CRISIS IN CAMEROON

well, today started off on the wrong foot... i woke up when Dan and Sean were going down to breakfast (instead of being ready to go to breakfast with them). After the morning rush, some delicious croissants and lemon tea, we started our work day by going through the entire system and figuring out the parts that we needed to buy in Yaounde. This took a little longer than anticipated, but at approximately 12:30 pm, the four of us headed out (Dr. Steve, Dan, Linda, and me) while Sean and Steve (JR) stayed at the hotel. They were waiting to go to the airport to hopefully pick up the missing tool bag... As for the other 4 of us, we headed to Maison du Plombiers, where we got our valves, reducers, and some compression fittings! We then headed to a new store where we got a LOT (350 m) of poly pipe, wire and a protective case for the wiring. As of right now, we have all of the materials we need for Yaounde (which is a good thing, since we're heading out tomorrow morning). Some technical difficulties arose when the driver drove off a curb and his car stalled in the middle of the road... perpendicular to the traffic. Dr. Steve and Dan had to get out and push the car until it was 'safely' on the side of the road, and our driver had to get gas... he ran out. We returned back to the hotel at around 6 pm to find that the case of the missing tool bag was still unsolved. This poses quite a problem since we're leaving for Bamendjou at 8 am in the morning :( I think everything will work out ok though, because we've made alternate arrangements to get the bag into the village. (It should be arriving on Thursday) Besides this minor (major) crisis, I've been having a blast and can't tell you how handy it was that I took a picture of all of the parts that we needed from the store. We were able to get almost all of them without having to speak any French... that's all for now.

I'm off to bed so I can wake up on time tomorrow!
Nicole