First Weekend of November In Beua

Late Friday afternoon we made a quick stop by our favorite little shops for some Necessary ingrediants and then set to work and settled in for a wonderful weekend!  We've developed a few bad habits here... hehe turning a pot into an oven so we can make cookies may be one of them!

Friday night's meal was a major team-effort... with BIG sucess!  My project was chopping tons of garlic, tomatoes, and Pepā for some salsa I have been craving for so long!!  I added "a little bit of this and a little bit of dat" from the wonderful variety spices and seasonings we got from Union, plus some of the "green spice" from market for an excellent salsa if I must say so myself! ;) hehe, Mary and Alyssa did an incredible job on the tortillas and gave them a little bit of seasoning of their own.  we took it over to Bill and Trixy's house where there was a big pot of rice and a wonderful stirfry of veggies that the interns had put together!!  We combined our works of art for one of the yummiest American Mexican food in Africa Friday night meals you can imagine!  MMMmmmmmm! it was SO GOOD!

Our wonderful Friday night meal!

A great meal must be followed by an equally great dessert... after we tickled our taste buds with the amazing tortillas this dessert just kinda evolved, with direct result in mind we just started cutting up banana and melting some Cameroonian chocolate, soon granola, chopped nuts, brow sugar, and peanut butter was added!  What a great serendipity!

We did it Schumacher style and all dug in!

There was a baby dedication in chuch this week, the whole family (+ about 6 or 7 more that you can't see in this picture) all had clothes made of the same fabric for the dedication.  It was really neat to see.

(some of) OUR FRIENDS!! :D

Left to Right: Sarah (SM from Walla Walla, from CA), Te'claire (pharmacy and cashier at the clinic), Mary (my roomy from ND and Union! :) ), *in front of/between Mary and I is Te'claire's neice holding the baby who was dedicated, Me :), Hellen (the janitor/receptionist/self-made-nurse in the clinic), Alyssa (SM from Walla Walla, WA), little guy in front is one of the kids that comes for tutoring :) out little buddy!

Sarah and I looking as African as we can hehe!  Her dress is one Trixy had made here, I'm wearing my first African skirt, and our look is finished off with our braids! :)

Sunday morning started out GOOD :) powdered soy milk was one of the things I asked our SM directors back at Union to send AND surprize granola from Cherilyn was one of the many goodies that came with pastor Rich!!  It was such a YUMMY treat!!

We've been decorating with some things that pastor Rich brought!!  We have to make it look like fall to remind us that it really is because it still looks like a tropical paradise outside!!

Cutting out the letters for "HAPPY THANKSGIVING" to put on our door, Albert (Te'claire's son) was hanging out in our room more than slightly confused and ammused by our "fall decorating" because neither "fall" or "thanksgiving" exist here in Cameroon!  So we had fun explaining them to him.

Our good friend Richard invited us over last night, we had a wonderful time teaching our Cameroonian friends how to play UNO and then made up several variations of the game as the night went on, we played that cards in your hand at the end were points and whoever had the highest points was out for the next round (but got to sit in the corner and eat oranges! hehe) we had random point values, draw 2 cars were worth 7 points, and wilds worth 20!  It was great fun!! Then at the end we played with the entire deck and when you had to draw cards you took them from the next player!  It was a great evening!

All the ladies that come into the clinic tell us that Cameroonian men can't cook and their men cant even boil water, but Richard sure was hospitable and perpared us an impressive meal!  Coco-yams, Plantains, and Jamma-Jamma.

No furniture in the house :) just gathered around in a circle on the floor, this area rug by the way, is the first contact with "carpet" of any kind I've had since I'm here.

Alyssa and I took over the dish-washing!  Two bowls of water, one soapy and one for rinsing that were carried in becaue there's no running water in his sink.  Richard went outside and took this picture in the window :)

I'm so blessed by the friends God has given me here in Cameroon, red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight!  I love the African concept of EVERYONE being your brother, sister, auntie or uncle!!  What a special family I have here!