odds and ends from Tropicana

We're planning on remaining in Yaounde until our departure from Cameroon at the end of the month. Here are a few pictures I shot today, around the house and our quartier of Mvan-Tropicana.

The Xaviera Hotel, shot from our balcony. Line of sight means line of sound as well, and the Xaviera is frequently rented out for all-night wedding celebrations with what, I suspect, are outdoor amplifiers as tall as me, with tweeters like dinner plates and woofers like truck wheels. It sounds like the party is in the back yard, not across the valley. The Kapteyn house, where we lived for seven months, lies in between this place and our own, so we heard it there too. Their house is lower and closer, but on the other hand is better-protected by brush and solid windows rather than louvers, so the noise level is probably about the same. Happily, like the el train in the Blues Brothers film, the parties happen so often you cease to notice them.

Living room. The cup of coffee and novel were my long morning. The CD is something in the Yemba language that Gretchen and Nancy gave us. I am mystified about the pillow in the background -- it looks like the Hand of Fatima on there, a Muslim symbol, but we inherited the pillow from Karen, who doesn't seem likely to own one. Have to ask her.

Three essentials of our life here -- antibiotics for a minor but persistent inconvenience, insect repellent (especially necessary because we take no antimalarial medicine, preferring to treat it if it comes), and a laptop. This bug repellent (thoughtfully sent to us with many other fine things in a Christmas package from the US by Brian, Kate and Dave) is hardcore; we wear it regularly, and did at the Kapteyns' house too when we lived there. We took our cues from them before they left, and so got in the habit of putting our legs up on the coffee table there to watch TV. The bug goop on our legs actually ate through the finish on the table, over time, leaving chemical burn marks of bare wood. I've started sticking a pillow under my legs now, in our new place, when I prop them up. Some guy named Larry owns most of the furniture, and will come back to it after we leave. He is reputedly a stickler, too.

Missionaries drive trucks. Some of the teachers drive cars instead, but a truck has the advantage of being able to leave town and to go deeper into the neighborhoods, because it can handle rougher road conditions.

The front gate of Cabtal, where we live. The tower over the gate is the office building, and the diagonal stairways behind it belong to our apartment building. The guardhouse at left is always manned.

The apartment complex next to ours, called New Land, is also full of SIL ex-pats. I went over there to get a picture of a monkey and a parrot who live in separate cages under a stairwell. But they seem to have moved. So here's a flower instead.

The gate of CTC, the complex that houses SIL offices and Rain Forest school. I'm in here at the moment, writing this.

Entering CTC, I heard a plane in the sky, and grabbed a zoom shot. This is SIL's plane, so this could be our friend Ray up there. If not, it's either Dennis or Daryl, the two other SIL pilots. Funny to see a plane and be fairly sure who's flying it. The only other small aircraft around are military, usually a green helicopter. We hear large aircraft noise at night, sometimes, too, but don't see any during the day.

With the advent of rainy season, the skies are spectacular again. This doesn't come through all that well in a 400-pixel image, but I thought it might be worth a try anyway.

And another.

Part of the CTC campus. Everything grows here, often with wild abandon, so you can trim a tree by simply hacking all the branches short, and sure enough, they sprout green again pretty quickly. I'm currently sitting in a hot sun on the left-hand side of this porch, where there's a network connection, blogging and shooing the occasional mosquito in spite of repellent.

Fooling around with the camera and laptop screen.

Me on the porch just now.

I'm off back home now, to get some work done on the new RELUFA website (coming soon!), and dinner with Ann and our friend Christy W at her favorite restaurant. We're sorry to see Christy go, to teach in another part of Cameroon for awhile, but hope to see her in Michigan one of these Christmases, since her parents live 30 miles from ours. Meanwhile, planning continues for departure and Europe, with San Francisco just over the horizon in October.