March is over...

March is already over. Lots of different things has been going on.
Here’s a small resume of the month:


It's starting to get very hot in Ngaoundèrè and the sun can be strong! Our sunglasses became a hit to our friends who loved taking pictures with them on. Who care if they're ment for girls...?

Helene’s dad and grandpa came to stay for three weeks. It was very nice to meet them both!

Helene and I found out it was time to arrange a football match for the girls in the area. So, one Saturday at around 8 0’clock we got up and started playing. (8 o'clock african time, so we didn't start till around 9) It was HOT, but fun fun!!

Helene, Kristin and I took with us 5 friends to the fish restaurant. It was Kristin's first time eating there, the same with the Cameroonian girls.

Ruth, Jocelyne, Helene, Kristin, Sophie and Merveille

Ruth and Jocelyne

Aymeric, a good friend of mine is the sound technician in Voix Angelique. He invited Helene and me too his house where he made omelets.

Mmm, good stuff!

We had our last normal workweek last week. It was sad to say good-bye to the small children in the kindergarten. There are so adorable! And at Centre Socio Menager it was even harder. We’ve been there 3 days a week, teaching for these girls. Helene and I decided we wanted to have a “Good-bye” party. It was great! Good food, great music and we had our last computer lesson where all the girls who wanted to come in and try out the machines could do that. It was crowed but very fun!

My class in the kindergarten

The last week Helene’s dad stayed here, the three of us went to Kribi. Kribi is a beautiful small town placed in South-Cameroun, by the cost. A more detailed input will come later.

Thirsty..

Yes, I am thirsty. Not on water. Not on coffee mocha (even though that sounds good), but thirsty on more of Cameroun. I’m sitting in my room, realizing that it’s less than one month before I head back home to Norway. Good old Norway. But something makes me feel at home here in Cameroon. I can’t put words on it.


As I’ve written earlier, we are lots of Norwegians here in Ngaoundèrè. And I, I didn’t really feel like I got to experience the real way of living in Cameroun. So, I decided to “move” to Gadjiwan where I went for Christmas to live with a Cameroonian family. Solbjørg lives in Gadjiwan but was here in town for the opening of the churches. Thursday February 28th, me, solbjørg, Sigrid and the driver packed our stuff, and drove the 7 hour long drive to Gadjiwan. Sigrid worked in Cameroun before, a sporty old lady who wanted to join us. However, things didn’t exactly go like I hoped.

In the car, after driving for about 4 hours, I got fever. Just great! Me sitting in the backseat, half sleeping (even with the bumps in the road) and half listening to the two ladies. They amazed me! Both with the age around 80, they talked and talked for 7 hours, managed to stay awake. While me, the youth, just wanted to get out of the car tired of jumping up and down cause of the bumps!

The plan was to sleep at Solbjørg’s house the first night because we arrived late that night, and then the next morning I would move in with my “family”. I ended up staying with solbjørg till Monday. Because of that, my motivation of moving in with the Cameroonians became lower and lower for each day. However, when I finally got better, I moved in Monday afternoon.

Solbjørg invited the family to her house on Sunday. Still not feeling good, I threw on some clothes and tried to smile the best I could!

Eline kept surprisingly calm when she walked towards the “new home”. I didn’t know much; just that the father was the catechist in the church and the mother was the leader for Femmes pour Christ in the village. They had 5 children, three of them staying with them and two moved out.
I was welcomed with open arms. The family was: Mom Josephine, dad Albert, sisters Solange and Bea and younger brother Epi. Of course they had longer and several names, but that was what people called them.

The house- my room was with the window at right.

The Bathroom

My room. It was impossible to take a good picture, but here can you see a bit of my bed, the window and my door.

Our neighbors

I was going to walk with two neighbor girls to school every day. To see and experience how the Cameroonian school system works. Change in plans! It happened to be that the two teachers who taught English wasn’t there, so there weren’t any English classes at the moment. I don’t really remember how things got decided, but I ended up with teaching English for 4 ème and 5 ème. That’s about 9th and 10th grade in Norway. At first, I was a bit skeptic. I didn’t have any books with me and I didn’t know the classes. What was I going to do with them? But, I saw it like a challenge I wanted to take. So, from Tuesday till Friday, I woke up at 06.00, got ready for school and walked the 5 km long way with my two neighbors. It was beautiful! It was a bit cold, while the sun was still down. But as we saw the sunrise, it was just amazing!
It was worse on our way home when it was around 40 degrees. I survived carrying water and a scarf on my head.

06.20 a.m.

Arrived at school around 07.20 a.m. Why use your hands when you have a head?

Lining up every morning to rise the flag.

13.30 p.m. Hot! Very hot!

Here's the bathroom. The white lid in the left corner is the toilet and the "platform" at right is the shower.

It was necessary to take a "bath" after school.

For about 3 hours every day, I taught. They were about 70 students in the two classes, mostly boys. About 6-7 girls only. I had a bit challenge with one of the classes when they told me that they had worked with “unit 3, Space”. Me, not having my dictionary with me, was going to teach these students about space. The problem wasn’t’ the English, it was when I had to translate it into French.. I stumbled ahead with my poor French, trying to get understood. But hey, I don’t even know how to say “to fly” in French, how was I going to explain, spacecraft, scientists, astronauts, to orbit and words like that!? With some English/French words mixed with sign language, I think they understood most of it.. I probably looked very funny, arms and legs everywhere!

The teacher's room

The Staff + Eline

Trying to prepare myself for class..

4 ème - as you can see, mostly boys!

5 ème..

I almost had a hard time say goodbye to the four teachers at the school at the end of the week.. It was an experience for life!

After school, we ate. I enjoyed the evenings the most. I ate Couscous two times a day for 5 days, and I liked it every time! After dinner, I went with the girls for choir practice. A group consisting of about 10 girls who loved to sing and dance.

The livingroom - "mom", "dad" and their first daughter who had moved out.

Couscous with fish and a pistasj clump, very good!

Adorable Monica - one of the neighbor kids who came to visit every day.

Every time I went up to Solbjørg to get some more water, they came with me. Wanted to help me carry the botles.

Choir practice

Dancing..

One of the families in church has a TV. So, we went to his house one evening to watch music videos.

Gadjiwan is a small small village where the possibilities are few. So, I had lots of time to explore the village, watch when Josephine made very good Cameroonian cookies or to just relax. When it became 6-7 o’clock, it was time for a “bath” before it was time for Couscous again. Just imagine; you with a bucket of water, a piece of soap, totally alone with the nature. The only sound is the frogs and the birds around you. If you look up, there’s nothing else to see then stars.

In the evening, we ate outside. With no electricity, we used a gasoline lamp, a blanket, some plaits, and voila, we had a dining room outside! I loved this time of the day. The sky was black covered with stars and stars everywhere! I’ve never seen the sky that beautiful before. I could just lie down on the carpet and look up. It made me think what a beautiful scenery it really is, it’s so powerful!

Sitting outside on the carpet. We were eating popcorn that i bought that day for "dessert".

The worst thing with the whole week was the night. I didn’t sleep very well because of two things. It was HOT and I wasn’t the only one staying in my room during the nights. The bed was ok, but the enormous spiders who where there, and the three bats who made awfully load noises all night, didn’t exactly help me sleep well. But, the two last night, I managed to get a bit used to it, so things wasn’t that “scary” anymore.

I've never seen a spider like that.. Huge!

Even though I didn’t’ get to help much out, like getting water, make flaour, wash clothes or dishes, I felt like I “belonged” to the family. I talked a lot with “mom”, an amazing woman who was really thoughtful and sweet. She was always smiling and cheerful, even when times were difficult, she was optimistic! The last night with them, I had troubles keeping my tears away. Albert had a little “goodbye-speech”. He said hopefully we’ll see each other again, but we never know if you come back to Cameroun. I said if: I’m not coming back to see you here, On se voit là bas (we will meet again up there) and pointed up in the sky.

My trying to smash corn to make cornwflour.

That was a lot of work!

The girls wanted to help me with my luggage. It fascinates me they way they carry things!

Heading back home to Ngaoundèrè. And as we Norwegians would say; Borte bra, men hjemme best! ;)

Back again in Ngaoundèrè, I’ve made some thoughts of my stay.
I miss them! I miss eating together outside in the evening. I even miss the outdoor bathrooms. And actually, the whole in the ground didn’t do me anything. It’s almost like I miss that too, (just almost) ;) The feeling of no stress: Hakuna Matata. Of course I missed Helene and my friends here in Ngaoundèrè, and I’m glad I did. That means that I’m having a great time there. But I’m glad I got to experience to live with Albert and his family. Thanks a lot to them for taking in a “Nasara” in the family. A nasara who thought everything was amazing- a journey I will remember for a long time!

The opening of two new churches!

As some of you know, we had about 200 Norwegians coming over to Cameroun in February. The opening of two new churches was the highlight of the visit. The first opening was on February 17th for the university church at Dang and the second was the Millennium church in Ngaoundèrè the 24th.

The whole week while the Norwegians were here, we had arranged lots of different activities. And all of us who lives here were put up with different activities. However, things didn’t exactly go like I expected. I managed to get ill that week, so I barely saw the visitors. That's why this will be a short input with few photos. However, I became much better the last weekend, so I managed to help out a bit the last two days.

When a plain departed from Sola, with that many christian nowegians, you had to at least know one person. And I did! Ragnhild, mom to a good friend of mine. A bit weird suddenly having someone you know here in Cameroun, but it was very nice to have them all here!

Anyway, here are some pictures from the opening at Dang and here at the station. If you are interested in reading more about the opening, check out the blog to the other missionaries here in Cameroun!

The church at Dang

Eline wasn't feeling quite good so after a 5 hour long sermon it felt good sitting down in the car.

These pictures are from the opening of the church here at the station. Three different choirs sang. This is Stavanger Gospel Company who is singing. They were very good!

This is Femmes pour Christ who is singing..

After the sermon..

"Elenn og Elinn" with their pagne for the opening. Lots of people were walking around in these clothes. I almost got the 17th of mai feeling, not with "bunad", but with pagne..

Elenn is trying to learn how to carry things on her head. Not an easy task. Here she is, getting some help from Atta, our "cusinier".

Waza National Park

The first weekend in February took Helene and I with us the two “Kenyan” guys, Tord and Vegard up north to Maroua . They’re not from Kenya, more exactly from

Sauda

Tord and the single nut (it landed in his lap, but he got no luck)

AND Sirdal(en).. No need to say more ;)

They worked in Kenya, but got sent out of the country because of the trouble there. They live 15 km north from us, and even though they’ve been here for 1 month now, we don’t see much to them. We’re busy with our work, and they with their work..

Anyway, the four of us went to Waza, a large national park in North-Cameroon. On Saturday, we rented a car and a driver who took us to the park. It was great!

We saw animals like giraffes, pumba’s (villsvin), ostriches, monkeys, antelopes, a boa snake (yuck), lots of different birds, a dead antelope and traces after a lion. We never saw the lion though..

Here's some pictures.. Not really good one's. It was hard to take from the inside of the car.

The guide found this wounded bird..

They found him too

He was just waiting to die.. So sad!

We saw this 2 m long Boa-snake.. it was cool! :0)

Rule number 3 boys: Do not step out of the vehicle... =)

Vergard was quite facinated with the spiderweb!

Definitely not the same size.. ;)

It was hot , very hot. Helene and I sat on the roof for a while. The two guys gave up after a short time, I guess their buts couldn’t take the hard seats.. ;)



In Maroua we got to experience a sermon where a Muslim became Christian. And afterwards we were invited to the party. We also got to check out the town. It’s about twice as big as Ngaoundéré, and has lots of nice stuff you can buy.

So, a little shopping did happen.
It was a great trip. We got to hear more about Kenya, and what they thought was different here in Cameroon. Even though it was weird suddenly having them here, in Cameroon, it was nice to see them again!

Four tired nasara's waiting for the bus

In the bus we sat for 8 great hours.. It was hot, crowded and the driver listened to African jingle jingle music all the time in the speaker. But, I had fun!

My weekly schedule

It took me four months before I wrote my weekly schedule here in Cameron. But you see, some of my work didn’t get started before after Christmas. And some jobs got switched out. Anyway, here’s my schedule (for the moment):

Monday: My day of! It’s a perfect day to relax by the pool here at Camp blanch with a book or with my ipod listening to some music.

Or to relax in one of the "hengekøye" in the garden to a Norwegian family. Got to love it!

Tuesday: 09.00-09.30: I teach English in a kindergarten. One of my hardest jobs, cause the children are so young .They barely know French, and here I come, making them sit still for 30 minutes learning a new language.. Very hard, but the kids are so adorable!! Head, shoulder, knees and toes is a big hit here!

We are learning how to count and write number 1-10

Head, shoulder, knees and toes, knees and toes!

This is the class midle-class.. Helene is with them

A person with a camera is always popular!


10.30-12.30: I teach computer at Centre Socio Menager. Some of these girls have never seen a computer before. The girls smiled and laughed when they for the first time noticed that the arrow on the screen moved when you moved the mice. And when they double-clicked on an icon and opened a program. However, it’s a real trial of my patience. Because I don’t know the computer words in French, and the girls don’t understand English. Me standing behind them stumbling ahead with my poor French, it’s tough. But I enjoy being there!



13.30.17.30: Helene and I have a girls club with 2 Norwegian and 6-7 Cameroonian girls. We paint, play football and basketball, play cards and made Christmas decorations etc.


Some sort of a game.. Quite facinating!

Wednesday: 10.30-12.00: I teach English at Centre Socio Menager. About 20 girls, age from 13-23 are in my class. I think this is the job I enjoy the most. The girls (mostly) want to learn English. They pay attention and are active when I ask them questions.

My class!

Thursday: 09.00 - 09.30: English in the kindergarten again..
10.30 – 12.30: Computer classes at Centre Socio Menager again
20.00-23.00 (every other week): I have bible study group with the Norwegians

Friday: 08.00-10.00: I have French class with Stein-Ove and Bente (ettåring and his wife)

Sometimes, I'm alone in class. Like this day. They'r so busy the other two, but hey, I don't complain. The less we are, the more I learn!

10.00-13-00: I work for Fomgbami, mostly typing on the computer.

Saturday: 08.00-12.00 (Once a month): Helene and I have Saturday camp for children at different churches. We play, have a small devotion and sing.
14.30-18.00: I have choir practice with Voix Angelique.

Sunday: 08.00-11.00 (The time varies every week): Church sermon

In the evenings, we often have visitors or go out to visit friends. Like this Thursday, Helene and I invited “Malaika” (the choir who is coming to Norway this summer) for an evening at our house. We were 19 totally, 15 Cameroonians and 4 Norwegians. It was very nice, I had a great time.

Eline teaching Norwegian

I can't wait to hear them again in Norway! They're just amazing.

We made waffles, bought “makkala” (Cameroonian specialty), found a book about Norway in the library at the Norwegian school, some Norwegians magazines and we played UNO. Helene and I know some of them quite well already, but I meet some for the first time this Wednesday. I think it was a successfully night. We played, listened to music and they sang for us in the end of the evening. They’re so good! I was sitting with tears in my eyes, it was just great!

Mont Ngaoundéré

Not far away from town lays the famous mount Ngaoundéré. It’s quite special with its form.



The little clump of rocks in the backgroung is the "mountain" :)

Bernard, Helene and Benjamin - on our way up

It looks a bit risky standing where they are, but don't worry. The pic is laying, it wasn't a downhill behind them! ;)

Large rocks in layer on top of a hill, giving you the view 360 degrees far away. I’ve always wanted to go up there. I had to do it one time at least before I went back home.

On the top. Ngauondéré in the background!

Climbing under the "mountain"..

It's worth a try....

Bernard and Benjamin (two earlier Hald students from Cameroon) wanted to take Helene and me to the mountain (or its more like a hill).

"Sunday - school" on a Saturday on the top of the "mountain"

Going down again

It was hot, but fun! I spoke French and the boys Norwegian. They’re so funny! I had an amazing time..

Contact me?

Here’s my address if you by any chance would like to write. It would make me very happy! =)
And our phone number. I know, it’s a bit late giving out my contact info after been here for over 3 months, but hey, better late than never :D

Eline Skraastad
B.P 658 Mission Protestante Norvégienne
Ngaoundéré, CM Cameroun

Tlf : (+237)74 31 13 13