A Man’s Blog

Bro Ebere is my mechanic and this is his shop. He is in the Branch Presidency and speaks English.   My truck was making a terrible noise and he found out there was a loose part on the air filter box.  He heated up a wire with a torch and pushed a hole in it to put a screw in to hold it tight.  It fixed the rattle.


There are many cars in various stages of disrepair.  He dropped everything to work on my truck.  As I walked around, his yard looked like a salvage yard in the US and none of the vehicles would have been thought worth repairing, but he will fix them.

Brother Ebere is building a home on the corner of the lot where his car repair business is.  It will be nice when he gets it finished and he will be closer to his family when he works.  I haven’t seen the home he is living in now.

We took a taxi across town to get the parts we needed to replace the clutch on the truck and I took some photos as we were riding in the taxi.  This is a portable plumbing shop that sells all kinds of plumbing repair parts.  It is pushed around town by the owner.

The store on the right is a plumbing store.  Notice the sinks hanging and the pipe in the roll.

This is another plumbing cart.  It is a little blurry, because we were driving by pretty fast and the road was very rough.

This is a large building under construction.  They pour cement collums and then fill in the rest with home made cinderblocks.  We pray that they never have an earthquake here.  It takes years for anything to be completed and often they get to this stage and then the owner runs out of money and they just sit for years.

Brother Ebere and his helper are putting a new clutch in our truck.  For those of you not mechanically minded, that means they have to take out the drive shaft, and the transmission to get to the clutch.  In the US they would put it on a hoist and stand under to do the work.  Here they raised up the front a few inches and put some old engine blocks under to support it and then lay underneath on some cardboard and drop everything to the ground.  I watched the whole process and was amazed what they can do with a sack of tools.  They didn’t even have sockets and of course no air tools.

This is the waiting room.  I would watch out in the sun until I got too hot and then I would sit on these old car seats and study my French.  It took about 6 hours for them to change the clutch. 

In the taxi on the way to buy the new clutch, I saw this guy on the back of a mototaxi with two weed eaters up in the air.  They do all the trimming along the side of the roads with weed eaters.  I was expecting him to hit a low wire and to come rolling off the moto.

There are thousands of old abandoned vehicles along the roads.  They drive them until they stop and then a mechanic comes with his little bag of tools and rebuilds the engine or transmission or puts the front end back on.  He does it where ever it dies.  I asked my mechanic about preventative maintenance and he laughed at me.

On our trip to Yaounde, a city 4 hours away through the jungle we often see critters hanging on the side of the road for sale.  We have seen monkeys, and other animals.  We finally got the courage to stop and ask if we could take a picture.  The one on the right is a porcupine and the one on the left I’m not sure what it is .  There was a turtle hanging with them.  It is below and was alive at the time we took the picture.  These two were not alive.


People still carry a lot of things on their heads.  When they unload trucks they haul it in on their heads.  We have seen many times men with two 100 pound sacks of cement on their heads.  This guy has a huge bag with scrap plastic and metal parts that he will recycle I assume.

Zone excursion to Kribi

For P-day we took our missionaries to a resort town 21/2 hours away called Kribi.  It is on the Atlantic Ocean.  We are at the bus station at 7:00 a.m. to leave and finally left at 8:30 after stopping to get gas and to get a new spare tire for the one that was flat.

At Kribi we saw these beautiful water falls that empty into the ocean.  We rode in taxis for about 20 minutes from where the bus dropped us off in the center of town.  This was by far the most beautiful place we have seen in Cameroon.  It was a refreshing change of scenery.

Elder and Sister Gailey sitting on the trail that lead to the falls in an old boat made from hollowing out a log.

The missionaries changed into their p-day clothes after we arrived.  They always wear their name tags.  It drove them crazy not to be able to get in the ocean and go swimming.  When the frisbee went into the ocean the native below would go out and get it for them.  He played soccer with the missionaries and he was a lot of fun.

This young man played soccer and frisbee with the Elders.  He found this little sand crab walking along the beach and put it on his head where it would show up better.  We were having so much fun just getting away that we didn’t even take a picture of the ocean.  On the way home we were crammed into a 18 passenger small bus that had small fold down seats added in the isle that expanded the capacity to 34 people.  We were 11/2 hours late getting back to the bus because our taxis didn’t come on time.  We had 24 people sitting on the hot bus that were not very happy to see 10 white people show up and squeeze in between them.  We handed out pretzels and that seemed to help.  The ride back took 31/2 hours because the traffic was so bad.  My back was sore for a week.

A Baptism at our Apartment

We had a baptism at our apartment.  We had a baptismal font at our other building but the new building we moved into doesn’t have one yet, so we have had a couple of baptismal services at the pool at our apartment.  We never go swimming in it, but it looks clean and works well for baptisms.

The pool is about 5 feet deep and they try to perform the baptisms on the steps but usually end up falling in when they put them under the water.



Elder Graham, from Layton was serving as a witness for the baptism of Aldrich, who is Romeo’s son’s friend.  Romeo performed the baptism.



Brother Joseph is engaged to the young women’s president in the branch.  He is a bouncer at a club and his life has changed so much.  He wanted the smallest person who could, to baptize him as a sign of his humility.  Junior baptized him.  He is a priest.



This little girl Joy, was bored at the baptism, so we gave her some markers and she climbed up on my desk and drew pictures and fell asleep while coloring.



Joy is the cutest little girl.  We are teaching her mom the gospel and when we go to their house, she always runs to us and gives a big hug.



We had over 40 people in our apartment from the branch for the baptism.  We ran out of chairs and the Elders had to sit on the floor.



This is Dr. Samuel and his wife Caro.  He has been a member for 5 years and moved around a lot in his studies to become a doctor.  He was never ordained to the Aaronic priesthood, so last week he was ordained a priest.  Sister Gailey and I are teaching Caro and their two older daughters Sidonie and Lydia.  Joy is  their daughter and they have two little boys, Jackson (2) and Jimmy (1). We hope they will be ready for baptism in a few weeks and Dr. Samuel will be able to baptize them.

Relief Society Birthday Party

On Saturday March 16, 2013 the BonaPriso and BonaBari branches had a combined relief society birthday party like they do all over the church.  These sisters spent hours preparing the food out in the sun on the hot concrete behind the church building.  They had rice, beans, fish heads and some other things that I’m not sure what they were.  They cook it over charcoal which is pieces of burn wood that they re-light.


The women got together a few weeks before and tie died some fabric and then made matching dresses from the material.  Sister Gailey doesn’t have a sewing machine or much desire to sew, so they made a dress for her.  It is kind of one size fits all with these dresses.

The sisters spend two hours before getting everyone dressed and looking just right.  They make hats out of fabric that they tie in many different ways to give it a different look.

This is the finished product.  Jan came home and skyped some of the family in her new outfit.  Alek didn’t know what to think of his grandma.

With her new dress and hat Sister Gailey fit right in.  It is a little hard to tell which one she is.  Good thing she has her name tag on.  They had all the sisters go up in front and model while they plaid modeling music.  Sister Gailey got the biggest applause and cheers.

On the drive home, we got a lot of really weird looks.  Here I am with my African Queen.  Jan has gone from being a princess at home to a queen here in Cameroon.

Tie Dying Material for Dresses for the Relief Society Birthday Party.

The sisters got together to tie dye material to make themselves matching dressings.  I’m not sure what used to dye the material, but all the sisters were holding their noses so I think it was toxic.




The Elders stopped by after playing soccer just in time to provide the muscle for wringing out the fabric for the sisters.  This is Elders Morin, Zurcher, Andriamamonjy, and Garland.

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.