The first full day

Today I woke up early in the morning so that Vincent, Ina (a doctor) and I could travel to Bamenda. We stopped at a boulangerie/patisserie (bakery/pastry shop) before leaving the city. I bought a croissant and an apple tart to eat for breakfast. All I can say about the driving in Douala is that I would NEVER want to drive there. It was chaotic to say the least. People going everywhere, cutting other people off, all over the road, no lanes, honking everywhere, near misses with pedestrians, bicyclists, motorbikes, cars and trucks!! I was nervous but most of all grateful I wasn't driving. I'd say about 80% of the vehicles I saw had at least one fender bender, most had the whole 360 degrees scraped up with tailights and headlights cracked and broken. Very different from driving in the U.S.

The cars here all seem to be either Japanese, French or German. Toyota takes the lead BY FAR. I'd say Mercedes, Nissan and Mitsubishi are probably all in second place. I also saw a few Renaults, Peugeots, and the occasional Honda. All the cars and trucks seem to drive on diesel while the motorbikes are gasoline. The majority of the cars and trucks seem to be stick shift too, which appears to be pretty normal for places I've traveled outside of the U.S. At the gas stations, you can buy diesel, gasoline or kerosene (for lamps in your home if you need it). After doing currency and volume conversions, kerosene runs about $US2.90/gallon, diesel at $4.55/gallon and gasoline at $4.75/gallon. I was surprised to see gasoline be more expensive. Go figure.

We drove for about 7 hours or so today. The road in the city of Douala was very bumpy and had to be taken with a lot of caution. Once outside the city it was a lot better and for the most part we were able to cruise at what felt about 60mph. Occasionally there would be pot holes, speed bumps or road construction that would temporarily slow us down, but not too bad. All along the way we could see palm trees, coconut trees and banana trees. We also stopped a few times to pick up some food along the way from people selling it by the roadside. Well, Vincent did. He shared some papaya with us. It was pretty good! Very fresh!

We got to Bamenda and settled down at the Cameroonian Baptist Convention, the headquarters for this Baptist ministry in Cameroon. I was able to meet Bob and the two of us went into town to do a little grocery shopping as well as get some food to eat. We went to a little restaurant where we had scrambled eggs over french fries. It was pretty good! I liked it and it almost reminded me of matzah-brei. I also had a coke made with real sugar cane! None of that high fructose corn syrup stuff! We made our way back to the ministry and I helped Bob load his Mitsubishi SUV with some chairs and a computer to take back to Banyo. Tomorrow, we'll leave early in the morning after eating breakfast here. He says it should take about 10 hours because the road is pretty bumpy and rough. Oh boy! Sounds like fun! :-D

I won't be able to upload pictures for a while because I forgot the cable to my camera back in the states. Although I'll get it in about a month. There are some people coming into Banyo towards the end of January/beginning of February from Colorado. I'll have Rachel ship the cable to them and they can bring it with them hopefully. At first I thought Rachel could just ship it to me but it turns out mail takes a while to get out to Banyo. Apparently it gets to the major cities pretty fast but can take a month, or two, or three to make its way to Banyo. Oh boy!

I won't have internet for a while I'm pretty sure so this will be my last post for a few days, possible a week or two. We shall see. Hopefully all goes well! I'm very excited for what lays ahead!