Broederlijk Delen moves out of Cameroon

Broederlijk Delen has been working in Cameroon for over 47 years and established its permanent presence in Yaoundé in 1999 only. During these five decades thousands of farmers and poor have been helped in securing and improving their livelihoods. Together with dozens of local organisations we contributed to the socio-economic and environmental improvement of many people and farmer groups. Now BD has decided it is time to leave Cameroon. This information came as a shock to the remaining 16 organisations BD is working with.

Broederlijk Delen is presently working in 20 countries in Asia, Africa and America. For political and strategic reasons a reduction in the country base is necessary. This resulted in the decision to withdraw from some countries and Cameroon is one of them. The decision to stop our activities in Cameroon is based on a number of reasons such as the improved socio-economic situation here in Cameroon but also the desire of BD for more regional concerted action. Whilst this decision is a hard pill to swollow for our partners and development workers here, it is a decision that will be implemented over the next 2-3 years only. This leaves enough time for partners to get themselves prepared for this step. Nevertheless the shock sits deep.

During the coming weeks a detailed exit strategy for all of our partners here will be prepared. It is our aim to support them in the best possible way in their challenge to find other financial sources and partners.

For us this development has also direct impacts as it means we will have to find other work after February 2011. Before that there is however still a lot of work to be done. In terms of actual work however the dynamics are different: the approach to develop and build up a partner base in a country is quite different from scaling down and finally switching off the lights. I expect also that some partners might change their approach towards BD as they have nothing to loose any more. We will see how this maps out.
For our family this step is sad as we have so well integrated here in Yaoundé and thought we would stay here for up to six years. Now the situation is different and we have to adapt our plans. So it remains interesting and challenging! We will see how things develop and will keep you updated!

Boys work (1)!!

Finally we got around to start the work at our clay Pizza oven in our garden. We contemplated about it for a while already and last Saturday was then the day when the boys got around to start it.

The idea is to have a wood fired clay oven in our garden to be able to do these crispy and delicious Pizza's, breads and other delicious things. Our garden is just big enough for this little luxury 'gadget' and the idea to have some friends around for Pizza evenings is too tempting. In a first step Tom, Denis and Thorsten constructed the foundation of the future oven with clay bricks and mud. Now all has to dry before we can construct the dome. Can't wait to continue! It is so much fun and the girls were happy to see the two boys 'play' with the mud!




In two weeks the construction of the dome will take place and then we hope we will have nice Pizzas coming out of the oven soon! Just picture it: a bunch of nice people sitting around the oven with a glass of wine and delicious Pizza'z fresh from the oven! Yep, we try to do our best having fun here!

Kids in action

When I say that Lisa has started to crawl, I'm sure nobody will believe me. So here's a little film. Obviously she's not an expert yet but she's getting there, and more importantly, she's getting where and what she wants... This morning she pulled herself up to stand in the bath. I can't follow anymore, this is going way to fast!!!

Also Jara doens't stop changing. She loves imitation her parents. The other day I found her wearing my bikini shorts...
She sees her father often multitasking on the phone. Well, she can do that too!

Heaven on earth

Last week Friday (Good Friday) was public holiday. So we took the opportunity to discover a new piece of Yaoundé: The Zoo. I have wanted to go there since long, but the opportunity never arose.

The Zoo itself is quite little, quite African (for those who know about African zoo's...) but not too bad - I've seen much worse. It houses a lot of monkey's, a civet cat, turtels, lions and others. The lions did make a bit of an impression on me. You could (if you wanted to) put your hand through the cage and stroke them, but the look on there face made us decide otherwise. They were particulary interested in Jara and Mia (friends daughter of about the same age as Jara) and kept following them with their eyes. A bit further, in the Snake House (or how do you call these things?) a few cages were open... We tried not to put too much attention to that.

However, the main attraction to the Zoo is the little play yard for small kids... Oh well! You should have seen Jara's face when we entered. It was like she had arrived in heaven. I don't think I have ever seen her face lit up like that.

There is a train, mary-go-around, jumping castle, play jungle, slides,...
For Jara and Mia, it was the day of their life.

Now I know for sure: there won't be any stressy days no more ,alone at home with bored and obnoxious children while thorsten is traveling; I'm just gonna camp out at the Zoo!

Jara's 2nd birthday party

I know I know, her birthday is not till wednesday but we decided to have the party early.
So Sunday (Easter) was the big day. Lots of cakes, cookies, chocolate and drinks. A big garden, a sandpit, a real play-kitchen, an Easter-egg hunt and a goodie bag. Do I need to say more? The party was a great success! Well, at least the kids enjoyed it, I hope the parents did too.

We really couldn't leave it....

...and went to see the pope.

He was passing in front of our door - that is, in reality, on the top of our road. So we went out for an late afternoon stroll and came back with these pictures:









However dubble the feeling is, looking at the preparations the government did and its consequences, people were really happy to see him passing by. The president was trailing behind, but most people (as us) did not wait to see him...

We went to town yesterday and took the opportunity to take some pictures of the demolishments still going on:

Cameroon demolishes street stalls for Pope's visit

It appears that now also the international press is aware of the recent ongoings in preparation for the visit of the pope. Here is an article by Reuters news agency:

Source: Reuters

Security forces clear street-side stalls for Papal visit
Police beat stallholders, youths at weekend, witnesses say

By Tansa Musa YAOUNDE, March 10 (Reuters) - Cameroonian security forces have smashed up the street stalls, where thousands of people earn a living, to give the capital Yaounde a face-lift for a visit by Pope Benedict next week. Pope Benedict makes his first trip to Africa as pontiff next week, visiting Cameroon before continuing to Angola to mark 500 years of Christian evangelism there. "My 10 years of investments have been ruined. I don't know now what to do to survive," wailed Mariane Ngoupendji on Monday when she found her typing and printing shop reduced to rubble. "Will the Pope's visit replace what I've lost?" she said. Ngoupendji, 43, collapsed weeping to the ground as youths pulled pieces of corrugated iron, girders and planks from the ruins, hoping to sell them or use them to build elsewhere. Many people make their living through informal stalls or boutiques, selling everything from imported electrical goods to local produce in a country where millions of people live in poverty even though it boasts one of Africa's biggest economies. But authorities say the stalls, ranging from simple wooden shelves to secure lock-ups built with steel and concrete, are an eye-sore and began to tear them down last week. No compensation will be offered, the government said. "On Monday the authorities of the Yaounde urban municipality continued pulling down illegally erected structures down in the town centre with the support of security forces," state radio reported on Monday. "They vowed that the process will continue as part of efforts to embellish the city and give it a new face-lift." Yaounde council officials could not be reached for comment. Security forces have deployed in large numbers to prevent trouble. Previous attempts to clear traders from African cities have triggered widespread violence, including in Senegal before last year's Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit. Police beat youths and stallholders at the weekend on Yaounde's Avenue Kennedy, where many hawkers sell cell phones and other electrical items imported from Dubai, witnesses said. "I saw gendarmes and police chasing after fellow Cameroonians, beating them up with such ferocity and smashing their goods," said a Cameroon Telecommunications company worker, who watched from a third storey window as police cleared stalls near Avenue Kennedy on Saturday. "Why not simply ask them to assemble their goods and move away instead of destroying everything. Must the Pope's visit bring so much trouble for the people?" said the worker, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisals. But a senior police officer said stallholders had refused to comply with several previous requests to move on. "Now, with the Pope coming, the authorities are left with no other choice than to use force to get them out," he told Reuters. "African traditional hospitality demands that you keep your house clean when expecting a guest." (Writing by Alistair Thomson; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

The long-awaited visit of the pope

The pope is paying a visit to Cameroon next week - he's arriving Tuesday evening and leaving Friday morning and he's doing a mass in the big stadium of Yaoundé on Thursday. "Great!" I can hear you say. "How nice of him to visit Cameroon." Well yeah...

As a consequence - or should I say precursor - of this visit, some dramatic measures have been taken.
1 All small shops, houses, vendor's stalls that don't look nice enough are being destroyed with a large caterpillar. The truck comes by, looks at your stall/house/whatever and if the driver doesn't like, he just destroys it with all its content. It all started about a week ago in the city centre. Suddenly the streets did not house streetvendors anymore, all the local shops at the post office disappeared etc. Now it's been extended all the way to the airport.
2 The road to the airport has brand new streetlights. But then ONLY the way from the airport to the town centre.
3 Tuesday (for sure, other days to be confirmed) the road between airport and town centre will be blocked. Note: the pope arrives in the evening, but the road needs to be blocked from EARLY MORNING. Hence nobody can get to/from work, school etc.
4 It has been announced on the radio that all shops and houses on the road to the airport etc need to keep all windows and doors closed on Tuesday - police will patrol to make sure orders are followed.
5 As a result of all this, tension has risen in town centre among street vendors and shop owners and riots cannot be ruled out... Keep indoors I would say.
6 As said before, the Pope will do a mass on Thursday in the Stadium. It's open for the public but tickets are 1000 FCFA (almost 2 Euro) and people will have to walk kilometers to get there as the roads will be blocked, obviously.

It's a pity that a major event like this has to become such a disaster for so many people. People struggle so hard to make a living, selling a few papaya's on the side of the road, put all their savings in a little stall and then, wham, a caterpillar passes by and you've lost everything.

Pictures of the destructions can be seen on Sander & Elke's blog.

>To be continued...

a few movies

Jara and Lisa are full of life! See below:

Nothing special

Nothing special happened but I saw that it has been nearly a month since we wrote on the blog...
What happened in the last month?

- Thorsten went to Maroua of a week for partner visits. Very nice for him - not so nice for me. Jara's usual game in the car on the way home from the crèche is listing all the people she'll see at home: waw waw (the dog), baby (Lisa), Didi (Denis, day watchman), Cati (Catherine, nanny) en papa. Only I had to tell her everytime papa wouldn't be home yet. As the week went on, she found it more difficult papa wouldn't be home and was obviously very excited when we went to the airport and pick him up! Wouldn't let go of him.
Thorsten was given, by some partnerorganisations, a few live chicken... Nice, but how the hell was he going to get them on the plane??? So they traded the chicken for a nice fabric for me - you won't hear me complain.
- Lisa has been growing a lot. She's confidently rolling over and if you're not paying attention she 'crawls' until she's off the mat. A very active girl but wants to be in the centre of the attention.
- Jara has been her usual self - a diva with a temper...












-I started looking for work. Hopefully something will come up. On the other hand I've been keeping myself busy with the kids and started writing a little booklet/website for expatriats in Yaoundé.
- This week, I took our car to the 'Visite Technique'. Decided to go early (less hot and less cars waiting) which paid off well: It only took me 45 minutes. Considering the state of the majority of cars driving around and knowing that the 'visit technique' is mandatory, I didn't expect any difficulties. Our car would definitely NOT pass any car inspection in Europe, but here, no problem. They test the brakes (which were not balanced but hey ho), have a quick look under the car (where certain parts have been welded together), you pay the bill and get an 'accepté' for another year. Taxi's need to do this every 6 months. I think it's just a quick way to make money because it's a wonder how half of the taxi's drive at all! But they all get their 'accepté'.
- Al along our street, all the way to town, they have put streetlights! And they work!! After a second check, we realised it is ONLY on our route to town, which incidently is also the preferred route for the president and his entourage to go to the airport... any coincidence?
-Miko, our dog, is no longer a virgin... There was a bitch (dirty street dog) in heat a few weeks ago and, oh boy, have we known!! Every night, for more than a week, Miko was crying al night long. He wasn't too happy he was not allowed to leave the compound (he'd gone missing one day for more than 2 hours... think that's when he lost his virginity). The same week, he was attacked. Had to take the poor lad to the vet to get stitched up but he's doing all better now and has calmed down.

Club Odza extended

Slowly slowly we're really creating our own little paradise here. Today we (read: Thorsten) finished the sand pit. First Thorsten made a box and painted it. Today, he went to buy the sand and we baptised the sand box. Thorsten, Denis, Sven & Kathleen (volunteers BD) and me had to do a great effort to convince Jara that it's really OK to get INTO the pit and that the sand really is NOT dirty. To Jara, all what she doesn't know, looks funny or dirt itself is "kaka". So was the sand: "kaka". But after a good sleep in the afternoon and a bit of persuation she's now fully confident that it's OK to get your hands and feet dirty with sand...


In the mean time, after many months of trial and error, we've landed with a fantastic nanny. Catherine is not only great with Jara and Lisa, she also keeps our house nice and clean, and above all, is a great cook. We hadn't really looked into the cooking bit but she loves being in the kitchen and prepares the most delicious dishes. From "Haché Parmantier" to "entrée au poireau" or a nice rice salad. Not to mention the local Folon or fish dishes. No, my new year resolution to really loose all those extra pregnancy kilo's has become a real struggle. So if we end up like fat pigs at the end of the year, it's not our fault!! Honestly!!

Living close to the bush...

I did a bit of a shocking discovery this morning while emptying the washing machine... a snake suddenly appeared in my view. Dead of course, it wouldn't survive the hot water and soap used but I suddenly got a bit scared: was it in there when I put in the laundry? How did it get there in the first place???

We figured it must have entered via the water exit or entry. Which means that even we got slippery tiles and have mosquitescreen doors, our house is still not snake free. We tried to find out if it was a poisonous snake or not, but didn't find anything so far (if you happen to know, let us know!). Thorsten put it in alcohol to preserve it so we can find out later. Up to the bookshop!


Ah well, we're living in Africa after all and close to the bush... what do you expect. And it did add some excitement to the day.

The kids are fine, although I feel like taking a discount card at the health centre. Lisa just recovered from her persisting cough when Jara fell down with fever last night. Luckily no malaria and just a troat infection. She should be up and running again in a few days.

Have a great day!

Back Home

Back home... Yes, I think we can call it home. When we see the change in Jara's mood, it's certainly home! As soon as we got back in Cameroon, Jara was a different girl: happy, cheerfull, full of jokes and crazy ideas. So THAT's what was wrong in Belgium, she just missed Cameroon. Would you blame her? Here, it's sunny - every day, we've got the paddling pool out - every day, she plays outside - every day and she can run barefoot and naked - every day!

Jara's going back to the crèche here and she recognised it immediately. Because it is a bit small, we have been hearing around for alternatives and found a new crèche that has much more space, and they have a garden and sandpit. Yesterday Jara went there for a trial day and she liked it. Came home with a drawing.

Lisa's doing fine too, despite a cold that won't go away. But she adjusted fine to the new temperature and is sleeping well - up to 5 hours in one go! May not sound so great to you, but you have to remember that Jara woke up several times every night untill she was 1 year old!! So this is a HUGE improvement for me!!! She's, as Jara was, an active girl, moves and laughs a lot. And enjoys she only needs to wear one piece of clothing.


Last weekend, we picked up the beds we had made for the kids. We ordered them in September and asked the carpenter to really let the wood dry out well before making the beds.
It is very common here (and I think in more parts in Africa) that carpenters make furniture with wet wood. Result: after a few months, or even weeks, your bookshelf, bed or whatever starts bending as the wood still 'lives'. They may tell you they use dried wood, but your doors won't close, or chairs start to wobble after a couple of months. So we found this great carpenter in Mbalmayo, about 25 km from us, who works with dried wood and made a couple of nice beds.

Thorsten has started back at work, it was quite a change, after 2 months of 'holiday'. But there is definately enough to do to keep him busy. If all goes well, I'll also start looking for work soon and hopefully will find some too!

Underneath a short video of Jara's new hobby...



So, this little update to let you know we arrived safely and have settled back in all right.

LISA is born

We are very happy with the birth of our daugther LISA on 10 November 2008! Both, Griet and Lisa are very well. The delivery was (again) rather fast and uncomplicated. Friday both got out of the hospital and we could enjoy a lovely weekend together. Jara has been absolutely beautiful with her little sister LISA. We are glad she is coping so well and hope she will stay like this. LISA had 3.380g and 51 cm, but the most amazing fact are her long feet - we have no idea where our little Bigfoot has these from. So far she is happily breastfeeding and hopefully nicely developing. We are glad we decided to deliver in Belgium as Griet had a very nice midwife and lovely nurses.

Limbe 7-13 september

Thorsten had partner visits last week in Limbe. Limbe is a small sea side town in the South West of Cameroon... So Jara and I joined and enjoyed the beach while Thorsten did his work.
Although rainy season has started, the rain mainly fell during the night. Most days were hot, humid and sunny.
Limbe is situated at the foot of Mount Cameroon, a still active volcano. Last eruption happened about 10 years ago and the lava stream passed at 200m of our hotel. It literally blocked the road. There's now an old and hardly visible signboard that warns for diversion. However if you don't know the road and arrive in darkness you might aswell end up in old scrap metal on the lava.

The beach is - thanks to the volcano - coffeeblack. It does feel a bit weird in the beginning, but Jara didn't mind at all. In contrast with Kribi, this time she couldn't get enough of 'jumping the waves'. Mummy just had to make sure she was there to catch her before going under.



We also visited the Wildlife Centre, an initiative from the Cameroon Government, in collaboration with the Pandrillus Foundation (www.limbewildlife.org). The Wildlife Centre houses several spieces of primates and other wild animals that have been rescued from the bush meat trade. Bush meat is still very popular although it is illegal to hunt for bush meat. Jara loved watching the gorillas, chimpansees (especially the baby-ones that were orphaned when there parents were caught and killed) and other animals. She has a nack of communicating with them - hilarious.

One day we went to Buea, a little town on the mountain, about an hour from Limbe. I didn't know there were 2 roads going to Buea and mistakenly guided Thorsten up the old, potholed (but very scenic) road past teaplantations and with gorgeous views. I, however, was a bit at unease and afraid I may go into labour there and then.
Buea reminds of a little hillstation, with its small winding roads. It is the startplace for treks up Mt Cameroon and by the time we left, we were in the clouds.

Now, I'm slowly slowly getting ready for my departure to Belgium next week. I'm sad to leave Odza but I'll be relieved when I'm safe and sound on Belgian ground. I just don't want anything to happen to me while I'm here!

My work in Cameroun

Since march 2008 I am now in Cameroun as the country representative for Broederlijk Delen (BD). Having worked the previous 7 years in the forestry sector (mainly on Community Forestry or FLEGT policy work) I am grateful to be back in my real domain - the agricultural sector. BD is supporting 15 local partners in the field of sustainable rural development. For logistical and development reasons BD focuses on three regions in Cameroon - the Extreme North, North West and the great Center-South. Most of our partners are small organizations working directly with farmer groups and associations.
In the past weeks I have visited most of my partners and could learn about their work. During my trips I could experience with my own eyes the huge diversity we have in Cameroon. The Extreme North reminds me very much of the Senegambia. I felt like I have returned to my roots in Africa, seeing the wide open Sahel plains with groundnut fields, donkeys, mud houses and experiencing the hot days. The only real difference for me was that the majority in Cameroon is Christian, whereas West Africa is Islamic. So I had the permanent urge to use the Islamic greetings 'Salam Alaikum' but soon realized that this was the wrong place. Life in the Extreme North is rather difficult as it is very dry and the nature harsh. It seems however, that the harshness of the life is compensated by the warmth of the people and a very 'no-nonsense' appeal. Most of our partners in the Extreme North are around Maroua and work on the improvement of the soil and agricultural production, the marketing aspect of the products, and the strengthening of farmer groups and organizations with the aim to improve the lives of the people. The real threat to the lives there is the ongoing desertivication and with it the further destruction of valuable and scarce agricultural land. [To be continued...]

Greetings from Kribi

Looked forward to it for weeks, counted the days... and now it's already over... our (long) weekend trip to Kribi. Especially Griet looked forward to leave Odza and its surroundings. Thorsten has had his share of partner visits the last few months and has been in North Western, South Western, Extreme Nord and Central provinces. He has already seen the sahel, mountains and pygmeés. No wonder Griet was getting itchy feet to leave. But 4 days in Kribi have made up for it!
4 days of relaxing, strolling along the beach, fantastic seafood, playing games, reading or doing absolutely nothing. The sea was too rough to swim, but Jara wasn't too keen to get her feet wet anyway - the big waves were a bit scary. Els, a BD volunteer from Ngoumou joined us for this trip before getting ready to return to Belgium.

Jara provided enough entertainment though: the first day we removed a tumbofly from her bum. A tumbofly or mangofly lays its eggs in clothes that are hanging to dry, especially under mangotrees. If the clothes are not well ironed (like the elastic of your knickers), the hatched maggot enters your skin and lives of you. It looks like a pimple, except it has a black tip.
The second day, Jara suddenly got feverish but the fever went down the next day - probably teething, the poor kid is getting 2 molars at once!!

Now we're back at home in Odza and it has to be said, there is no place like home!

Club Odza

We are getting more and more settled at home: the fence is finished hence Jara can play safely outside, all our luggage has arrived - now with the babypool we feel like holiday every day, and we've got fast internet!! The vegetable garden is growing well, we've had already a nice cucumber to eat and harvest beans every day. The gras we planted is less of a succes. The ants and birds were eating it faster than we could plant it... but we'll try a different technique.

Geraldine, our new nanny is great. In the mornings, when Jara's gone to the crèche, she cleans and irons and in the afternoon, she looks after Jara when I want some time for other things (like updating this blog for example).

And today our dog arrived...

Miko (that's how we baptised him, can't remember his italian name) arrived today and feels at home already. It's a young Cameroonian dog whose previous owners are leaving to go back to Rome. But as Miko only understand - a bit of - Italian, and as we don't, we'll have to change his language. Knowing us, it'll be a mixture of German, Dutch and French. He'll also still need some potty training and learn NOT to eat shoes, toys or the swimmingpool. On the good side, he's used to eat everything: from vegetables to plantain (fried banana's), bread and other left-overs.

This morning, Milan came to play and it was great watching them play in the pool.

A few weeks ago, Cameroon held a CEMAC (Conférence Monetaire d'Afrique Central) meeting for its memberstates. To show a bit of power politics, the road to and from the airport was closed for most of the day when the high officials (mainly presidents) arrived and left again a few days later. And we live... en route de l'aeroport...
It was a bit of a hassle and took some patience and strong nerves as I had to pick up Jara from the crèche the day the officials left. Luckely I was able to get to there in the first place, but to get back it took me over an hour (the crèche is 10 min away) of driving to and fro the different access roads, discussing with the policemen, gendarmerie and presidential guards to convince them that I really wasn't going to the airport, I didn't even need to cross that one crucial junction. It's amazing how one person can close a capital down, get all military staff available to stand at every single junction between the Hilton Hotel and the airport for a whole day. What would have happened if we needed emergency health care?? Don't want to think about that he.

Cameroon –just arrived

Not much yet to tell really. Except that the weather is great: cool nights, warm to hot days and a shower every couple of days to wash everything clean (including the inside of the car as we forgot to close the windows…)

Materialistic as we are, I’m gonna start with our house: It’s a great place, newly built (which means not a manicured garden as yet…), with a big garden and on the outskirts of Yaounde. But within 20-30 min drive of the city centre. Water and electricity are mostly present – we’ve had a couple of power and water cuts but mainly due to technical problems rather than availability. On the picture below, you see our house on the left and the office and guesthouse on the right. Both are connected with a great terrace.

Jara’s doing fine. Is enjoying running around naked or just a nappy and having a lot of space. A difficult sleeper as she always has been, the nights are not too bad! We’re getting a couple of nights through every so often – hopefully that will become regular before too long. We’re in the process to look for a crèche or something similar which would be good for Jara. She misses her Bangkok –buddies!! Luckily, with us arrived another couple with a son, only a few months older than Jara. We meet up with them at least once a week to let the children have a good play.

We have explored Yaounde a couple of times and no, it’s not Bangkok, nor Ghent or Stuttgart. But if you look, you can find everything. Before leaving Belgium for example, we were warned to bring a water filter as they don’t have them in Cameroon. As they are impossible to find in Belgium, we had one send to us the week before we left from Germany, at great expense. On our first outing in Yaounde, what do we see… dozens of water filters for sale at a fraction of the price we paid in Europe… future travellers, be warned!

Work wise, Thorsten is getting settled well and looking forward to the coming partner visits with trips into the country. I haven’t really started looking for fulltime paid positions as we have another baby coming in November. So far I’m feeling fine and have had no problems. Where I’ll be for the delivery is not decided yet. We’re trying to figure out the options and if possible I would like to deliver here. But we’ll see.

Pai - Mae Hong Son

Leaving Thailand for good, it must be done in style. So we decided to go for the last 10 days to the North of Thailand and do 'the Pai- Mae Hong Son Loop'. It was well worth it.

We set of to Chiang Mai and rent a car from there. Arriving in Pai, we decide it is such a nice chilled out place, we hang out there for 5 nights - oops! Half of our holiday gone and we haven't started properly... The fact we were staying in a beautiful place in the middle of the rice fields (http://www.thecountrysidepai.com/en/index.php) may have had something to do with it. Pai is a great place to do day treks from. With Jara we were obviously limited in what we could do, but we managed to visit a couple of so called 'coffin caves', drove to and through hill tribe villages and made a few walks in the villages and rice fields.

Arriving in Mae Hong Son, we immediately realized that if we would not have stayed 5 days in Pai, we would have done it in Mae Hong Son (http://www.sangtonghuts.com/index.html). MHS attracts lots of hill tribes who come to sell their local produce in town. There are lots of influences of Myanmar (Shan temples, Shan kitchen etc) which brought back memories of Griet's friends of Myanmar during her study. We also went to the Myanmar border and stuck our hand into Myanmar - didn't dare to cross the border as there was no-one there but a watch post a bit further and you never know if they are watching you with their binoculars.

Another great outing was visiting the Long-neck Karen or Padaung Karen village. They came into Thailand years ago, fleeing Burma and their refugee camps have become their home. Jara was as much an attraction to them, as they were to us. The same happened in every hill tribe village we passed. Jara was often almost pulled out of our arms, so keen were they to pick her up. And to be honest, it made it much easier to make contact and take pictures too!

In the Doi Inthanon National Park we stayed in a village-run place. The funny thing was that they cultivated their own coffee in the Karen village, which we could go and taste but the guest house only served instant Nescafé...

Al in all it was the perfect way to say goodbye to Thailand. We will go back but it won't be for the first couple of years.
Now, we are getting ready to move to Cameroon and start our new life there. Thorsten will leave for Yaoundé 2nd March but has to come back to Belgium for work in April already. So Griet and Jara will join him at the beginning of May, when the 3 of us will go back together and start the new adventure.