Sun Rises and Sets

Finally I could get some pictures up! We recently got "faster" internet here, so I might actually be able to hear your voices if we skype! Also, I changed the settings on this blog thing (didn't realize you could) so that anyone can post a comment. So now if you want to comment on anything or respond back or ask questions, go ahead! Or you can always email me too :-)

Oh, and just so everyone know, DEREK IS COMING ON TUESDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He left a few days ago and arrived in Amsterdam, and has been traveling around there for a bit. He's making his way to Paris and will fly here on Tuesday. Needless to say I am so excited. This next weekend starts break, so after that I'll have some good stories to tell about our adventures: I believe we'll go on a bush medicine trip, visit my cooperating teacher's village from when he was in peace corp, and go to the beach (Limbe this time) and see Mount Cameroon. I'm pumped! And my dad comes in 2 weekends as well, after his trip to a seminary with my church. So please pray for safety for both him and Derek.

Here are some pictures from Anjana's (I'm living with her now) porch- her apartment faces the east, so we get the best sunrises ever. Since we have to get up early for work anyways, I've been getting up a little bit earlier to eat breakfast on the balcony and watch the sun rise, it's really a great way to start the day. And I may talk about the sun and the clouds a lot here, but really, every day the clouds are beautiful. There are just so many all the time, I've never see blue skies.

This is a rainstorm coming in- its so fun to watch them come and then all the sudden its pouring rain.

There was a storm coming in really fast, and I quick ran to get my camera and saw this awesome rainbow. It only lasted a few minutes, before it was a total storm here, but it was so cool.

So here's some more from Kribi (the beach) which was a few weekends ago:This one is just a little trail we went on to look at that huge waterfall- the trees are huge and everything is super green. This picture doesn't really capture it though.
This is the view from the beach at our hotel- perfect sunsets. Although, that barge out there is for the oil rig, which is in all my pictures :-)
This is me and Raissi (or Riessa, as I've been spelling it), trying to get the sunset in the background. Beautiful isn't she?

Cameroonian Church

Hello everybody!

Well, we had our second basketball game this weekend- there was an improvement from the first one, which was good! Although, the other team was actually full of really good highschoolers, so they played down a LOT, which was really nice of them. By the end of the game the other team was playing defense with no hands, and their coach wouldn't let them shoot unless they passed a certain number of times! But that way my girls at least got to see how a game should flow, and the score was pretty close. So it was a good experience. Although my throat hurt after the game cuz I had been yelling so much, trying to get girls' attention to tell them they were on offense and not defense... :-)

I also went to church finally! I went with Sean, another teacher here- we took a taxi to meet up with Nelson, a guy who works at the kitchen at school (he's the one from Ndu that has brothers who are at the seminary there, which is where my dad is going very soon with my church), who took us to this really big baptist church. So it was actually my first few taxi rides, which was fun. We crammed 5 people other than the driver, plus a baby, in. I was sitting up front sharing the seat with Nelson's niece.

There were tons of people there. There's a french service and an English service. Although, the English service is second, so its way longer. The whole thing took like 3 hours. It was packed and pretty hot, but definitely could have been worse. They had 4 different choirs, all in different languages. The pastor gave this schpiel to the new choir about how its an honor to be in the choir and how they shouldn't wear their choir clothes to work or anything, but to remember that they are for the Lord and only for singing in church. Interesting.

There was lots of singing, which they put the words in the screen which was nice cuz I still have trouble understanding the accents. The pastor spoke about the God we thank. About thanking God for the big and small, about how God gives us things to enjoy and enables us to enjoy them. He told this story of a Cameroonian who worked his whole life, saying he'd enjoy life once he was in retirement. So he finally retired and got all this money, bought himself nice clothes and a car a and a chauffeur, and was on his way to the nicest restaraunt when he closed his eyes and said "finally, this is enjoying life" and BAM, car accident and he died. When he got to heaven he was standing at the gates, complaining to Jesus "why? why now when i was just starting to enjoy life? it isn't fair!" And Jesus says "who are you?"

Interesting I thought. Also interesting because a sermon on enjoying life the way it is means something different here and Cameroon. The standard is totally different. It's one thing to tell a suburban American who just lost a bunch of money in the stock market to enjoy life when its hard, and its another thing to tell a Cameroonian with aids and 6 kids and a salary of like 50$ a month to enjoy life.

So I didn't really meet many poeple cuz it was so crowded. Nelson usually goes to a smaller church thats part of this one thats a bit closer, so we'll prolly go there next sunday maybe. Nelson convinced us to go out for drinks afterwards for a bit, we met his wife who works at a salon, and then finally got home in the afternoon. I was super tired cuz I was up late- there was a Latin Dance Night at school the night before which I went to. The school tries to do stuff for the teachers and embassy/ex pat community every so often, so its good to go and support. This weekend is the women's tennis.

Also this weekend I think I'm going to a Lions game (the soccer team) so I'm really excited about that. Saturday will be a long day with tennis and the game, but it'll be fun.

Oh, so Liz didn't have swine, just another bad flu. So the school didn't close, so thats good. I'm currently living half at Liz's and half at Anj's. It's fun though.

Derek leaves for Europe tomorrow!! He travels around there for a week, and then will be here to see me on Tuesday!!! I'm so excited. My dad leaves for Cameroon on like the 16th to teach at a seminary in Ndu (which is like 8 or something more hours north of me) for the week. Then he'll come visit me for like 2 days and fly out. So great to be able to see family!

And my pastor from home can marry me and Derek, so May 22 here we come! This is the unofficial save the date, cuz we're not gonna be getting one out till I get home.

In other news I broke out the oreos that were in the package Gramps sent me, and oh man, are they good!

love,

Grace