I know that no matter where we’re going next, it can’t be worse than this. (I had been scared for a while that they’d just migrate us to another plantation in Cameroun, since there was talk of starting the build of the factory anyway in nine months – there you have the nine months again, but luckily that’s out of the question.)
With leaving does comes a little bit of regret. I’m regretting that we didn’t see more of the country, eventhough we’ve been here for almost two years (but that’s not so bad, seeing as there’s not much out there and there’s certainly not the infrastructure to accomodate tourists), regret of not having bought those nice drawings fromn the art school at the exposition last christmas (at that time I was thinking we were going to visit the artschool later on and we’d have more choice than...). This will be a lesson for the future: next time I really like something, I buy it at the spot... We have to really learn to lilve in the moment, because the future is uncertain.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous12:11 PM

    Lauke,
    Although relieved I think you must be sad in some way.After 2 years in a country you've made friends, find your way around and now you leave this country and you will start again in another country. You'll find out that wherever you go you'll leave a little piece of your heart and you certainly will keep the good memories.Lots of success.
    Anyhow, this give me the opportunity of yet visit another african county.

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