Going home on the 17th

So, just this quick post to say we're all leaving for Cameroon in two days... Yes, indeed, Aini and me are leaving too... She didn't get vaccinated yet, since that's not possible untill 6 to 9 months and you can imagine I wasn't going to wait that long to get home.
Mixed feelings accompany us on the way home. On the one hand I'm longing to get home and finish decorating our house. I've also been waiting to finally get somewhat of a fixed daily ritme with my daughter and as usual I've gotten sick and tired to pack and unpack suitcases. On the other hand, going home means Aini won't see her grantparents and aunt and uncle for a while, and a few months is a lot in babytime... Moreover leaving for home will also mean isolation and while this had never bothered me before, now it kind of scares me... nowhere to turn to when you need help, you know...
I'll put on the latest pics of Aini in the next post.

Our beautifull daughter Aini

Waiting...

Just a quickee to say that David's been back in Belgium since friday the 30th. Now we're just making the last preparations for the new addition to our little family that will be coming somewhere end of this week.
Yes it's going to be two weeks earlier, but apparently that's standard procedure witrh the pregnancy diabetes. Anyhow, I was a bit anxious and unpreparred the first weeks after I got to know it was going to be earlier, but now I just want to see that little creature. I'm getting very curious...

A picture says more than a thousand words

Let's treat you guys to some pictures my mom made during her three week stay in Cameroun.
Ons nieuw huisje in Mbongo
De rotan-man die onze meubelkes gemaakt heeft (en nog aan het maken is voor een stuk)
Onze groentewinkel in Douala
Mamie in de jungle
Ma maman Africaine à Edéa

Weer terug...

Eerstenvooral, Pieter, bedankt voor de comment, ik hoop dat alles goed gaat met de thesis, laat nog s iets weten, we zijn alvast zeer benieuwd (da's ook voor heel binnenkort, zeker).

Ben dus maar weer terug in België en heb niks kunnen posten in Cameroun.
k Zal dus nu s proberen te updaten in speedtempo.
We hebben onze eerste afrikaanse opstand meegemaakt en overleefd. We hebben daar feitelijk niet zoveel van gemerkt want het was voornamelijk in Douala en Yaoundé te doen en wij zaten toen nog in Edea. De enige ongemakken waren dat we niet konden verhuizen zoals gepland en dat het afgeraden werd van de plantage te gaan. We waren dus zo een beetje aan ons huis gekluisterd en konden niet eens inkopen gaan doen.
Wel even schrikken was het toen het consulaat van België belde om een telling te doen van de Belgen, ter voorbereiding van een eventuele evacuatie. Vooral dan toen die vrouw haar telefoontje afsloot met: bereid u voor op het ergste en het leger staat klaar in Yaounde om u te komen evacueren. We hebben dan maar wijselijk een vluchtvalieske gemaakt, maar die hebben we gelukkig niet nodig gehad.
De schermutselingen zijn dan ook na een kleine twee weken de kop ingedrukt en sindsdien is het er betrekkelijk rustig gebleven.
Eventjes in spanning geweest omdat er opnieuw rellen werden verwacht de 14e april; de dag dat ons mama toekwam, maar het is rustig gebleven.

We hebben dus onze tweede huwelijksverjaardag gevierd in Kameroen en mijne 25e verjaardag.

Uiteindelijk zijn we ook verhuisd en mijn mamaatje is gekomen om ons een beetje te helpen settelen. We hebben dan maar gans ons kot herverfd. Op de keuken, t bergkot en de logeerkamer na. Ah ja en onze badkamer is ook nog niet gedaan... Toekomstmuziek???

Maar bon, nu begin ik een beetje uitgeput te geraken van het schrijven, ik zal proberen binnenkort nog wat te komen vertellen en dan ook wat foto's te posten.

Vakantie zit erop!

Blijft toch raar om een verblijf in België vakantie te noemen. En eigenlijk hebben we ook niet echt vakantie gehad aangezien we één derde van onze tijd in 't UZ hebben gezeten. ( Heb zwangerschapsdiabetes, joepie! Al de lekkere dessertjes waar ik mij op verheugd had zijn dus ook aan mijn neus voorbijgegaan. Maar bon, voor de rest is alles tip top in orde, dus we gaan ni klagen.)
Maar bon 't zit er dus weer op. Morgenochtend vliegen we terug naar Kameroen en dan ga ik eindelijk kunnen verhuizen. Niet echt aan te raden, zo op vakantie gaan voor ge verhuist... Dan zit je eigenlijk toch maar de ganse tijd in spanning te wachten tot je terug kan vertrekken.
Zoals gewoonlijk zijn we weer gepakt en gezakt zoals een troep nomaden. Ik vraag me af of we ooit light gaan travellen. Ik vrees er een beetje voor, want de volgende keer zullen we weer vanalles voor de baby moeten meenemen en der komt dus maar geen einde aan.
Maar ik zie er dus eigenlijk wel een beetje naar uit om terug thuis te zijn, te kunnen verhuizen. Een nieuw huis in te richten (Ik heb mijn mama haar gordijnen zelfs meegepikt... zo vanuit de seventies, lekker retro). En deze keer is het eigenlijk niet voor zo lang want de 5e mei kom ik al terug en daarenboven komt mijn mama tussenin nog s drie weken op vakantie (allee, eigenlijk op werkkamp, maar dat weet ze nog niet ;p ).
En eigenlijk is de trip Brussel - Douala altijd veel leuker dan de omgekeerde weg... Laatste snuif civilisation zo een echte luchthaven en zo...
Allee, toedels dan maar...
t zal nu misschien wel voor ffkes zijn, aangezien ik niet weet wanneer we exact gaan verhuizen en hoe de internetsituatie op Mbongo zal zijn.

Some pictures we took a few weeks ago when we went on a pirogue trip in Kribi.

We saw our new house last week. I'm very pleased, because it's clean, there are no holes in the walls, no lizzards and cockroaches running around, no mold or damp and it smels like a normal house. Yes our house smells really bad lately, because it's made out of wood and with the extreme humidity it gets very moldy and therefor smelly. I'm even more eager to move now, but the house is still occupied by David's future boss. So we'll have to wait just a little longer.

Moving

So since my policy is for every comment one post, there we go...
David is kind of finished doing the biodiesel here, so we're on to another project. Starting next februari, he'll be building a new factory (in the middle of the jungle, so we're talking about starting from the ground up). This means we'll be moving to another plantation, but we're staying in Cameroon. It's actually just an hour drive from here. The fun thing about that plantation is that there are a lot more expats than here, so there's a bit motre of a social life.
If all goes well, it ll be a two year project. He's very excited, offcourse, because it's a cool thing to do, certainly at his age.
So naturally I am looking forward to moving out and we would like to move sooner if possible. I'm a bit sad that we're not moving to another country, but in the end, we're quite ok here and it spares us from the awkward 'get to know the place'-feeling. Moreover it gives us some more time to see the country, because so far we haven't been visiting a lot. Frankly, we've only seen Kribi and Douala, but there's so much more out there!

Eleanore

Ok, since I had one comment you are entitled to one anekdote.
I'm not sure if I already talked about my new Kamerounian friend. She's called Eleanore and she lives here in Edea. It s a very lively woman, full of projects, so I'm sure we'll have lots of fun in the near future. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. Since I only want to write one anekdote, let me tell you a funny one.
Last weekend, we were eating at the restaurant in Edea (delicious shrimps... we can't get enough of them) and she walked in. She saw us and came to our table to say hi. She said she was meeting her brother there, so very quickly she was of, only to steal a shrimp from our plate... and without even asking or mentioning it!
As you can believe we were astounished... so we started thinking. Eleanore is a well educated woman, so we assumed that she didn't mean to be impolite. So we figure that's a normal thing to do here.
And as we thought about it even more, we remembered one time we had made some christophines at home, and one of the camerounian managers was at our place. We asked him if he knew the vegetable, and as an answer he took our serving spoon and just ate of our dish...
But that's not all! When David was at the hospital, one day I brought him a pizza, the nurse came in and saw that pizza. 'can I taste', she said. Off course we said yes, omnly to find her walking of with a quarter of my sick husband's food.
So if you catch us eating of your plate next time... Hey! It's the camerounian way!!!

Strike

Dearest readers,

Even though there s a lot going on in our little Camerounian life, I'm not very tempted to write any more, since I hardly get any comments. You'd start to wonder why you're writing in the first place. I hope you all can understand that it's not motivating to write if you don't get any feedback. So out of protest I'm going on strike untill I get enough investment back from your side.
Sincerely
Laura

Communicating again

After a long time of non-communication, I m back. It s been a hectic few weeks. David
's been in the hospital with malaria for two days (apparently Lariam doesn't protect you all that well with these mosquitoes from hell), so I had to bring him food. As a European you cannot imagine that they don t feed you in a hospital. So when you don't have any family, you starve (and i m talking about a private clinic, not the public one!).
David has been really busy and is looking towards a really full schedule. I m keeping busy quite well these last couple of weeks, fixing up the house, sewing some clothes, occasionally spending time with Adel... I've got a new little assignment from David's boss making another movie, which I'm looking forward to. And this week I'm sending my first little package to Belgium... May the exporting commence!
Adel askt me to come to Ghana with her at the end of the month, but it's so expensive (the flights between african countries), it's almost cheaper to fly to Ghana when you fly to Europe first, can you imagine?

Onder het motto van "hou jezelf nuttig bezig" ben ik begonnen met mijn mini-export onderneminkje. Eerst wilde ik een winkeltje openen in Edea met Adel en van daaruit wat dingen exporteren, maar dat is een beetje in t water gevallen omdat dat hier veel teveel kost om dat legaal te doen. De meeste winkels hier doen alles gewoon in t zwart (hihi grappige connotaties!) en dat wordt getolereerd, maar als expat kunt ge zoiets niet maken, want dan komen ze u natuurlijk uitpersen tot ge niks meer over hebt. Dus we beperken ons tot exporteren. Ben al goed gaan onderhandelen met onze artisanat.
Eindelijk een projectje! Zelfs al heb ik mij de laatste tijd al goed kunnen bezighouden met mijn naaimachine, het gevoel van nutteloosheid blijft, dus bij deze proberen we daar verandering in te brengen.
Als er dus iemand geïnteresseerd is in Kameroenese juweeltjes, contacteer mij gerust.

Voor de rest heeft Davidje nog steeds veel werk met zijn nieuw fabriekske. Veel steken we eigenlijk niet uit wegens het regenseizoen en gebrek aan transport. Hopelijk binnenkort meer te vertellen.

I know it's been a while since I have last been able to write something and I also know I have promised to write more often... There are some decent reasons for not blogging, though. First, David has a lot of work, because they're going to build a new part on his biofactory and since he is the boss he has to plan, make budgets... So he doesn't have a lot of time to bring me over.
Secondly, the internet office is always occupied and that makes me hesitant to come over.
Third reason: it's raining most of the time and then I cannot get to this office at all.
Last reason: there's not a lot going on so not much to write about.
Indeed, we are now experiencing the rainy season. It's not as bad or depressing as we imagind. It does sometimes rain two days in a row, but in a way, the rain here doesn't suck the energy out of you as it does in Belgium. Maybe because it's still kind of sunny most of the time and the temperature is still ok.
So what have I been up to the last couple of weeks?
Not much, as I already said. But I have been able to keep busy much more constructively than before we came to Belgium. So far I have been sewing a lot. We also painted one of our bathrooms and I try to see my friend as much as possible (which, quite frankly, is not a lot).
We were talking about setting up a shop in Edea... but we're not sure. Consumerism is non existant here, so it would be a struggle just to earn someting, and then there's still bills to pay, so we're still pondering if it would be worth our while. And then there's also the transportation problem since neither of us have a car to get to Edea.
But we will find a way to keep occupied (and maybe even make some money, while we're at it).

Bye bye Belgium

Our stay in Belgium is almost over. Tomorrow we leave really early in the mornig. We have a flight at 10 am but we still have to get taxes back and so on, so we ll be at the airport way earlier.

Being back in Belgium was a lot heavier than we expected. The first two weeks we've been shopping like crazy people. I had imagined that would have been fun after such a long while without, but it's proven to be a tiresome and hectic experience. Furthermore, you have to combine the shopping with trying to see everybody (that didn't work out! three weeks in Belgium and we didn't manage to see all the people we wanted).

Luckily we went on holiday in Tunesia for a week (funny, a holdiay in a holiday), which was very relaxing, we had our spa treatments in the morning.

Since posting pictures is a lot easier here, I'll put some on of our holiday.
Nic, den dezen is speciaal voor u!


I'll try to blog more often once I'm back in Cameroun. The thing is that most of the time I'm under the impression that I don't have anything to tell, it's just life, you know. But I'll try my best to keep blogging.
Now I have to get on with making our bags!

Binnenkort naar België

We zijn in België tussen 24 juli en 16 augustus (wachten nog op bevestiging voor de vluchten). Tussenin gaan we wel nog ergens op reis, we weten nog niet zeker waar opf wanneer, meer info volgt.
Niet veel te vertellen hier, dit weekend nog s naar Kribi geweest op zondag, want het was mooi weer. We zitten nu volop in t kleine regenseizoen, maar dat valt eigenlijk nog wel goed mee. Het regent eigenlijk meestal 's nachts. Overdag natuurlijk ook soms wel, maar t is niet echt storend.
David zijn fabriekje is nu volledig operationeel, hij heeft zelfs al een aantal man personeel, dus veel werk voor hem nu.
Volgende week verblijven we even op een andere plantage, want David moet daar 't een of 't ander doen.

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...