Lisa's walking

I just wanted to share this video with you!

girls only!

It's been a while that we (women) have been talking about it. "We should go away for the weekend and leave the men with the kids" and "I need sleeeeeeeeeeep". So a few weeks ago we did what we did: We went to Kribi for sea, sand and sleep. It was great. 4 women, no men, no kids. We slept, swam, eat pizza, played games, made long walks on the beach, ate fish in the harbour but above all relaxed!

trip to the North West

Thorsten had to go to Kumbo for partnervisit (as he often does) and this time, Jara, Lisa and I joined. We added a weekend in Babungo with friends and the holiday was complete!
The North West is one of the most difficult places to go to because of its inaccessible, very bad dirt roads. Interestingly enough, the North West is also the country of the opposition... In the hight of the rainy season it is almost impossible to go there due to the heavy rains that turn the road into a mud pool. We're at the end of the rainy season: roads are accessible, but you still have the odd shower to wash away the dust.
Click on the images to enlarge them!



The first part of our trip, we stayed on the "hill of immaculate conception" in Kumbo. Filip, the BD cooperant working there lives on the bishop's hill and we stayed with him. While Thorsten was of doing his work, I hung around with the kids, strolled up and down the hill and watched the goats and chicken (especially Jara wanted to look for them).

Wednesday the kids and I joined Thorsten en Filip to Mbiame, a little village on a 1.5-hour drive, where BD's partner organisation ATP (Agricultural Training Project) has a demonstration farm. The drive was just beautiful! It was like driving through Scotland with bananatrees. I had to sit in the back and hold Lisa's head while she was asleep because of the road condition. I think her head would have fallen of otherwise.
ATP is training young (and older) promising farmers of the region in alternative farming technics. Over the course of one year they spend 10 times 2 weeks on the demonstration farm to learn through practice and theory. Afterwards they go back to their villages to do their own farming. For three subsequent years they will be followed up by the project in their villages to assist them with their farms and to give advise. It is a really promising and innovative project that can change the lives of the students!



Thursday we left for Babungo, a small village in the valley surrounded by waterfalls. Tom and Julie joined us on Friday and we spend the weekend just relaxing, not doing too much. The women (Julie, granny Jude and I) went to visit a nearby pottery shop where we saw pottery happening from beginning to end. I did some pottery myself in Thailand but never realised the lenghty process of getting the clay to be the way it's supposed to be. And of course we had to indulge ourselves in the shop...
The boys (Tom and Thorsten) went for a hike up the hill and the kids loved pottering around, having a communal pee on the potty and being the stars of the village. So everybody was happy.



Every village in the North West has a fon, so also Babungo. The fon is the king of the village or chiefdom and people go to him for advise, to solve problems etc. He's the cultural leader of the village. In Babungo, the fon is only about 35 years old, but has already several wives. In addition, on becoming fon, inherited many wives from his late father. His palace is packed with wooden statues that people make and donate to him. His living quarters are an interesting mix between traditional and modern goods. It's complicated!
Anyway, the fon's palace was well worth a visit as you can see on the pictures!

Mais c'est normal en Cameroun!

In Cameroon, founders and directors of local NGO's and organisations seem to have developed an interesting pension scheme.
They apply for grants and funds with international agencies to run their organisation: to pay for trainers and trainings, materials, project costs etc. All very well and good organised, proposals look solid.
Then an audit is done to see that the money is spent accordingly. And usually it's the organisation hiring the auditor.
But then you come, and you look into the spendings yourself, you check why suddenly a thrustworthy member of staff leaves or hire an auditor yourself.

And that's where the pension scheme comes in.
Suddenly it seems that hard working people only get a percentage of the wage they sign for. Their payslip may say 100.000FCFA but in practice the person goes home with only 50.000FCFA.
When you question this with the responsible of the organisation the reply is usually something like "Mais c'est normal en Cameroun".
And to a certain extend it is.
People who start a little NGO usually see it as their baby and a good way to get funds from international agencies. They may be doing good work all along (improve livelihoods, give training and built trainingcentres), but it has become absolutely acceptable to cheat on the accounts and steal to save for later, start a private business or whatever.
It is not only Broederlijk Delen who is coming across these issues but the majority of our friends here working in international development are coming across similar situations.
It creates a catch-22. Do you stop all collaboration with the organisation in question but then jeapardize all personnel as well who will be going from a small income to no income? Or try to work with the organisation to improve their habits, knowing that behavioural change is about the hardest thing in the world to do...

a few movies...

of the kids of course... who else?



Jara and Mia in the tub, having a lot of fun with skiing pinguins.
And Lisa going shopping for books... Not really but she is dying to walk and we are tired of walking with her haha

a boat trip on the river Nyong

Since we just got back from Europe, we thought: high time for a day out!! So last Saturday we went on a boat trip in Ebogo, an eco-tourist site a little but further down the road from Mbalmayo. Not far, easy to get there and a great day out. Jara and I went on the pirogue, while Thorsten and Lisa stayed ashore. After our trip a great meal with freshly caught catfish and a cold beer. What else do you want?
Jara was happy to see her best friend again and we were happy to catch up on the latest gossip!

And we're back!

Yes, after a couple of busy months, we're back home, settling in all right. Thorsten has started work, Jara has started kindergarden, Lisa has started walking (holding on to 2 hands of course) and I, I've started going through our pictures and realised there are too many!

We'll start with the beginning. Click on the pictures to enlarge them!
Beginning of June, Rhoddy, Thorsten's colleague from BD came for a fieldvisit. As BD is working on an exit strategy in the next couple of years, they had to visit all partners in the country to officially announce the not-so-good news. It was 2 weeks of solid travelling, visiting 16 projects in the Extreme North, North West, Centre and South of Cameroon.


As soon as Rhoddy left, my (Griet's) father arrived for a blitz visit. As he would otherwise have to wait till Christmas to see the kids, he decided to cross the continent for a week.
The weather wasn't great, but we still had a nice time catching up at home and in Limbe. After opa Frans left, Jara kept repeating 'opa partie' for quite a while.


Then it was time for the real holidays. This year, we decided to go to Italy in stead of only visiting our friends and family. We started with the 60th anniverary of Griet's grandparents before heading of to Germany where we stayed a few days.
In Belgium:


In Germany:


In Italy we were lucky to stay in the apartement of Sofie and Sven who are living in Parma. They have 2 small boys, hence everything was on hand (push chairs, toys, baby carrier, trycicle, plastic plates etc) and they are living in town centre with 3 playgrounds on a 5 minute walk! We devided our time between a stay-at-home-and-do-playgrounds-day for the children and an away-day for the adults. It worked out great and everybody was happy.
Jara was especially happy when she managed to convince her parents to have at least one ice cream a day... That is one word she learned very well. Everybody warned us about the hot weather in Parma in the summer, but apart from the first couple of days, it was all right. In addition, we went to the mountains a couple of times and even went to the coast. Obviously had to get some real balsamico vinegar in Modena and have spaghetti bolognaise in Bolonga. Not to mention Parmasan and Parmaham... Did you know there's a town called Gorgonzola? Wonder what that is famous for.
The playground-home-days went like this:


The away-days went like this:


While we were in Parma, oma Doris and opa Heinz came for a couple of days, as did Elaine and Andrea, 2 friends from the UK. It was very nice to have this little reunion and we decided they should next come to Cameroon...

Weekend in Kribi

Thorsten is leaving for Belgium on Friday so we thought it would be nice to have a few days away of Yaoundé before. So last weekend, we went off to the sea-side. But instead of relaxing in an expensive hotel, we decided to go "camping". We stayed in the unfinished house of friends of our friends. Which means there was no water nor electricity, but there was a well where we could fetch water, there were beds with matrasses and a garden where the children could play safely.

The sea at Kribi is known to be a bit rough, but we hadn't really expected our children to be mortified by the sound and the waves. Luckily, after a bit of gentle persuasion they decided it was OK to play in the sand at a fair distance of the sea. Once that was settled, we had a great time. Jara, Lisa and Mia (daughter of Julie and Tom who's about the same age as Jara) loved playing in the sand. The nanny's, who came along, loved playing in the sea. And we, we loved having a beer on the beach while the children were playing.
Our nanny's also decided that they could do better than the food in the restaurant and made us a delicious meal.
Saturday night, we decided it was the night off for the parents. We enjoyed the night out, sunset on the beach and long talks without children waking up, crying etc.

We took our nanny's to see how that would work. But we decided that the advantages (parents having a night out, helping hand) did not outweigh the disadvantages (extra people to care/cater for, own agenda,...) so that was the first and last time nanny's would join.



All in all, it was a great weekend away but we also enjoyed coming back home, lighting the oven and having a pizza!

Boys work (2)!

Last weekend the boys finished the pizza oven! We were lucky having picked an afternoon with sunshine and no rain - rainy season is full on and it's raining every day now.
The boys enjoyed playing with the sand, mud, making it the right texture (I didn't know but apparently there's a lot of engineering going into clay oven-building) and patching it all up. Then it was time to get the sand out and light the fire.
Yesterday, we had the first pizza out of the oven and it was... delicious!

Let the party begin!

The only draw back is the rain. We need to get a cover built as when it rains on the oven it could turn our oven into a pile of mud when not protected...