2009 is flying by!

It's already close to spring and I'm finally getting my first blog of the year posted!

We haven't had a lot of picture-worthy events, but got a lot done - wedding thank-yous finished by mid-February - yay! Ed and I have been watching Babylon 5 (one of his favorite shows ever) on DVD - we're in the middle of season 4 (out of 5). :)

We've enjoyed seeing some live shows as well - Ed and I went to Stomp! in January, and the Cirque de Soleil show Kooza for Valentine's Day. I went to the Alvin Ailey 50th anniversary show on a girls' night out. Speaking of Valentine's - we had a very fun, busy day. We started out driving up to the mountains of north Georgia to help some friends move furniture out of their flooded basement so that it could be dried professionally. Since we were close to Amicalola State Park, we decided to climb to the top of the falls - only neither of us realized it was 600 stairs!! Here we are at a rest stop half way up.

Then we high-tailed it back to Atlanta for Kooza....
And then had a raclette dinner with some friends from work! A very fun day!!

Ed played mixed doubles tennis with his mixed doubles team that he has been playing with for several years - most Sunday afternoons, I would hang out with the tennis team and root for Ed.

With my tennis star after another victory. :)

We have finally gotten the work on on our kitchen remodel started! The first step was the steel beam to support our second floor so we could take the load-bearing studs out and open up the space. Here are all the supports going up to support the new joists - looks like we're building more walls!

Here comes the steel beam!

And being hoisted into place!

There's the steel beam in place now! More kitchen progress pics to come. :)

The last weekend of February, Ed and I drove down to Grayton Beach, FL for the Seaside Half-Marathon. My medical school roommate, Hilary Ann, was down with her daughter, Jacquie, and her mom, and we all stayed with our friend Lee, who lives there. (Same place we went to in October with friends) Here's Jacquie!! She's getting cuter and cuter!Unfortunately, race day dawned very cold!! In the low 40s, with wind gusting 25 MPH and a windchill in the low 30s! Fortunately, Lee had some ear warmers and a glove to lend me! It was brutally cold at first, but I finally got comfortable, although I never shed a layer! I have been training for the Atlanta marathon at the end of March, and had done longer runs, so 13.1 miles didn't feel too bad, and I went faster than I meant to. :) HilaryAnn did the 5K and then found me at about 12 miles and ran the last mile with me. HilaryAnn's mom did the half-marathon. Lee took care of Jacquie at home to keep her out of the nasty weather, and Ed braved the elements to be at the finish line to take this picture. ;)

HilaryAnn and I at the end!

Though it was freezing in Florida, it was snowing in Alabama and Georgia! We waited to leave until it finished snowing, but it was a winter wonderland on the way home! Fortunately, the roads were clear and we made great time on the way home!

In Yaounde after Christmas

We spent a lot of the last week we were there hanging out in Yaounde. Over the fence of the guesthouse we stayed in, Ed could watch soccer, or more properly football games.
It was just a short walk from our guesthouse through the neighborhood to Paul and Christy's. This container and rusted out car propped up on its side were landmarks of the road we turned down to get to their house. :)
Christy's house is full of wildlife besides her children. Their rabbits had a litter of babies just before we got there, that appeared our last few days there. The rabbits have free reign of the yard and breed, well, like rabbits! Nothing gets the kids more excited than chasing "baby bunnies"around!
The also have an African Gray parrot named "Hola" who loves to petted on the back of his head, and is starting to be a good talker.
Ed took pictures of other wildlife in the yard - a flock of tiny sparrows
a centipide....Uncle Greg!!When we weren't preparing mounds of food at home, we went out to various restaurants around Yaounde - this one had a room in back for the kids to play while waiting for food.Driving around Yaounde - past the HiltonNear some of the crazy 1960s architecture Ministry buildingsWe visited the artisan's market, the central market, and checked up on our reservations to go home... :)

Paul also took us to the site where he's building the new high school, Rain Forest International School. The basketball court site (a huge reservoir will be built under it)....The science building going up fast...The jungle over the back fenceMy Dad decided that the sons-in-law new to Cameroon needed to make a trip down to the valley where he once had a dam and fish pond project.My Dad and the pondThe intrepid sons-in-law with their machetes (being followed by some curious kids!)Kids collecting water to take home for their families - even the little ones help out!I don't really have the best picture to close with - maybe a picture of a plane landing at the airport. It was awesome to have two weeks in Cameroon to show Ed around, to spend time with my sisters, for our husbands to get to know each other, and to hang out with my niece and nephew.

Bye till 2009!

Christmas in Cameroon - Bamenda trip

After Christmas, my parents, and Ed and I traveled up to Bamenda, in the grasslands and mountains of northwest Cameroon, to show him a different side of Cameroon, not just the forest. Bamenda is the fifth largest city in Cameroon, in a valley surrounded by hills. In rainy season, it's beautiful, with everything green and waterfalls cascading off the hills. In dry season, the bowl Bamenda sits in can be filled with harmattan, dust storms that sweep down from the Sahara, and it becomes a dusty little town.
There were some sights that reminded us of home - who would have thought?One of my main goals in going to Bamenda was to meet up with my friend Jennette. We've been friends since 1996, when I worked with a Baptist network of clinics in this part of Cameroon. When I met her, she was fairly newly widowed, with a young son. She found a girl in a village whose parents had died, who was essentially serving as a slave for her uncle and aunt. She managed to get them to give her the girl, and started sending her to school. I thought this was cool, and since then, we've been sending our children to the best school we could, and they have stayed at the top of their classes. The girl, Cidone, is now 22 and works in a mission hospital and plans to go to nursing school. The boy Valery, is 16 and studying hard - they're great kids!! Jen is now remarried, and she and her husband just finished Bible school.We met up with them at a little restaurant and had Christmas presents for everyone, but as usual, Jen out-generoused me! She had beautiful matching outfits made for Ed and I.

A picture of all of us - thank goodness for automatic timers!

And one of just me, Ed, and Jen!

While in Bamenda, we stayed at the SIL guesthouse, on a hill overlooking the back of Bamenda - despite the dust in the air, rather pretty!

We drove up to Mbingo, about 45 minutes from Bamenda and site of a terrific Baptist mission hospital and some gorgeous scenery - great for hikes! The landscape is much different from southern Cameroon.

We went on a short hike, just to give Ed a taste.

Spectacular purple-blue flowers dot the hillsides

Ed and I in front of the huge hill behind the hospital, known as Mbingo Hill.Me and my Daddy!As sunset approaches, you can see how much dust is in the air. In the harmattan, sunset looks almost like fog!And no visit to Bamenda would be complete without a visit to Sister Rose's for grilled fish, plantain, and njama njama (greens!) - yum!!

Road tripping in Cameroon

We did our fair share of road tripping around Cameroon, to Kribi before Christmas and to Bamenda (in thr mountains of the northwest) after Christmas. Thought we'd share some pictures of what you might see from the car on the way.
Plenty of tiny houses, surrounded by their small farms and forest

Bus loaded down with people and their cargo, coming around a corner out of the forest

Speaking of loaded down, poor little car!


People place their produce along the road in piles to sell - wonderful, sweet, cheap, pineapples!

Bunches o' plantains and bananas, so much better than what you get in the US because it ripens on the tree - my Dad was dispatched to get a hand of bananas for car snacks.
On almost any trip in Cameroon, you cross the mighty Sanaga River at some point. An old Tarzan movie was shot along the Sanaga.

Even along the road, there are some beautiful sites if you know where to look - these spectacular waterfalls are right by the road.almost as far down toward the falls as we could get - where the spray itself is a wind and you can't stand for long without getting wet!The rainbow formed by the spray arches across the pool belowOr you might run into some car trouble and have a chance to change a flatTowns along the way give an opportunity to find food, do some shopping (last chance to pick up French bread before we get to English Cameroon!).....

or find a spot to go to the bathroom (I'm not kidding!!)No Santa!! (there's a town called Santa, and the red bar across the name indicates that you're leaving)We stopped in the town of Bafia to see a childhood friend of mine - his mom worked for my parents when we lived in the village of Yoko, and she would bring all of her kids over while she worked. Jean Marie is the same age I am and we grew up playing together.He's now doing water project maintenance for the Catholic church in Bafia, with his beautiful family. The baby is named after her grandmother.