Kribi and Infield in Nairobi, Kenya

On the 26th of December we went with the train to Yaoundé, starting the long trip to Kribi in the south of Cameroon. When we arrived in Yaoundé we hopped on a bus that would take us the remaining four hour drive to Kribi where we were staying for the end of the Christmas holidays together with the Bischler family and the Aasen family.

Runar on the train

Team picture in the sunset

The first days went by with hanging on the beautiful beach, while sunbathing, playing cards and eating delicious meals that was on the menu at the restaurant and bar of the hotel Ilomba.
The missionaries that had been there before had talked about a waterfall not too far away from the hotel and recommended us to go and check it out. So because the others were too busy being sick or too lazy, me and Kristian went to check it out, and it was beautiful! We decided that the others had to come and see it for themselves too. Therefore on the next day we went over to the waterfall again and even did as the locals did, bathed in the river!

The waterfall we were bathing in

The gang bathing in the river

The stream was strong and you had to hold on to the rocks in the bottom so you wouldn't go down the waterfall. We even jumped in from some rocks above the river! We had seen the locals do it and decided that we wanted to try it out too. So after asking a local guy to show me where to jump, I was the first out into the water. It went perfectly, but the boys were not as lucky. Kristian had a visitor from Norway that arrived the same day and he managed to jump straight on to a rock that was just under the water. And the day after that Runar managed to do the same mistake. But that did not stop him, he talked with the locals too and jumped from a higher cliff beside the waterfall! We were all lucky and got safely back.

New Year's eve

New years eve was spent together with the one-year-volunteers of NMS while babysitting the children of the missionary families  while they were at a barbeque at the beach.
We ate a really good pizza and played cards in the suite before twelve. At twelve there were maybe two or three fireworks, but unfortunately we did not see them, but I had a very good time with the others at the bar by the beach, eating banasplit and playing cards and enjoying a pineapple cocktail before we went up to the rooms at the catholic hostel we were staying at.

On the second of January we travelled back to Yaoundé where we spent a night before me and Sara-J. went to the airport at five in the morning. The aeroplane was (of course) a bit late so we were the last to arrive at the Mission Station in Nairobi for the Infield course with Hald.
It was really good to see the students and teachers again. All the Hald-students in Africa were there so we were a great bunch of people. The first two days were filled with bible classes, and other lessons.They were mostly about information work and what we had done so far and what we wanted to do the remaining period in the countries we are working in.
On January 5th we went on a field trip to the Matareslum and to a school by the slum where some of the Hald students were working. We were introduced to a program for the youth in the slum and were also invited into the homes of some of the youth that lived there.

The Matareslum in Nairobi

The day after we went on Safari, and saw allot of different animals, I have never been on Safari before so this was exiting for me!
But after mostly seeing antelopes all the time the group were tired and some actually slept! But we drove around looking for the lions, and after about four hours the cats were spotted. Lying underneath a bush in the cold there were three lions. I did not manage to take a good photo of this as my camera lived its own life on this trip, and did not want to be turned on...
Infield was finished on the Sunday but we had one more day to spend in Kenya, so together with the girls that are staying on Madagascar we went shopping in the big malls and went to a cinema and watched Sherlock Holmes 2!
The malls were huge! And we almost got a opposite-culture-shock when we went into some of them!
The cinema was big too, and the film was great, but in the middle we were reminded that we were still in Africa as the power went out and we had to wait until they started the poweragrigator.
After a really nice last evening we went back to the hotel and packed the last of our things and said goodbye to the others that were staying for a few more days.

Safari with Hald

This cheeky bugger got into many cars and stole food!

Waking up at four o'clock to get to the airport on the 10th was hard, and it was even worse when we ended up waiting for the plane for several hours. But after about four hours the airport staff apologised and gave us free beverages at the coffee bar outside of the check in. Sara-Jeanette and I played cards and had a chat with a  guy from South Africa while we were waiting. After approximately 9 hours at the airport we were finally on our way back home to Cameroon!

It was really good being back when we finally got to Ngaoundéré the following day, after being away for two weeks! We had missed the people, the language and the red earth that we have here in Cameroon when we were out travelling.

Johanne Teresie