Kribi with Romeo and Irene

Our good friends, Romeo and Irene Dim have been asking us to go to Kribi with them for a few months now.  We finally found a couple of days when we could break away and we left on Friday morning and returned home on Saturday evening.  They think that we have done a few things to help them and they insisted on paying for everything.  In reality, we should have been paying for them because whenever we get in a bind, we call them and they drop everything to come and help us.

We drove across this bridge where the river comes into the ocean.  We stopped at a little village where the fishermen bring in their fish to sell at a marked and restaurant that is right on the ocean.  Here they are unloading their boats and mending their nets.


This is their boats tied up to the market along the coast where their fish are displayed to sell.

This shows the fish laid  out for the people who live nearby, and the restaurant, to pick out what they want to eat or cook.  There are several types of fish, crabs, and shrimp.  They use nets and bring in whatever gets caught in their nets.

We picked out our fish and they take it to a little work area where the gut it, clean it, put spices in and on the outside of it and then put it on the little wood grill and cook it.  This area was about 6 feet away from our table and we watched the whole process.  Jan wished that she hadn’t watched before she was going to eat.

This is our friends, Romeo and Irene, with the finished product on the plate.  We had fish soup, three large fish that you pick off the bones, plantains and fries with pop to drink.



This is the Fedelie Hotel where we stayed.  It was across the street from the ocean.  We were guests of Romeo and Irene and it was a weekend so many of the hotels were booked.  Romeo took Jan in to look at the room to make sure it was ok.  It seemed clean and was much better than most Africans live in every day.  I hurried and told them it would be fine.


This is the bathroom in our hotel room.  We were grateful that the room had air conditioning.  We slept well after a long day driving and walking along the beach.  Romeo had us fill up the bucket first thing in case the water was off later in the day.


Kribi is the most beautiful place that we have seen in Africa.  The city was smaller and less crowded than Douala and the ocean was very beautiful.  We walked along the beach and walked in the water.  We always wear our missionary badges and wear our church clothes when we are doing anything except exercising.


This is Irene and Romeo.  They have been a member of the church about a year and a half.  We are helping to prepare them to go to the temple in Johannesburg in a few months.  We hope to be able to go with them and their 4 children.  That would be the highlight  of our mission.

There were these huge rocks in the ocean without a mountain any where in sight.  We all wondered how God was able to set them there.

Jan, Romeo, and Irene sitting on the beach under a huge tree whose roots are exposed from the ocean eroding the beach away around the tree.

This is a point on the beach where the president of Cameroon has a vacation home.  It has military guards guarding it around the clock.

While we were walking along the beach at 9:00 in the morning, there were many fishing boats that returned from fishing all night out on the ocean.  The boats are all hand made out of thick planks and weigh a ton.  They fish with nets and bring in what they catch to sell across the street.  They go out every night rain or shine.

They walk the boats up the beach by turning them end for end until they get up out of the tide and close to the road.

These are the fish that they caught after fishing all night.  There are two of them per boat to work the nets.

The last 20 feet of the beach, they turn the boats strait and everyone comes to help push them up the last part of the beach.  Jan and I jumped in to help and they clapped for us,when we got the boat up to the road.  With 20 people pushing it was still very hard work to move  the boats.  For all those who came from the village to help put the boats away they gave them a couple of small fish for their food for the day.  They would help several boats and go home with enough food for the family for the day.

This is a little church that we passed on the road.  It looked like it would only hold 10 people, but Romeo told us they would put chairs outside for the overflow crowd.

In Kribi, there are rivers that flow into the ocean.  We went to this spot where there are some waterfalls.  It was very beautiful.  There were shops where we bought some souvenirs.  Romeo bought us a hand carved pineapple with coasters inside.  We told him we would think of him and Irene whenever we have a Coke at home back in Utah.  They really want to come and see us in Utah.  We hope they can.  We told them if they can get the airfare we would take care of everything else and show them a lot of neat things like all the temples and conference center in SLC.

The Falls

A village across the river from Kribi.  People live like they have lived for hundreds of years.


Jan and I with our very very good friends Romeo and Irene.  Irene had just bought that hat to wear at Romeo’s brothers wedding in a couple of weeks.  I told her she was like the Britts with her new hat for the wedding.

These young men were bathing and washing their clothes by the falls.  We were glad to see that they still had on their under wear.  That’s not always the case.

We hiked up a little trail to get closer to the falls and we found this lady washing dishes and brushing her teeth in the water.  We weren’t sure if she would like us taking her picture, but she smiled when I said “Bonjour Madame”.

On road from the falls, as we were leaving, we passed this man and woman on a mototaxi with this huge fish strapped on the back.  We assume that they were taking it home to cook for their family. We worry a lot about food not being refridgerated he in Africa.  The milk, eggs, fish, and most everything else, are just left out in the open.  So far, we have only had minor stomach problems from the food.

This is a mud house that we passed on the way to the falls.  Many of the older homes are completely like the bottom half of this house.  It is made with poles, sticks and mud.   Notice the windows, or lack of.

A Traditional African Wedding

We were invited to attend a traditional African Wedding with Romeo and Irene, our best friends in Douala.  Romeo’s youngest brother was getting married and it was held at Romeo’s parents home.  We have been to their home before and they were so nice to us.  The day after the wedding they had Romeo bring us some cooked fish and plantains for dinner, to show their love to us.  That was after feeding us two meals at the wedding.

When we arrived the relatives and neighbors were busy cooking a huge amount of food in the alley by their home.  The feast would be sent home with the bride’s family as part of the bride price.  These are plantains that are large bananas which they boil or deep fry.  They are a little sweet with a consistency of potatoes when they are boiled.

Jan wanted to help cook, but they told her she would light her dress on fire.  They were very nice to us and let us take all the pictures we wanted.


We did get to help in the kitchen.  We made sandwiches with bread, butter and salami.



We think this is called minindo.  It is a dough that they make and roll in little rolls and then roll it in large leafs.  It is allowed to ferment for a couple of weeks and turns to the consistency of soft taffy and is rubbery.  It has little flavor but the Africans love it.  They sell it on the streets to cars that drive by.


It used to seem so strange to us to be the only white people in a room full of black people, mostly men.  Now we don’t see color anymore.  We just look at each other and say we are really in Africa at an African wedding.  Here they are getting ready for the ceremony.  They all shook our hands and welcomed us.  We all introduced ourselves later in the program.  It wasn’t a whole lot different than our wedding breakfasts in the US.

Romeo asked Sister Gailey to wear her African dress, that was made for her, by the relief society for an activity they had where they all dressed alike.  The ladies did let her stir this pot, but were keeping a pretty close eye on her.

Here Jan is grinding pepper on a rock with a round stone.  They really still use this method to grind spices.


Behind the main house was a traditional home that has been there for a long time.  I guess it is a guest house now, or where the husband sleeps when he doesn’t behave himself.

The bride’s family gives the groom a list of what they want him to bring, for them, to the wedding.  As you can see alcohol is huge on their list.  The jugs have a homemade brew in them.  Here, a representative of the family checks things off the list if they are acceptable.  They pile continued to grow for an hour as things were brought in to add to it.  The father of the bride, in the colorful shirt, is checking out the tobacco that they brought.


They have now added plantains and two 100 pound bags of rice and some bottled water will be added to the gift pile.


We went outside to check out the goat that was on the list.  They kept smacking it to get it to bleat.  It would’t and was too skinny, so they rejected the goat.  It was later accepted and will be taken home with the rest of the loot, to the bride’s home where they will kill the goat and cook it.  They will take the huge pots of food, prepared by the family of the groom, and all the alcohol with them and will invite the neighborhood over for an all night feast and celebration.


These are the plantains that have been pealed and are being washed prior to boiling them.


This is the groom and bride and the spokesman for the grooms family.  I guess he serves as a witness to the ceremony.  We didn’t think it was appropriate to take pictures during the wedding ceremony, so this is the best we have.  We will show the chief that performed the ceremony in a picture with Jan and me.


This is the tribal chief.  He was a huge man.  When we were introduced to him he sent someone out to buy us a coke as a gift for us.  He was gracious enough to let us take his picture with us.


This is our best friends in Douala, Romeo and Irene.  They joined the church about 11/2 years ago.  They have 4 children and always others staying with them.  They are such a source of strength to the branch and have taken such good care of us, since we arrived.  Their English has really improved and Romeo and I speak our own language.  1/2 English and 1/2 French.
Whenever we have a problem or need anything, we call on them.  They do the same with us.  We have been in their home many times and feel just like family.  I like Romeo’s short sleeved suit.

When we get missing our grandchildren too much we adopt some of the beautiful children here.

Our Kenya Safari

Shortly after arriving on our mission in Douala, President and Sister Jameson came to visit us.  They told us that they had been on a safari on their first mission here, and they highly recommended that we go on one too if we could afford it.  Pres. Jameson even mentioned that the General Authorities had said that a safari would be a wonderful opportunity since we are so close and may never be this way again.  Since that day early in our mission we have planned to make it happen.  We decided to go on our 9 month anniversary which would be half way through our mission.  This week, the long anticipated day finally arrived.

Our good friend Pam Atwood, in Morgan, helped with the arrangements and everything went very smoothly.  Here we boarded a Kenya Airways 737 for a 4 hour flight to Nairobi Kenya.  Sister Whitesides is sitting behind us.  She and Elder Whitesides from Yaounde and Layton Utah, have shared everything here in Cameroon with us and we were so glad that they were on the safari with us also.


We spent the night in Nairobi in a Hilton Hotel, and then got on an 18 passenger plane and flew to the Mara Intrepids where we would spend 4 days and three nights.  We made two stops and let passengers off and picked up new passengers at two other camps along the way.  We flew over some beautiful country and could see wild life as we came into the dirt landing strips near the camps.

After a brief orientation and a fruit drink, we were taken to our tent.  It was very nice inside and had this nice deck that overlooked the river below.  The tent had a hardwood floor, a four poster bed with a mosquito net, and a nice bathroom with a large shower.  More pictures of the inside will be coming later.

As soon as we arrived at out tent, we looked down at the river, about 30 feet away and there was this huge hippo sunning itself.  He was there most of the time we were there.  An elephant also walked down the river bank one afternoon while we were watching.

Every morning at 6:30 we would go out on a game drive until 11:30.  They would pack a breakfast for us so we didn’t have to come back to camp.  The first animal we saw was this Gazel which had just had this baby.  She was still licking him clean and we saw him take some of his wobbly first steps.

Coming into camp after getting off the plane we were greeted by this baboon.

We saw a lot of Elephants just grazing in the meadows.  They are so huge when you are only about 10 feet away.  This one started walking toward our Land Rover and Jan was ready to bail out the other side.  They seemed so much different in the wild than they do in the zoo.  They just roam free and don’t seem to have a care in the world.

Many of the pictures we took were while bumping along the road and some of them are a little blurry.  The ostriches were running away.  They are even bigger than they look

.

One of our favorites was the Cheetas.  They are so pretty.  We saw a mother teaching her son how to hunt.  They caught a small gazell and the little one kept pouncing on it and then letting it go and then catching it again.  They eventually ate it.  The food chain is very evident in the wild.


This is a hyena.  They are scavengers.  They hang around a kill until everyone else is finished eating and then clean up the bones and scraps that are left.


This is a wilderbeast.  There were only a few left because every year 11/2 million of them migrate to the Serengeti for new grass lands.  Then in 6 months they migrated back to the Mara for the new grass here.  Our guide said this one was left behind and now he is a bewildered beast.

These are the strangest animals we came across.  We rode in these open Land Rovers and could stand up and see all around us.  This is us with the Whitesides and the Gills who were with us for the 4 days.  The Gills are from England and we loved their accents.



The giraffes were some of the easiest to spot.  With their long necks we could see them from miles away.  They are so majestic.  Jan thought I should have posted one with him looking at us.

We drove up to the river and looked over the edge and there were 20 hippos swimming together right below us.


There are 1/2 million Zebras in Kenya, but they also migrate every 6 months.  There are a few that stay behind and we saw about 30 of them.  They have very weak backbones and the lions sneak up on them and jump in the middle of their backs to bring them down.


There are a lot of beautiful birds and a lot of vultures.  This is one of the prettiest birds we have ever seen.  It has brilliant blues, purples and greens.  There were 3 of them on this tree.


Many crocodiles live in the  Mara River.  They can go for up to a year without eating and when the wilderbeasts migrate they hide and attack them as they cross the river.  This one was probably 15 feet long.  His head is by the tree.


This little baby Hippo was so cute that I had to include it on our blog.


Rhinos are very rare.  There are only 30 left in the whole park.  Poachers have almost killed them off, to cut off their horns to sell.  We were very lucky to find this one and to get within 30 feet of it.  He just eventually wandered off after resting in the shade for w few minutes.


We crossed this river a lot.  One morning as we crossed, we looked upstream and saw all of these elephants getting their morning drink.


This has to be one of our favorite finds.  We were a couple hundred yards away from a small tree.  We saw a male lion stand up and stretch.  We drove over to the tree and there were 4 huge male lions sleeping under the same tree.  They would yawn and stretch and roll over and then go back to sleep.  We parked 10 feet away and watched them for 1/2 hour.  By the time we left the tree was circled with other Land Rovers that had come to see our find.

Dr. Samuel and Caro’s Home

We have talked alot about Dr. Samuel and his clinic for orphans, street children and underprivileged people, so I thought you would like to see where he lives.  His clinic is on the ground floor on the right, and behind it up three flights of stairs is his humble home.

Sister Gailey is just ready to head up the stairs to the right to go to his house where we will teach his wife Caro.  We sometimes teach their daughter and her cousin when we can catch them home from school.


This is the second floor of the building.  It caught fire at some point and has just been abandoned and left as it was when they got the fire out.


I am starting up the stairs to the third floor.


At the top of the stairs on the concrete floor they have a little fire pit where they cook food in large pots over the fire and coals.  They are so kind and almost always try to feed us something.  Usually we have just eaten before we get there.



Sister Gailey on the third floor by their front door with their laundry hanging out to dry.

Looking down from the third floor to Dr. Samuel as he come out of the clinic to join in our lesson.

Inside the home we find the beautiful children waiting to climb up on our laps.  This is Jackson their son and his cousin Favo.  They are two years old.   I told Jan her number one responsibility during the lesson is  to make sure my scriptures are protected.  They love the sound of tearing paper and love to write and color on anything we bring to them.

This is the rest of the family.  Joy, 6, Jimmy, 1 and Caro.  We have been teaching Caro and she is going to be baptized in our pool on Saturday May 25th.  Her husband will baptize her and I will confirm her on Sunday.  Dr. Samuel has been waiting 5 years for her to join him in the church and we had the priviledge of teaching her.  They both are English speakers.  She will be Jan and my first convert in Cameroon.

This is their older daughter Lydia.  We have taught her a couple of times and she has a lot of questions.  With school out for the summer,  we hope to be able to teach her and her cousin more often.

This is a look inside their front door and into the kitchen.  It is literally 6 feet square.