Sunny days, cold nights and bonfires with friends

The new Cameroonian dress

Some weeks ago we finally got our Cameroonian dresses back from the tailor. It was fun and we had to try them on right away! My dress fitted pretty much perfectly, it had some minor faults here and there, but it still looks great and I am able to wear it so I am not complaining. :)

I wore it to work at Centre Socio and got a comment from one of the other teachers that I was actually wearing a dress (because of the fabric) that they had as formal uniforms for the grads some years back! That was quite fun to hear, and they showed me some pictures of them too and they were all in different shapes and sizes so I would have fitted right in to the pictures together with them.

I also bought a pair of trousers at Petit Marché and they are awesome :)

The choir dress

Last Sunday we went to a church some km outside of town with the Gospel Singers and I sang together with them. They handed out some African clothes that we had to wear so that we could have some similar uniforms for the performance. They celebrated Thanksgiving there too that day so the service lasted for several more hours than usual so after five hours we were finally finished. It was great fun though!
After the sermon the whole choir was invited to eat at a nearby house.
Us Norwegians got a plate with some food and a fork to eat it with, while the others ate together from big serving plates, some with their hands and some with spoons and forks.
Nice to talk and hang out with them a bit more than just singing.

Kristian and Erling in their choir outfit

Wednesday last week we went grilling down by the pool together with all the other Norwegians here and the Ethiopian missionaries. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and enjoyed each others company. After eating we moved over to sit around the fire in the hearth in the corner of the brick wall around the pool area.
The Bischler boys played Tick,Tack,Toe in the dark, I sat and watched them play and Aron came and sat in my lap. They are really sweet and funny boys. Later on we sang songs and talked for a while.

Sleepyheads..

On Friday we had Taco for supper. It was so good! I had brought some taco spices from Norway, and I am really glad I did, because we had a great time making it! And of course eating it too! The boys were really impatient so no pics from this but we had a great evening. We ate and watched two films afterwords, or at least Runar and me watched the films while the other two slept in their chairs...

The hilltop we went to

Saturday we went on a hike up to a nearby hilltop, or for some it might be a mountain.. We were invited by two friends to join them on this hike for their birthday. So we walked for about an hour to get to the top and were there for several hours. We spent the day with singing, playing cards, taking pictures of the amazing view and us, so we had a really good time up there! The view was fantastic! And I felt like I have finally seen a bit more of Africa. As we usually don't see much more than the town and the station here. So I will definitely try to go on more hikes like that when I'm here.

The beautiful view from the top

This last week I have been a bit sick, so I wasn't at work on Monday, and hadn't got the chance to start properly on my essay for Hald yet, but the flu is not that bad anymore so I am going to start interviewing people for the paper soon so that I can get it finished for the 10th of December.


Johanne Teresie

Thanksgiving in the Church and Gospel Singers

On the 29th of October the choir Gospel Singers had a concert in one of the churches in town. They are so good! Erling, Kristian, Sara-Jeanette and I were assigned to be cameramen or just to be there as audience. (There is a tradition that just some of the youths joining the choir sing at the different concerts they have.)

Gospel Singers at the concert at the Bethlehem Church

Next Sunday we are going to sing together with them in another church, and I am really excited!
A friend from the choir came to teach Sara-Jeanette and me to sing the songs correctly, and to dance the dances they have for the different songs. I am looking forward to sing with them. I'm not sure how well the dancing will turn out to be, but it's going to be fun, even though I will look totally ridiculous beside the Cameroonians!

Synchronised dancing and singing

And here.. I am doomed do be terrible at this..

Last Sunday was a special day at the Millennium Church here in Ngaoundéré. We had a Thanksgiving sermon (Høsttakkefest). This is a big and important event in the churches here in Cameroon. And more than half of the annual income in the church is collected during this event! 

Different groups enter the church while dancing and presenting the amount of money they have collected for several weeks.
Many Cameroonians save half of their salary for months and give this to the church! That is an enormous amount of money for someone who already has so little to get by on. Think about how it would be to have six or ten children who you have to provide for; with food, medicines and school and even then give away as much as half of what you earn for months!
The fact that we have so much and give so little in Norway (and other places in the western part of the world) is astonishing. We really have something to learn from the generous and joyful people here in Cameroon!

The children giving their thanks

Fammes Pour Christ, the women organisation in the church here, is the group which gives the highest amount of money to the church at these events. Other groups are for example the College Protestant and other schools that are connected to EELC (the Evangelical-Lutheran Church here in Cameroon). 
The gifts were given to the pastor, on nice plates with flower decorations on them in all kinds of colours. The children from the schools also came in bringing flowers that they handed to the pastor. This was a really fun experience and everybody was so joyful, singing and clapping!

The missionaries are in a group for themselves at the Thanksgiving event, and the other Norwegians at the station were included in this group. And because we were in a group, we were as well obliged to enter the church while dancing (!). This was much to the amusement for the Cameroonians I would expect... as none of us are as good as they are at dancing to the rhythm. But we tried at least! 

Gospel Singers entering the church

Gospel Singers were also a group that joined in with giving thanks to God for all the good he has done. And we got a chance to sing with them too! It was fun and we danced in like all the other groups. 
Runar filmed and took some nice pictures with my camera :) Thank you Runar :)




"When we can thank God for the food we have gotten, we need to think of those who do not have it as good as we do. When we receive Gods gifts we also receive the responsibility for other people's lives."

Johanne Teresie

Our first day at Centre Socio Ménager

Friday was our first day at Centre Socio Ménager. It was fun, but very difficult as we did not know how to say everything we wanted to say in French. 

A classroom in College Protestant

The first year students did not know how to speak English and we had difficulties with speaking French so it took some time before we made ourselves understood. We tried to see if they could present themselves in English and in French. Some did it perfectly others were struggling a bit more. I felt like I was in the same situation as them, just vice versa.

But after some time when all the twenty students had presented themselves we said that we wanted to play some games. We moved all the chairs and tables away and stood in a circle (at least for a little while...). We tried to play a name game where we have to make a movement together with our name and repeat it for every person who was before us in the circle. This was almost impossible as they did not understand what we wanted to do and they did not know each others names! They had been in the same class for one and a half month and they knew maybe two or three names tops. So we moved on to some other name game after starting from scratch several times.

After the games we sang “Head and shoulders, knees and toes” with them. That was quite fun! Sara-Jeanette told them to try to “Oublier” (which means to forget) what we had done that day, when she meant to say that they had to try to “Rappeler” (remember), we had a good laugh about that when we finaly were finished! I probably had more faults when I tried to speak French...anyway it was fun!

But for our first time in the class teaching English in French, I would say it went all right! It will be fun to return and get to know the second and third year students too on Wednesday!


Johanne Teresie