Dec 31, 2006: "Happy Happy!" (A Xmas trip to the far north)

Good Day All,

One thing we find very interesting here are the little nuances about the wide variety of cultures here. One such thing is that Cameroonians from the NWest say "Happy Christmas" and to that you would reply "Happy Happy". We had a small gathering on Sunday 17 Dec after the kid's Christmas program at church which went fantastic. Betsy got so many compliments. The place was packed and the kids were great. We took Alfred our night man and his wife Edeline and daughter Brenda and Oliver our day man to the service and then had them over to our place after. Betsy made pizza and Brenda (age 5) and I decorated our small tree. It’s a good thing she was there to fix all my mistakes. We had a few small gifts for them and they were very happy. We borrowed the video projector from school and put in The Wizard of Oz for them all. Edeline was on the edge of her seat the whole time. They don't get too many film opportunities in the village.

We had a great time up in the far north. We left on Wed 20 Dec on the train and were fortunate enough to have a Cameroonian man who works for the school go down and reserve a spot and pick up tickets for us or we would have been miserable. There were about 500 people trying to get on this train and pushing and shoving each other to get reserved seats. We got a cabin with 2 beds which was not too good but considering the alternative it was great. Once they opened the doors for boarding it was mayhem. People getting trampled and shoved and pushed around trying to get on and get a seat because there were about 200 more people with tickets than seats. There were people everywhere. The restaurant car had at least 150 people crammed in every inch. I had to step over families lying on the floors in the pathways and Army guys with machine guns passed out in the walkway between the cars. I think it is written somewhere that one shall not wake up a tired crabby man with an automatic rifle no matter how bad you have to use the bathroom. We had stopped about 3 hours from Ngoundere and we got a knock on the door. It was a security guy telling us that “the machine is spoiled”. We translated that into the train engine crapped out. 6 hours later they got another engine that pushed us the rest of the way. Instead of getting into town at 0930 we get in about 330 pm which is too late to catch the last bus to Maroua that would get us in before dark. We are strongly recommended not to take bush taxis after dark because of thieves and crazy drivers. We ended up meeting a woman from Italy on the train who incidentally didn’t speak French either and we decided to go to Garoua instead which is about half way to Maroua. 31 people crammed into a large van with room for about 20 comfortably. We got in about 900 and found a taxi that took us to a Catholic mission where we got a room. Our cell phone had quit working somewhere along the way so we were about 10 French lessons short of getting anyone to help us out. We made it back to the bus stop and almost 5 hours, 3 crying babies, 8 million potholes and 4 crossword puzzles later rolled into Maroua where a missionary family met us and took us up to the Smith’s. They were hosting all the families from the area for an English (British) Christmas party. The Smiths are from England working as translators and running a Christian organization there. Jacob is a 9th grader and is in Betsy's IGCSE History class. He got to pick any teacher to invite and he picked her so I get to go as default.

They have 3 boys and live in a small village about 5 off-road vehicle miles from a paved road. They cook outside with kerosene and use solar power for electricity. The sun heats jugs of water for baths and they have drop toilets. Tony designed and built their little compound about 10 years ago when they arrived and has become a much respected man in the village. The people are called Muyang and are one of about 6 different language groups in an area of about 50 square miles. If you walk in any direction for 2 miles the people are speaking a whole other language. I was told that about 200 years ago the Fulani people from Chad and Niger and Sudan worked their way down to this area and gave the all the tribes 2 choices. 1 – become Muslim 2 – Die. Some converted, some fought and lost but most of the tribes moved up into the mountains where the nomadic herdsmen Fulani would not follow and they didn’t. The area is very dry most of the year and water is scarce so I couldn’t imagine how they managed collecting water up there in the dry season but they did. Anyway, about 50 years ago when Cameroon got independence and cleaned things up a little they started moving back down onto the flats to their old lands. Inevitably, tensions arose and there are still problems today but for the most part people leave each other alone. Its interesting driving through there villages seeing 2 small settlements right next to each other where one is Christian and the other Islam. And they don’t even speak anything close to the same language. I couldn’t even begin to try to understand all the politics. Anyway, we went to Waza Park on the 23rd for a little safari. We saw tons of giraffes and millions of birds. There were warthogs, ostriches, antelope, gazelles and some weird really fast monkeys. We drove around for a long time looking for the elephants but they were hiding somewhere. Our guide and I went off into the bush to look for sign and found beds and tracks and a line of trampled brush that a blind man could follow but no elephants. He knew some French but “watch out for snakes” is easily translated into English. We got back to the house and had a very nice dinner. The Smith’s play a lot of games and spend a lot of time in the Bible and we loved every minute of it. On Christmas day we went to a service in the village and even prepared a song to sing with Jacob (9th grader at RFIS) on trumpet. The service is kind of off the cuff and was good even though everything was in Muyang. After lunch we went back down to see the party with dancing and drumming. We took some pictures and soon all the kids started following Betsy around trying to get in the pictures. I decided to have some fun and found 3 rocks and started juggling for them. Within 1 minute I had at least 250 kids circled up around me watching. I am not an expert juggler and really only have one trick and they could have done it all day long. We said goodbye and headed back up to the house and soon realized that they were all coming with us. Tony said “you got ‘em, they’re yours now”. They eventually lost interest and headed back to the party. We got a ride from the Smiths all the way down to Garoua on Wed 28 Dec and took a bush taxi back to Ngoundere where we would catch the train the next day. We got a taxi right away which isn’t hard to do when you stick out like a corn stalk in a bean field. In our best French we asked to go to the Lutheran Mission where we had an American guy waiting for us. It’s well after dark and there are no lights so he drops us off and leaves and the guard confirmed we were at the right place. The first red flag was the nun that took us to our room. The second was the picture of Mother Mary on the wall in our room. Since our phone was dead we couldn’t call the guy. After breakfast in the morning we managed to relay our predicament to the nun and she drove me over to the other place where I got everything straightened out. After 2 breath-taking rides on motorcycle taxis, I had train tickets in hand and got back just in time for lunch. We got home Fri morn and invited Barbara (the Italian from the train – we met her again on the return) to stay over and we sent her to the train station this afternoon. She is the most energetic person I have ever met. She teaches Art History in Rome and every Dec for the last 10 years has toured a different part of Africa by herself. She has just a backpack and sleeping bag and makes it up as she goes. She wants us to go to Rome and visit. Her family owns a pretty successful restaurant there. So, our Christmas was certainly the most interesting we have ever had. School starts again on Jan 8 so we are just hanging around and might go to the beach in Kribi again next week with some other teachers.

We want to thank everybody for your thoughts and prayers as we finish the last half of our first year. We are trying to arrange speaking engagements for next summer so we can raise the remainder of our support. We would very much like to be able to come back next year but it will take a lot of financial support and God's will for that to happen. Trying to raise support from here is very difficult so we will definitely be coming back home in June.

We also would like to send out a reminder to those who pledged support but have not yet sent in your pledge. There are quite a few who are behind and we respectfully request that you send it in so we can see how we sit as far as our budget goes. We appreciate all that everybody has done for us and wish you all a Happy New Year!

Brian & Betsy