Travels

I wrote this May 9, but somehow didn't get it posted. Sorry!

I was gently reminded this last week that I haven't written since Christmas! Wow - I'm sure I can't remember all that has happened since then, so I will just hit the highlights and more recent happenings.

A couple months ago Cherise got a monkey! Some kids brought him to our branch Sabbath School and were teasing him and not being nice and he was really scared and crying/screaming and trying to get away. His back right leg was broken (actually in 2 places), so Gary told the kid that had him that we needed to take him to the "hospital"! He didn't want to give him to us, but Gary couldn't stand to see them mistreating him. He told them to come to our house the next day and he would have negotiated something with them, but they didn't come. We don't want to pay for animals because then they start trying to catch them, so we don't want to start that, so it worked out nicely that they didn't come. I guess they won't now. So, we didn't know for sure at first if we were even going to keep him. I sort of feel like we are turning into a wildlife refuge! Some kids brought us a hawk the the other day, but they were trying to sell it to us and birds are too hard for us to keep because of the kids with their sling shots, so we told them if they keep it until we get back we will take it, but I don't think they will keep it alive that long.

They are starting to work on the wall around our property, so I will be glad when they finish that. Right now we have to keep the monkey, he is a patas monkey, who has finally become known as "Red" in a cage if we aren't right there with him or else the kids will shoot him with their sling shots. :-( It makes me mad that they do that, but I guess it is just too big of a temptation. I actually caught two boys, probably about 10 yrs old or so that I saw shooting at the neighbor's. Josie and I snuck up behind them from each side and they couldn't get away, so I marched them over to our neighborhood chief and complained. I don't know if it will help or not, but anyway, it isn't good for the monkey to be in a cage so much, so I will be glad when we get our wall up and can have some privacy and hopefully he can learn to stay inside and roam free most of the time.

We also just got two cats. I haven't seen them yet. The pilot that was working in the game park just left so he gave them to us and Gary took them home already. He had a flight from down near us to the East on Friday, so he went back home Thurs night and came back Fri afternoon. We are hoping to keep the mouse population down as we are always struggling with that!

For the last month or so, we have been home only a handful of days. First we had a trip to the capital. Cherise needs to renew her passport, so she needed to go. We got back from there and found out that our overflight permissions for Cameroon had finally been issued. We have been trying to go there for some time now. So, within a couple days we left for our trip there. We started out by visiting our primary school in the Northwest, out in the mountains where Steve and Carol Rose were working. They are returning to the US now after serving for two years there and so their replacements had arrived, and so Gary was able to have some meetings and hopefully help the transition go more smoothly. It is in an absolutely beautiful location - green, lush, and cool! Coming from Chad, it felt like a feast for my eyes! I couldn't believe it when I went to the market with Carol and she bought a whole hand of beautiful bananas for the same price I pay for one small one!! It was especially fun for me to meet Carol as Steve spent three months in Chad with us back around Christmas 2008, but I had never met her.

After a couple lovely days there, we continued on down to the coast and spent the weekend at the beach. It's not the best beach in the world, my biggest complaint being that when the tide was in it would wash out all the trash and debris from the shore. But we really had a lovely time playing in the waves and black sand. Cherise surprised me by how much she loves the water and wasn't even afraid of the waves. There is also a fresh water spring, just a couple hundred yards from the beach so after finishing in the salt water it was so nice to go for a quick swim in the fresh, cold water. It was really refreshing!

We then continued on to Douala to the village where we used to have a branch Sabbath School when we lived there. They have started a primary school there as well, so we were able to visit that briefly and pick up some of our books that we still had there. I've been wanting the books for a long time! We also ate lunch with one of Gary's friends from the airport there, a French guy who is operating a charter company. Then we continued on to Yaounde, for meetings at the Union office in the morning.

Yaounde is up at 3,000 ft or so, and has a bit of varying terrain (maybe not mountains, but certainly not flat like we are used to) and so is also quite pleasant for a city. We only stayed one night and met the new officers at the Union and Gary had a good planning meeting with the president and then we flew back home.

We arrived home on a Tuesday and we had plans to go to the game park to do some maintenance on their plane and ours, but we were thinking we would probably go on Friday. It's hard to do serious maintenance on our plane since we still do not have a hangar, so Gary negotiated with them to use their hangar for working on our plane as well, if he would do an annual inspection on theirs. We are good friends with all the guys there, so it wasn't a problem. But then another flight came up for Gary to do on Friday, so we ended up going to the park on Wed afternoon. Nothing like unpacking and repacking in just a few hours, but we did ok. Another reason we were going to the park was because they were scheduled to put radio collars on ten elephants to try to help with the poaching problem. This way, if they get the collars on the correct elephants, so that each family group has at least one collar then they can keep track of them and hopefully better protect them.

So, they started with the first elephant on Thurs morning. The old pilot that used to fly for them back when we first got involved is also a conservationist, but he is now in school, working on his doctorate, I believe. So, he came back for this as well, so Gary flew the first day and he went with the ground crew. What they do is find the group of elephants with the airplane and then direct the vehicles in by radio. The vehicles get to within 1/2 a kilometer or so and then the vet gets his dart ready, etc and then he and two guys with guns go in on foot. The guns would be used for shooting in the air to scare the elephants away in the event they got in trouble. One of these guys also has a radio to stay in communication with the plane so they know where they are in relation to the elephants. It's really quite amazing how close you can be to 200+ elephants and not know it! Then once the vet is able to get close enough to a good elephant (30-40 meters) he will dart it with the medicine. Then things can get a little crazy! Of course the elephants start to run and it takes the darted animal up to 15 min to fall. It is usually too hard to follow the one that is darted from the air, even if you see it, since it is mass confusion with elephants running everywhere. So, you just have to watch them all and watch for one to fall at the same time directing the vehicles where to go and also coordinating for the vehicles to pick up the guys on foot, if possible. Then once the elephant falls, it is imperitive that the ground crew reach it in 5 min or less, or it can die. Once the ground crew arrives, they straighten out the truck so it can breathe, cover the eye with the ear to keep it from drying out, and put water on the ear too keep it cool. Sometimes the elephant will fall on the chest and you have to push it over onto the side. Anyway, we were able to go two different days, Gary went with us the first time and they collared two, and the next day Gary flew and Cherise and I went and did two more. The very last day, Gary was flying and only one other guy with him. I really wanted to go see it from the air, but I wasn't sure I could take circling for two hours or more! There was only one elephant left though, so I knew it shouldn't take as long, so we decided to go with Gary and he flew with the window open almost the whole time, so I didn't feel sick at all. Cherise didn't feel so well and laid on my lap for quite a while, but then did fine after things started happening on the ground. But then when it was all over we were waiting for the vehicles to get to a certain spot in the road so that we could buzz them and they could get video of it, and Gary was playing around following the river, and Cherise finally lost her cookies! But she did well, and still seemed to enjoy it.

Well, I wrote most of this on the way home, and it's a good thing because I've lost the time and motivation now! Things are fine here - just hot and muggy now. This is the hardest time of year for me!

They put up the frame of the first nutrition center building last week, so that is really exciting! This morning Gary left to go to the capital to buy all the roofing for our house, that building, and at least one 1-day church that they have up as well. We are really trying to get the roofs on before the rains really come - we've had some showers, but nothing really serious yet.

We've canned 55 quarts of mango sauce since we got back and of course the house is a mess, so we've been busy!!

God Bless,
Wendy, Gary, and Cherise