Random pictures of things we see every day.

We ordered some new couches from Oscar.  He is in the branch presidency in BonaPriso.  He made 4 couches for us and the Elders in about two weeks.   The dark one behind the two chairs is one of them.  He made them in the little shop behind us.  We are right on the side of a very busy highway that runs through Douala.  We had to dust them off when we brought them home.

This is a bird that was walking around one of the shops in Kinshasa.  We don’t usually see birds like this just walking around.

This is a fish market on the side of the river.  They go out and fish with nets, and then come in here and sell the fish fresh.  At least as fresh as they can be sitting out in the 90 degree heat all day.

We live in an apartment with a gate.  We pull up and honk and Isidore our guard, opens and closes the gate for us.  He sleeps on a piece of cardboard on the concrete when he is not working around the apartments.  He is being taught by the Elders.  He has paid 4 cows to his in laws and has to pay two more before he can get married and then baptized.

This is a typical neighborhood here in Douala.  The children play in the streets and at night everyone comes out and sits in the streets and visit.

This is a popular swimming hole near us.  The water looks much greener in the picture than it really is. Many of the young men swim without swimming suits and they love to stand on their heads in the water with their legs and other things out of the water when we drive by.

We buy bottled peanuts from these ladies.  We told them we would only buy if we could take their picture.  They blow the skins off the peanuts that they have roasted and pack them into water bottles.  We pay about $4 for a bottle of peanuts packed like the lady in the picture is packing them.  The really are delicious.  We’re not sure how sanitary, but we haven’t gotten sick from them yet.

There are hundreds of these vans on the roads.  They will put about 30 people in them and then pack their stuff on the top.  The springs are shot and some of them lean so bad we can’t see how they don’t fall over.

When you buy chickens, you get the head and feet inside.  We didn’t realize it until Sister Whitesides cooked one and started eating it and pulled out the head with the comb and the feet.


This is another picture of one of the bus vans.  There are 5 rows of seats with at least 6 people on each bench.  One or two more are added by standing on the back and the side by the sliding door.  It is the cheapest way to get around Douala.

They transport all kinds of things on push carts.  They will pull them  for miles.  You can see the guy is soaking with sweat.   We have even seen a car being pulled on one of them.  On the right is a mototaxi.  They haul up  to six people on a Honda 125 motorcycle and normal traffic laws do not apply to them.  They just drive around cars and through red lights.

This is a logging truck hauling logs to the sawmill. We pass a lot of them on the road to Yaounde, when we go to visit the Whitesides.  You can see they are as big around as the car that is passing.   Much of the lumber goes to China.

This picture is taken through our windshield.  We are driving down this street.  Busyness like this is not at all unusual where we drive.  My truck was repainted just before we got here and it has scrapes down both sides from driving through these areas.  My mirrors keep getting folded in from hitting things and people.  We just keep going.

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We may have posted this before, but this larger pictures shows just how much you can get on a push cart.