Friday 29 April
With this new update I have to start with the return journey. Well, what I can say is that we left Benoué 15 minutes too early, which is unique in Africa. Of course a good sign for the rest of the trip. In the park we saw some elephants, just before the end of the sand road in the national park. Great to see! 🙂
Then heading to Garoua. On our way to this city it started to rain. Amazing enough it’s raining almost 5 weeks too early. So the temperature is mild.
In Garoua we ate at a bakery…masterly! Lots of bread (hadn’t eaten it for 3 weeks) and cakes. With full stomages we continued our journey to Maroua. Also here lot of raining, but unbelievable holes in the road made driving conditions even worse. At some moments I felt the contents of my stomach coming up…..:( but I survived the journey.
In Maroua there were the same things to do like hanging up the musquito net, buying some drinks and go for eating in restaurant Port Mayo.
Saturday we went to the chicken market to buy………yep………chickens!! You can choose from lot of chickens walking there around the stands. And know why…..this was the surprise for our driver, Hamidou, ‘cause he invited us to eat at his home. But first we bought some fruit at the central market and some other nouriture at the supermarket. Afterwards we went to Hamidou. It was very chilly and we talked a lot. The chicken alive was the surprise and the other was slaughtered. Hamidou’s wife immediately cooked it. 2.5 hours later we were eating. I really liked it there.
Sunday was a bit of chilling and putting all data from Benoué in the computer . Later that evening I went to the internet café. Unfortunately yesterday in the whole city there was no electricity and no water very annoying 🙁 Amazing, I talked to so many cousins and friends, I really liked the conversations. Thank you all 🙂 😉 !!
Then there was dinner and the invitation of the Dutch coordinator, Stephen. We went to his home, played with the didgerididoo, drank something and chatted for a while. Again a day was finished.
Next day (Monday) was the birthday of roeland. The whole day we chilled at the swimming pool. A welcome refreshing….on a hot day. We gave him cakes with little candles! And lots of chocolate and other candy. Early that morning Roeland went with Tom to the central market, to choose a present. He took some dress materials; I think to make some LARP suits of it.
Latest days often there’s no electricity and water. That makes a move to the cyber café difficult, since there’re closed. Probably the situation gets worse when it starts to rain a lot here. Well we see. Because of the warmth it’s inpossible to do anything it’s just the way things work here.
We had plans to go to Magga. This is a little town near a lake. Unfortunately we went to the bank wednesday; money wasn’t transferred yet. So we had to stay in Maroua. But what can you do in the noon..well we went to a soccer match!! It was the soccer team of Maroua and another team from anywhere else, 1500 km away from here. Aw men it was so awsome! We could sit on the tribune so we had a good oversight of the soccer pitch. The soccer was of a high level and it was therefore also a serious game. The second and third placed teams in the battle. Great to see the Cameronians supporting their team and going wild. 5 goals were made and almost a 2 hours match of great soccer. I really enjoyed this noon and I want to go to such an event once. Probably in May another important match will be played.
For thursday we had planned to do something with new software programmes and to put all results in excel sheets. Hours elapsed:( As everyone knows; after doing some work, it’s always to have some fun, especially when you’ve finished all work. So we went to the artisanat (the touristique place where you can buy souvenirs) to shop around. Well just giving the eyes a chance just to look. Not to buy. I’m searching for a nice cloth for hanging on a wall, with a print of rare animals. I think the second mid week in May, I’ve time to look around for it.
Friday was the day of doing the shopping for the whole week. Lots of fruit, vegetables and other food. Just the usual procedure it took a lot of time and effort. but we’re now ready for our second field period in Benoué. 30 april we leave at 6.00 am to Benoué. 19 May we return to Maroua. In between we’ll go to Ngaoundaba on 9 and 10 May. So everyone can reach me on my birth day…….yeahhhh 🙂 🙂 🙂
Wat n coole reacties op me site!! 😉 🙂 Iedereen heel erg bedankt daarvoor! En en natuurlijk bedankt voor alle felicitaties en mensen die kaartjes naar thuis hebben gestuurd en diegene die gebeld hebben!!! Gewoon teveel om op te noemen!!! Maar ja. 😉
Ik ben dus weer eindelijk terug in de bewoonde wereld. Veel beesies gezien en weer veel beleefd. Allemaal op me weblog te lezen natuurlijk. 😉
en verder is er ook weer tijd voor internet in de bewoonde wereld!! 🙂 Ik ben deze periode tot 31 mei in Maroua. Nou ik zal dan elke dag van 20.00 uur tot 22.00 uur online zijn ((dat hoop ik tenminste). Soms ben ik er ietsjes later, maar ja dat komt wel goed.
Ow bijna vergeten; de tijden die ik hier noem, zijn de tijden in Kameroen. Bij jullie is het dan een uur later.
Nou tot MSN mails!! 🙂
Au revoir
Amar
PS foto’s volgen waarschijnlijk overmorgen. ik moet ze nog allemaal eerst sorteren en morgen is alles dicht, want dat is dan een nationale feestdag.