Collected here are all my blog entries for the (almost) year we spent in Cameroon (July 15th 2006 - June 7th 2007).
Genesis and Marceline have siad they're not too keen to celebrate Christmas, mostly based on the old chestnut of it being based on a pagan festival.
So its not too christmasy round here, but Hev's been doing her best, trawling the ipod for Christmas songs (there aren't any).
Nevermind, we're off to the beach for the day!
Happy Winter Solstice to one and all...
We got back from Limbe yesterday, having spent Christmas day and boxing day on the beach. we had a nice time, though it didn't really beat being wit hfriends and family and eating a proper home-cooked roast!
We had a great time messing about in the spring water pool at Seme beach. It's very cold, but crystal clear, so you can see very well under water, without chlorine or salt stinging your eyes. Also, because it's really cold, if you get out and run immediately into the sea, the sea feels like a hot bath - great fun.
So, the final curtain has fallen on The Hardest Working Man in Show Business tm. It's sad to see him go, the man was a legend. His influence on the music over the last forty years is incalculable. Funky Drummer is the most sampled song of all of time, by some margin, I would guess (though as a drummer I have to give credit to the funky drummer in question, Clyde Stubblefield). The man practically invented funk music, and what a fine invention.
I've just read on the BBC Oxford news pages that my old primary school headmaster, Huw Evans, has been given an OBE in the Queen's New Year Honours list. He's just recently retired from being Headmaster at Watchfield Primary School, where he'd been head for, I don't know, a loooong time.
The bulk of my work on the Hint website is now complete. I'll still be working on a few things, but basically it's a complete and live site, take a look:
We're still trying to resolve our Visa issue, and time is running out - they expire on the 15th. We're off to Yaounde today. We'll stay overnight and try and find the right people to speak to tomorrow. Genesis will be coming with us, which is handy, as dealing with Cameroonian bureaucracy can be difficult - doing it in the French-speaking province will be impossible for us!
I'm not sure exactly what will happen (we never are), but we'll get it sorted one way or the other. Here are plans A through to G:
So we're back from our trip to Yaounde to sort out our visa situation, and the result is...
...
wait and see...
We've put in an application for a visa extension, and we should hear on Monday, which 'handily' is the day our visas expire...
If we get them, fine, if not, who knows...
Clear? No, me neither. I'm sure it'll work itself out one way or t'other...
Jan 20th - 22nd
Jan 22nd - 26th
Our visas have finally been approved and issued! It took quite a while, and delayed our trip to Bamenda by a day, and involved Genesis travelling to Douala at the crack of dawn to collect our passports off a bus from Yaounde and then rendez vous with us en route to Bamenda (oops, too much French? - Bon Voyage!) We are illegal aliens no more...
Jan 26 - 28th
After nine hours of travelling from Bamenda, it was nice to arrive at Seme Beach Hotel in Limbe, even if their attempts at being a European-style posh hotel do sometimes contrive to give you the worst of both worlds (the restaraunt has all the formality of a posh restaraunt, but not the atmosphere or the food - the only really nice thing i've had there was a chicken biriani, bizarrely...)