Franglais Expats

English Terminology

2010-03-23T13:45:00.006Z

Having lived outside of the US for a long time now, I often forget very pointed, specific expressions or terms that would sometimes come in handy in conversations. The fact that I speak mostly French here every day means that when I do have the occasion to speak to a native English speaker I find myself explaining a situation using a long-winded description rather than the more appropriate and exact word or expression.

One example of this occurred a few months back when speaking to some visiting US Navy officials. I was explaining that "we non-African women living here often get pulled over by the police who are waiting for us on the side of the road and hold us there in our over-heated cars for as long as it takes in the sun at noon with our kids crying in the back seat until we pay them off and they let us go." One of the Americans looked at me with amazement in his eyes and said, "No Way!! They do shakedowns on the moms here in town?!" Until that moment I had really only related that specific term to episodes of the Sopranos and Al Pacino movies, but heck yes, we live in a town where soccer-mom shakedowns take place pretty regularly, and I kind of enjoy using the term whenever the subject comes up now!

So, in an effort to make full use this very pertinent English-language term, I'll post here two pictures I managed to take one day of my friend Pauline experiencing a real-life shakedown of her own with her two boys in the back seat.

If you look hard enough in the driver's side of the car, you can see here the stressed-out mom leaning over toward the open door trying to make sense of the oncoming shakedown.

And here's a close-up of the shakedown in progress. This was the best I could do, though, as the cop was not amused at my photo taking, which seems to be pretty standard practice during shakedowns.

Aaaahhhhhh....it feels good to put the English language to good use!

Hot Heat

2010-03-15T07:00:00.003Z

Living through unbearably cold winters as a kid in Vermont and New Hampshire made me long desperately for heat. "Hot Heat" as my dad called it. Not just regular old heat. I longed for heat you couldn't find in a New England house at night in -30 degree temperatures. I didn't want to be warm while wearing a turtleneck and a sweater indoors, I wanted to be warm in a tee-shirt and shorts. My dad and I would have silent battles back and forth with the thermostat being "mysteriously" cranked up or down depending on who was closest to it while the other one wasn't looking. No matter what I did though my toes were always cold --even with my socks on in bed-- and I swore that when I grew up I'd leave that subzero climate far, far behind. While I'm not sure that at age nine I would have been able to pick Africa out on a map, I am quite certain it was not the destination I had in mind for my future.

Thirty years later, as I drive through town at noon picking my kids up in 99% humidity and 100 degree temps in a car with broken air conditioning, sweat dripping everywhere and my mood as cranky as equatorial Hot Heat can make a human being, I try to perk myself up by thinking of those years of cold toes in bed, frozen nose-hairs on my walk to the school bus in the morning, and warmed-up Pop Tarts tucked into my mittens serving as combination breakfast/hand warmers. While the heat here in Gabon gets even a bit too hot for me some days, it would actually seem that as far as childhood wishes go I pretty much won the lottery. And I don't need to fight anyone over the thermostat anymore either.

Noah's First Word

2009-03-05T07:46:00.002Z

And it's all been about food ever since! This kid is an eater!!

Noah's First Steps!

2009-03-04T18:18:00.003Z

Wow! After what seems like a lifetime, I think I have managed to upload this short film of Noah's first steps! Here he is at 14 months (so end of October 2008) "walking" from Cecilia to me across the living room...

Peanuts

2008-11-19T13:26:00.003Z

My father keeps asking me if the kids and I fell into a hole during our walk in June, preventing me from blogging ever since. The imagery works pretty well for me though, in that we left for a long summer vacation requiring eight flights in total, followed by some serious ineptitude on my part involving a new digital camera and a switch from PC to Mac. Needless to say, the learning curve has been impressive, and I'm still not out of the hole.

Meanwhile, as each day passes there are new and exciting African experiences occurring to us that I'm not writing about. Today, however, I had an experience that made me decide to get back to blogging. While it wasn't particularly noteworthy for anyone actually living here in Port-Gentil, it left a very African image in my head that I thought I ought to try to describe for friends and family who have yet to come visit us down here.

As I was driving through town this morning I swerved to avoid hitting a jaywalking woman balancing an enormous tray on her head piled mile-high with peanuts. And I don't mean little bags of peanuts or anything, I mean thousands of individual peanuts stacked carefully one on top of the other reaching an unbelievably delicate peak balancing up there all on its own. While I've never actually counted that many peanuts before, I would venture to guess there must have been a good 3,000 of them on her head. Not that I had time to count. As my car turned sharply and this woman's near-death flashed before me, I was left with a lasting image of thousands of peanuts strewn from one side of the busy street to the other. Good thing that part was only my imagination.

School Walk

2008-06-29T09:42:00.012Z

Before moving to Gabon it never seemed to me that going for a walk was much of a big event. You grab your keys, everyone gets their shoes on and you start walking. Here in Port-Gentil, however, a "stroll"-- however short it may be-- is always a pretty big event.

First you've got to consider the heat. For 10 months out of the year the relentless sun and heavy humidity prevent you from spontaneously going outdoors for exercise.

Secondly, it's important to keep in mind that for those same 10 months giant mutant mosquitoes try to eat you alive whenever you find yourself outdoors, even going after the space between your fingers!

And thirdly, there's the issue of infrastructure, or lack thereof, in Port-Gentil. Roads are riddled with potholes the size of small airplanes, causing cars to veer aaaallllllllllllll over the road in an effort to avoid falling in. Now whether it's the constant heat or the overall mentality in town, or just general confusion, I dare say I've noticed that many a Port-Gentil driver is only able to focus on one issue on the road at a time. This of course means that if you happen to be walking along the side of a road with many potholes (sidewalks being a rare luxury in town) you are pretty much taking your life into your own hands. Or putting it in the hands of some random driver, which I can guarantee you is a very scary thought.

This year though is the first time the kids and I have stayed in Port-Gentil for the winter months of June and July. Suddenly temperatures have "plummeted" to somewhere in the high 70s/low 80s F (25-27 C), and with mosquitoes less apt to survive "the cold", taking a walk has suddenly become a possibility and a fabulous change of pace!

So on the last day of school for the kids last week I decided to pack Noah up in the stroller (which is a rare thing to take out on the streets here) and go get Cecilia, Jourdain and their buddy Yann from school BY FOOT!! Here's a shot of Jourdain at school at the end of his last day as a first grader!
I discovered it's about a 30 min walk from our house to the school, which is nothing to brag about in many countries, but in Port-Gentil if you set out on a walk across town with three kids and a baby and manage to make it home with nothing but a knee scrape or two, you've managed a pretty big accomplishment as far as I'm concerned!

On the walk the kids took turns pushing the baby in his stroller,
which seems pretty routine, until you actually start walking and noticing things like the hole in front of Cecilia in this picture. Throughout our walk I ended up shouting a lot of things like, "LOOK OUT FOR THAT BIG HOLE COMING UP!"
Here's a close-up of Cecilia's close call above.

At one point Jourdain pointed out this haunted house. He's been watching a lot of Scooby Doo reruns lately and I have to say I think he's got the idea just right.
Then it was Jourdain's turn to push the baby. And Cecilia was right there to point out yet another possible disaster.
Jourdain made us all laugh as he got stuck on a pole in the middle of the sidewalk. What is it doing there anyway?
As we walked home I figured out the best route for us, which pretty much follows a straight line, and there's even a good part on very quiet streets with a bit of a sidewalk area. Our trip involved only one major fall involving tears and a bit of a bruise, but by the end we figured out what we need to be looking out for in terms of danger zones and large, gaping holes along the way. In the end the five of us made it home just fine, and the kids and I all agreed that we just may start doing this a bit more regularly once school starts back up in the warmer months.

I Pledge Allegiance

2008-06-13T15:11:00.010Z

Last week Jourdain's school organized a fair that involved his being on stage dancing around with the flag of his choice on his back. I arrived at the show to discover he had chosen, drawn and colored in the flag of --- Panama. When I asked him curiously what made him pick that particular country, he said "Look at it Mama! Can't you see Panama is America! It's the American flag!!" Oh boy.

At home a few days later I decided to print out a copy of the American flag for Jourdain and Cecilia so they may one day recognize where part of them comes from. Cecilia was so excited when I handed it to her that she ran off shouting, "YAY!! JOURDAIN, LOOK! A GABONESE FLAG!!"Looks like I've got my work cut out for me.

Sunday Doldrums in Port-Gentil

2008-06-09T12:25:00.010Z

It is at this point that I should officially announce that our kids are (and please read this with a long, whiny, nasal tone) "sooooooooooooooo sick of going to the beach on the weekends". I have no words for how shocked I am every time I hear this. For someone whose entire childhood summer vacation highlight was jumping around in a freezing cold lake on a hot day in August, I just cannot imagine how anyone in their right mind could find it dull to spend a weekend on a deserted island in the tropics.

Ok, let's see. We bring a few dogs,
and our new puppy.

We bring our friends,and our parents' friends,
who we get to cover in sand as they try to rest.

We kayak,
and snorkel,
and enjoy the sun and sand with our parents and baby brother.
But couldn't we just do something else for once on the weekend? Hmm... I'm thinking of making them start mowing the lawn for a change.

Cloth Shopping

2008-06-05T06:52:00.007Z

In Port-Gentil there are very few places to buy ready-made clothes. Not one single clothing chain is in town (or in the whole country, for that matter), and most shops selling women's attire seem to sell a few pieces here and there of last summer's leftovers from Europe. If you happen to spot a nice skirt hanging randomly on a rack, you'd better hope it's your size, and if not, well, there'll be another shipment of odds and ends coming into town in another month or two. Needless to say, our family tends to shop for clothes once a year when back in France.

There are, however, loads of seamstresses in town and a seemingly endless number of Senegalese men selling gorgeous African cloth all over the place. Put the two together and you can get yourself pretty snazzed up, African style. Here's Dialo who I tend to buy fabric from pretty regularly. In his hand is some material I chose the other day for a few little African dresses I'm having made for Cecilia. I'll post her in her new outfits once they're ready.When you enter any of these fabric shops (or rather tin-roof shacks) you walk right into a wall of individual swaths of material, each marked with a family name and specific event to be attended. Some say "Baptism", others "Funeral", but clearly this is where you go to buy the material for the outfit you need to wear on a very specific occasion. See here:

Here's a closer look. The material in the middle with green and blue hearts is what you'd need to be wearing if you were invited to the Moussavou family wedding, for example.In Port-Gentil (is this the same throughout all of Africa?) everyone attending a family event is dressed in exactly the same material, but in whichever style of dress their seamstress made up for them. I'll try to get a shot of a crowd dressed like this one day. Meanwhile, a few "artistic" shots of some fabrics around town:

Playtime

2008-05-20T19:43:00.004Z

One of the great things about living in the tropics when you're five years old is that 12 months out of the year you and your best friend can sneak off outdoors during a rain storm, get naked and play in the mud for as long as you want - or at least until your mom finds you.

Survivor GABON!

2008-05-16T07:36:00.005Z

Well at least somebody in the States has discovered how exciting and exotic Gabon, Africa can be! The makers of the US TV show Survivor are apparently over here (where? where?) getting things lined up to film the next season on a beach in Gabon! (I'd be willing to lend them our private island if only they'd ask.)

Check out the preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY6Hb-1ffKs

And an article:
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2008/05/jeff-probst-tal.html

Filming begins at the end of June and the show will air in September. Ask me how badly I want the interpreting job on this one!!

Now if only I could help the announcer learn to pronounce the name of the country properly...

Walking

2008-05-14T17:00:00.003Z

My friend Mary (in white tee shirt in the picture below) and I each added a baby to our respective families at the same time last summer. Soon after returning to Gabon with baby I realized that every time I found myself driving along the waterfront in town I would see Mary power-walking along next to my car! (Well, maybe not the same speed, but you get the picture.) A few weeks and a whole lot of drive-by disgrace later I got up the courage to join her three mornings a week for 10K walks.

One day at the end of our walk Mary asked me if I would mind having "a very nice, old woman" join us in our walks once in a while. Figuring my pace was pretty slow anyway, I said of course she could join. "Oh, but she walks very quickly though," warned Mary.

The next morning Mary and the "old woman" (woman in red shirt below) showed up at my door to start our walk. Hmmmm....I thought to myself, I guess Mary considers late 50s to be "old".
Our new walking buddy told me her name was Lillian, and as soon as we headed out I realized she was in much better shape than I was. Both Mary and I had to pretty much jog to keep up. Here's a shot of Lillian walking:

About a half hour into our walk Lillian began talking about her daughter who's in her late 40s, and I started wondering how young she must have been when she had children. Trying to calculate quickly while keeping up with her pace, I tell Lillian she must have been quite a young mother. That's when I learned that this amazingly fit, very talkative, speed-walking French woman is 74!!!! I of course spent the next hour of our walk pumping her for information on HOW SHE DOES IT! To summarize, she walks 20-30 kilometers a day, eats small meals and uses normal facial cream from the supermarket. I'm not sure I can manage all that walking into my schedule, but I can say I'm definitely hooked on walking now and I guess I don't need to change creams.

Here are a few typical scenes of what we see on our morning walks through downtown Port-Gentil. In these shots Germaine, a Gabonese friend of Lillian, is joining in.

Mr. Obame

2008-05-11T10:37:00.002Z

I'm teaching English these days to a great number of French-speaking Gabonese oilfield workers. They all work on rotation on the oil platforms out here, and for those of you not directly embedded in the world of oil, it may make you chuckle to know their official job titles are Roustabout and Roughneck. Even better, though, is hearing someone describe his job with a French accent. I mean, try saying "I em a Ruffffnek" as if you were Pepe Le Pew and tell me it's not kinda cute!!

The students are all very eager to learn, as they work for a large US firm and have to work with Americans quite a bit. One of my favorite students is named Elvis, so of course when we had our lesson on body parts I just had to teach him the world pelvis. Another student is named Parfait (Perfect) Obame! Not a bad name, I must say, even though he swears he is no relation to the future president of the US. I'm thinking I might not want to take any chances and give him an A anyway...

Libreville

2008-05-07T16:23:00.003Z

Jourdain, Cecilia and I needed to make a day trip recently to Libreville (the capital city) to renew our passports. Although we transfer through Libreville airport four times a year to get from Manji island (where Port-Gentil is located) to Paris and back, we had never actually seen any of the city itself.

The bumpy plane ride to Libreville was nothing new, but excitement was still in the air for the young pair who got to skip school for our outing! (I should add here that our poor little 8-month-old Noah is going to have to wait for his US citizenship, as this trip is just a bit too, um, adventurous for me to want to take him at this point.)
As usual, the kids scooted right up behind the pilots to watch them magically work those levers and dials as they do. I myself prefer to pretend none of this is happening while I look the other way, pray for no turbulence, and simply hold my breath until we land 40 minutes later... Of course I do this all while keeping my "mom is calm and in control of the situation" face. As we took off over the ocean towards Libreville our plane headed directly over our private weekend-getaway island, which is the long fish-shaped vegetation surrounded by white sand to the right in the picture. Towards the bottom of the island, on the right, you'll notice a square of sand with a small black dot set into it. That's our cabana and the clearing around it. The black water between the island and the mainland is a deep river that winds around and heads inland just out of the picture.

This was our first day-time approach to Libreville, and it was only then that I realized the city is not quite the thriving metropolis I had always assumed it was.
Once in town though, and on our way to the embassy, I understood the city was at least big enough for a billboard boasting the past 40 years of dedicated public service of President-for-life Omar Bongo.
The city, it seemed, was even big enough for a second billboard advertising the "40 years of economic and political decisions" of President Bongo, resulting --naturally-- in "peace and stability".As our taxi drove us on to the embassy I couldn't miss the next billboard explaining that Bongo and his wife are helping in the fight against HIV AIDS.
Most importantly though I discovered that Libreville is so thick with propaganda that if I kept on taking pictures of it all I might not have much memory left in my camera for the rest of the day's events.

The three of us needed new passport pictures, so we stopped en route at a crowded photography shop. Once inside I turned to see Cecilia next to me holding her breath for so long that I thought she might pass out. "How can you STAAAAAAAAAAND it, Mama???? Can't you SMELLLLLLLLLLL how much it stinks in here?" I thanked God no one in the shop understood English and quickly told her not everyone has a shower in Libreville. At the US Embassy things smelled a bit fresher, but as we were the only ones in the room there was much less entertainment to keep the kids occupied.
We put our coloring books to good use...
and made up for the boredom with a quick pizza and swim before catching our bumpy little flight back to Port-Gentil.

School

2008-03-31T21:01:00.002Z

He always complains and often cries when I bring him to school, but it seems to me Jourdain enjoys it plenty once I've left... Here he is with buddies Vincent (left) and Johan (right).

Lobster Lady

2008-03-29T17:37:00.008Z

One day, about a year and a half after we had moved to Port-Gentil, a woman from Togo came to the door carrying 20 kilos of live lobsters in a pan on her head. It was a very big pan. She introduced herself as Odile, and wouldn't I like to buy 10 kilos of lobsters? I ought to add here that the sun was high in the sky and relentless (at least 35C / 90F), and she had a 2-year-old child strapped to her back. Since I do like lobster and happen to have a soft spot for women walking down the street with 20 kilos of stuff on their head carrying a baby in the hot sun I called everyone I knew in town and we bought her whole load. Needless to say I quickly became Odile's new favorite customer and found myself buying lobster a bit more regularly than I might normally in another situation.

Here's our guard Herve and the kids "playing" with one of our new friends.
I should also admit that while I enjoy eating lobster (MMMMm...lobster and mango salad at the beach!), I really don't enjoy the boiling-alive-in-a-pot aspect to the whole ordeal. Odile quickly assured me she wasn't as worried about it as I was, and before I knew it she was in my kitchen taking care of business.
Note lobster in pot to the left and Odile cleaning up to the right. I doubt the guy at the fish counter at the supermarket back home would be as kind...
So, anyone planning to come to Gabon for vacation is welcome to join us in a delicious lobster salad, with the compliments of Odile.

Cabana View

2008-03-28T09:12:00.003Z

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago with the aim of tempting certain friends and family members (You know who you are!) to come vacation here with us in Port-Gentil. This was the view on a Sunday looking out from our beach cabana. The ships in the background are oil tankers heading off to Houston filled with unrefined Gabonese oil, and if you can live with that as a bit of an eye sore it's worth coming and hanging out at the beach with us some weekend!

We're Back!

2008-03-26T19:22:00.005Z

Ok, so we haven't actually been anywhere, but I've been locked in my office completely engrossed in a long and painful legal translation that was due today. As of 4:35 this afternoon though I am a free woman and back on track with the blog!

The latest is that somewhere between my last post and today Noah learned how to crawl! Here he is revving up his motor below. He's only just kicking it into first gear this week, but I assume by the time I post next he'll be chasing the cats around the house at a nice pace.

More to come tomorrow!

They're back!

2008-03-05T06:07:00.002Z

The USS Fort McHenry and its crew are back in Port-Gentil this week for a second round of training for the Gabonese Navy. Today I start interpreting for the Maritime Law class. Hmmmmm....Better bring my best dictionary!

Backyard Flora

2008-02-27T18:38:00.003Z

Living on the equator has its advantages and disadvantages. Giant cockroaches climbing up through the drain of your bathroom sink, for example, is one of the more unpleasant aspects to life with constant heat and humidity. On the brighter side, however, living in the tropics means year-round beach weather and really cool plants growing effortlessly in your backyard. Here's a sampling of what's growing behind our house:

This beauty is called "l'arbre du voyageur" (the traveler's tree). I've been told the name stems from the fact that its leaves always fan out from east to west, pointing the way for any lost desert trekkers. I don't know if I buy that one, as our neighbors' trees seem to be pointing in all different directions. Others, however, have told me that the name is due to the fact that each branch contains potable water down at its base, always ready to quench the thirst of lost desert trekkers. Testing this theory, I asked Amadou to cut a branch off so we could inspect its insides. While it was indeed filled with water, I haven't yet dared drink any...
And here is a flower called "la trompette de la mort"(trumpet of death). I'm told you shouldn't boil it to make a drink. Fine by me. We've got a whole bush of these pretty things.
We also have numerous hibiscus bushes around the house. These grow with great ease in this climate, and Cecilia enjoys picking the flowers for inside decoration and an occasional tropical behind-the-ear look.
We are fortunate enough to have a great deal of these heliconia flowers growing in a few different spots around the house. They sure make a beautiful bouquet on the dining room table!

Here's a wide shot of our mango tree...And then there's the baby banana tree we planted a year and a half ago that grew to full banana-growing status only recently. Seems like a long time to grow bananas to me, but it was definitely well worth the wait!

Here's the plant from a distance. If you look carefully you'll see a large, purple flower dangling down in the middle. The bananas grow row by row beneath each petal of the flower.
As each petal lifts up to reveal a row of mini-bananas (look closely under the raised petal here), the flower grows slowly southward, reaching closer to the ground while a new row of bananas is revealed under each layer.

As you can well imagine, the kids and I had our eye on that bunch of bananas in the backyard as it grew bigger and bigger over the months. I figured we'd have to pick it while still green, but I didn't know exactly how green. Then one day, like magic, Amadou announced that it was time. So we cut the darned thing off and boy was it heavy! Home-grown bananas have a much sharper flavor than those cut and shipped to the store, and with all the mangoes we've collected from our mango tree we sure are enjoying Gabonese fruit these days! I plan on letting a number of these bananas go black so we can use them in our next batch of banana-mango bread. So while life on the equator may not be perfect, I quite enjoy that the kids' school snacks are baked with fruits grown right in our tropical backyard! Yum.

Port-Gentil Parking Technique

2008-02-21T13:31:00.010Z

So here's the side view of a gutter safe enough to drive your 4x4 over when parking in front of the stores on the main street in town. While it certainly looks topsy turvy, experience so far has proven that this is nothing to worry about. Of course I do try to aim just right when pulling up, as any large, loose cement block lying in the way could do enough damage to my car to get Olivier all worked up. Now compare the above to this less-well maintained gutter cover in front of the main pharmacy in town, just a little way up the road. You've got to pay some serious attention to what you're doing when parking, but even more so when backing out into traffic. Any false move -- however slight -- and your steering wheel may slip just enough to get you seriously wedged into an unpleasant spot.

My solution, therefore, is to drive in at an angle and take up as many parking places as it takes to ensure my saftey coming in and out. I've heard some non-driving bystanders (such as the ones to the left in the picture) whisper "regarde comme elle se gare" (Look at the way she parks), but to be quite honest, I don't see any alternative.

Park with Care

2008-02-17T08:10:00.006Z

As my experience in other African countries is quite limited, I am not able to compare Port-Gentil to most of the rest of the continent. I'm often told by those better traveled than myself, however, that our little town on the west coast of Africa is a hidden pearl among many much less pleasant places. Since I really do like this town and the life we have as a family here I am ready to agree that we are very lucky to be living in Gabon, and in Port-Gentil in particular.

I had to chuckle recently though when I was told that one of the nicest aspects to our town is that the drainage is at least covered, something unheard of in most countries running up and down the coast. (And when I say drainage I mean water and every piece of paper, plastic and refuse that somehow ends up collecting down in there.) Well, up until then I hadn't really gained a full appreciation for the drain covering in town, as there are gaping holes pretty much everywhere you try and park, and I am constantly having to tell the kids to watch out for the big hole of gunk as they jump out of the car. I'll go out and take a few shots of some of the more, um, traditional parking spots tomorrow, but until then keep in mind that these images here are of my car parked in a GOOD place.

Touring the Ship

2008-02-09T07:05:00.000Z

When chatting on the island that Sunday the officers agreed that Monica (Dutch), Gina (South African) and I could bring all six of our kids for a tour of the ship later in the week, even though they're all much younger than 10, the minimum age to board. By the time the day arrived everyone was pretty worked up to see the Big American Ship up close!
As I knew there'd be lots of ladder climbing, we got them geared up in sneaks and shorts (although Cecilia would have much preferred a dress for such an outing).

Once aboard everyone was pretty much in awe of all the machinery and metal everywhere. It was just like being in a movie!
A pretty patient sailor named Purley was assigned to give us a tour of the entire ship, explaining as best he could to a pretty rambunctious audience.

I actually think the moms were more interested in the tour than the kids...
Until we got to the bridge which pretty much fascinated us all. Of course I'd love to explain to you how this here equipent works, but then I'd be giving away national security secrets. Sorry.
And then there were the big-gun-torpedo-thingies (I don't think that's the actual technical name) which shoot out thousands of bullets the size of a shoe in 1.2 seconds. As I looked around I figured the gun must be manned by........
the silent look-out guy standing near by.
We did our own looking-out too while on the ship, but we were just trying to see if we could see the African cockroaches from this high up.As we left we realized we were quite privileged to be given such an opportunity to see this type of ship. I just hope the kids are old enough to remember it one day!

Sailors on the Island Conclusion

2008-02-08T12:25:00.000Z

After a few days of not being able to access Blogger.com at all (why-oh-why do they do that to me?) I'm back with a final picture and film of our day at the beach with the US Navy!

Here's the group picture of the regular Sunday Island Cabana Team interspersed with officers from the USS Fort McHenry.

And this was the general feel of the day....

Sailors on the Island

2008-02-05T07:16:00.000Z

During our second day interpreting a very nice Commander Smith (a.k.a Byron to us civilians) inquired if I happened to know of a place he and a few others could get a boat and possibly go fishing over the weekend. Hmmmmmmmm I thought, well, why, yes! We have a boat, and friends with boats, and we have fishing gear, and friends with serious fishing gear, and would they all want to come out to our island for the day and go fishing too?

And so it was agreed that we'd all spend the day together on the island on Sunday. We called our friends and spread the word, and off we were! This is Gina and Emile ready to hop on the boat!

There were so many of us that Olivier made a few trips out to the island and back dropping people off. I was one of the last people to get there, and as I arrived with Noah strapped to me Cecilia came running out to the boat to greet us (while Jourdain and two friends played off in the background). It was very low tide, so we had quite a walk along this bare sand bank over to the cabana to the left in the picture.
As I approached I could see a few more figures in the cabana than we usually have on our Sunday outings, and the BBQ was roaring along, cooking up a fish just caught earlier that day.
Yep. 'Mericans in the cabana! They had even brought beer from the States. It was a very friendly group, and of course for us it was impossible to know at the time that we had some serious Navy bigwigs hangin' with us.

Take a look at this, for example. Byron (in the middle here) tends to look like this when he's working:And when he's taking it easy fishing on the island he tends to look a bit less... um... formal.
Our friend Bo, on the other hand, always looks relaxed, but of course he works in the oil industry.
And when it was time to pack up, everyone pitched in, and it wasn't until later in the week that I realized that the guy rinsing the plates here was the captain of the ship!
As the sun started to set we all headed back to reality, with a lot of fish in our bellies and a good feeling overall about having shared our little island getaway with a group of seriously great people.

On the Boats

2008-02-04T12:50:00.000Z

I was fortunate enough to be put in the small boats class on the first day interpreting. Before I knew it, the class of Gabonese sailors and I had donned our life vests and were headed out to sea with the US navy! First things first, though, as we needed to climb down a dangling rope ladder (to the right in the picture) to get into the boat we'd be learning to drive. I did my best to put on a face that said "this is sooooo old hat" and climbed down with feigned ease right behind the US instructor. Nobody laughed at me so I let myself believe I had pulled it off like a pro.

The instructors pulled the boats out from the dock while the Gabonese students and I prepared mentally for our first lesson. Although I've been told many African people are quite smiley, I can tell you that this is decidedly not the case with the Gabonese. Their constant poker faces throughout the week made many of the instructors wonder if they were enjoying themselves at all. The Americans quickly taught the Gabonese how to high five and what it meant (which I interpreted as best I could as "cinq dans l'air") so that as each sailor left his position driving the boat he could at least high five the instructor, proving in some small way that he was indeed having fun.
The instructors were all very outgoing and lively, appearing to be genuinely enjoying their job. This is Jason Dean on the right here in the picture below, a nice fella who said "New Hampshire?! Jeeeeeeesh, that's a place you just never hear about" when I told him where I had grown up. Must say I feel quite the same about Missouri (of all the places to be from!), which he pronounces Mizurrah, of course. After many long talks, though, Jason was able to convince me that his state is one that just may be worth my visiting one day. Who knew?
And here is Christal, the kick-butt female boat-maneuvering instructor. Her presence incited numerous questions among the Gabonese sailors for me to interpret for her, including "How old are you?" "Are you married?" "Do you have kids?" and "Why did you join the military?". I won't give you the answers here as it may embarrass her, but I must say she was awfully patient, giving honest answers to everything, albeit with a hint of a blush once in a while.

After a while out at sea we pulled up next to one of the security boats for a chat. Christal told me when not teaching these classes she often works shifts on one of these boats.

This guy was my favorite student. He was a "ship rider" from Cameroon and had this exact smile pasted on his face the whole week. I guess he felt as lucky as I did to be learning to drive a small military boat! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!
We spent the whole day out at sea (save a break for some mystery meat back on board the ship), with the whole class encouraging me to try out all the moves too. We've since learned that the ship and crew will be back in March, and I can't wait to do this all over again!

Interpreters

2008-01-31T14:09:00.000Z

Pretty early on in the week the team of interpreters got to pose for pictures with the navy men and women giving the courses we were working on together. Quite a change of pace from daily expat life in Port-Gentil!

In the Navy!

2008-01-29T12:18:00.000Z

A few weeks back I was contacted by a woman in town about working as an interpreter on a US ship that would be coming to town at some point this spring. I had expected the work to take place in March, and calculated that Noah would be a "bottle baby" by then, making things easy on me, but...well...the Navy came to town a couple of months too early for that! Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to work on the ship and started up my first day of interpreting with three other ladies on a Friday in January.
On our first day to the ship it was explained to us that in response to growing US interest in West Africa (oil) the US Navy has embarked upon a new mission dubbed the Africa Partnership Station. From this point forward there will be a US ship (or ships?) somewhere off the west coast of Africa at all times. The ships will be manned with an international crew, and this particular ship has a crew representing many European nations while also carrying a number of African "ship riders" who apparently came aboard at some point along the trip. The goal will be not only to provide maritime security along the African coast, but more importantly, to teach the African nations how to protect their own coasts, maintain their ships, track and stop illegal fishing, react in a medical emergency, and much more. An additional goal for the sailors on board is to carry out goodwill work in each country, including re-roofing schools, building orphanages and delivering prepacked meals to the poor. Looks like an interesting (and welcome!) change in US foreign policy to me.

See here for a military explanation: Stars and Stripes

Each week I drive to the port twice to teach French in one of the oil companies located there, but on my first day driving out to the ship I was very excited to see the outline of the USS Fort McHenry wayyyyyyyyyy off in the distance!

And here she is, right at the end of the road, nestled in among the "traditional" African paraphernalia on either side of the road. What a rush it was to know there was a whole community of Americans visiting Port-Gentil for a week!
The interpreters' job, we were told that day, was for each of us to join a specific training course and interpret between the US navy "teacher" and the Gabonese navy "students". There would be one interpreter per course, and we could decide which interpreter would cover which course. One subject was martial arts (!!), another was about how to manoeuvre small boats out at sea (wooo-hooo!), and then there was tropical medicine (interesting) and computers (no one wanted to interpret for that one).

Ratri (Indonesian), Mary (Nigerian) and I were excited and ready to get the interpreting underway! (Fourth interpreter Elodie from France took the picture, with the USS Fort McHenry behind her back.) As Port-Gentil is a tiny town, we already knew each other and were very happy to be working together on the ship.

Containers had been stacked two high and were being used to protect the ship from any possible danger on land. A little welcome tent was then erected in front of the blockade and used as an assembly point each morning for the Gabonese military men arriving for training.
Out at sea were four well-armed small boats guarding the port side of the ship (I actually learned port from starboard while interpreting). I sure felt sorry for those guys out there day and night under the hot African sun and in the harsh tropical rains! Click to enlarge.

I was quickly asked to run to the head of the line of Gabonese soldiers to interpret between the US sailor signing everyone in and each individual as they approached the table on the first day. While there were seemingly hundreds of Gabonese sailors ready to board the ship for training, the vast majority had brought nothing but the uniform they wore as ID. Most acted quite surprised and relatively offended when I asked them to present proof of identification. "What? Are we in school?" asked one outraged sailor, while another one told me that military men from one country should automatically be accepted by the military of another.

I got so frustrated with their comments that I took it upon myself to break out of interpretation mode at one point and tell the Gabonese sailors that this was a safety measure and that surely they couldn't expect to board a US military ship without ID, could they?!!!!! The bemused young US sailor signing them all in told me the situation had been similar in all other African countries visited so far, although he couldn't understand why. It seems, I responded, that the military is above the law in Africa, and it's only ordinary citizens (and expats) who are expected to carry ID at all times. We had a good laugh a while later when we saw a group of civilian nurses approach the table, each with ID in hand!

Here's a shot of one of the few Gabonese sailors to bring ID on that first day.

And here's one I snapped of the nurses boarding as we were all entering the ship for the first time.
Next post tomorrow!

Small Boats

2008-01-15T21:06:00.000Z

Not much time to post these days as the Navy is keeping us busy with interpretation during the day and translations at home in the evening, but here's a scene from the Small Boats class I interpreted for yesterday. I was told you could see my smile all the way back up on the deck of the ship. (We were out in the bay with the instructor teaching us how to guard your port.)

This is where they let me try! I was practicing bringing the boat up close to the ship in order to let people on and off. I wasn't posing here, I just couldn't wipe the smile off.

USS Fort McHenry

2008-01-12T11:30:00.000Z

The US navy has come to town for 10 days and I've been employed as one of four interpreters on board while they're here! So far it's been a great experience, with the crew on board so nice it's like a fresh breath of "back home" here in our little African hide-away. Of course up to now my experience with Navy officers has been pretty...well...non existant, but I can tell you there is nothing nicer than spending a day with such a friendly, welcoming group of people.

One of the many highlights thus far has been eating the American-style canteen lunch in the officer's mess, where things taste just like I remember from hot lunch in high school!! Mashed potatoes with strange meat and gingerbread cake with frosting for desert. WOW has it been a looooooong time since those flavors hit my palate. There seems to be some sort of store on board too and the other interpreters and I are dying to get a peek and see if we might be able to grab a few 'Mercan goodies.

This here is Jerry Mosley, a very funny guy (he is a Chief, whatever that may mean...) who gave a tour of the boat to a group of Gabonese Navy sailors, with me as the interpreter. Pretty interesting cultural experience, I may add!!
Here are three of the four interpreters, with me in the back. This was as we left the boat at the end of our first day of interpreting.
Sailors looking on as we left the ship.I'll write more specifically about what the ship is doing here and what our work on board entails, but in short it seems the US is taking on quite an interest in the west coast of Africa these days (oil!) and will be carrying out this type of goodwill mission regularly up and down the coast on a permanent basis now. Luckily for me very few of these guys speak French! For a bit more info, click on the title of this post to read a military article about the boat's mission here in Africa.

Tomorrow we're taking a bunch of the officers to our island and beach cabana for a lazy day of fishing and BBQing. Will post more soon!

Fishing Village

2008-01-05T12:44:00.000Z

When going for a walk along the beach past a small fishing village recently I was followed by these three kids who were very excited to get a "bonjour" out of the strange white woman collecting shells in front of their house.
We walked along together, mostly in silence, until one of them asked me if I had any candy. I told them I had nothing with me for them, but if they let me take some pictures of their boats and village I would come back sometime with crayons. They agreed, and I continued on my way, staying until the fishermen came in with their catch...

but leaving with that feeling of despair that hits you often when you leave the comfort of your own neighborhood here.

The Look

2008-01-02T14:15:00.000Z

This is Cecilia's faaaaaaaaaaaaavorite outfit these days. Pink flowers, pink stripes, pink ribbon, pink, pink, pink. (Note that the lunch box and sippy cup were chosen with care here as she headed out the door.) The outfit was found on the market in the Grand Village in town, and I've been told we must go back soon to be sure we get the next size up.

This is Cecilia's favorite hairdo right now. Once the entire look has been accomplished she can shake her head furiously from left to right, making each squiggly little "braid" flail wildly in the air, making a sort of halo of crazy braids around her head, all while slapping her cheeks and making her feel reeeeeeeal purdy.

Of course it's a process that takes Ines well over an hour to perfect, but that doesn't seem to bother either one of them at all. Cecilia's been getting African braids of all types from Ines since age two, so asking her to sit still for a couple of hours is no big deal, especially when she knows the result will be....

so very, very nice.And the combination of the outfit and hairdo is just so pretty that even her big brother can't help telling her so. (OK, so he is unnaturally nice to her anyway, but let's just pretend it's the outfit)

Holiday Spirit

2007-12-31T16:47:00.000Z

Weekend Beach Cabana

2007-12-29T15:14:00.000Z

Looking out from inside our cabana on our little island that we rent here in Port-Gentil. The voices are those of friends over for a BBQ last weekend, and the first person in the shot is Cecilia jumping around in the water.

Santa made it to Gabon!

2007-12-28T10:22:00.000Z

Here's our tree as it stood on Christmas morning, guarded by a bronze pygmy king and queen pair. We sure were glad to see Santa made it all the way down here to our house. Seems his bag was too heavy to bring every wooden Thomas train Jourdain had asked for, but we've been told a few more will be on their way via Canada, when Todd (apparently a good friend of Santa) brings them over in January.

We added our very own little pygmy to the scene and we were set to open the presents!

In an effort to ensure the kids don't grow up ignorant of their American heritage, I managed to make some gingerbread men and women last week using the jar of mollases from our shipment last year. OK, so no one liked the taste, but that just means I get to eat them all. I'm hoping it's a taste that'll grow on them, but we'll have to wait and see next year!

School Dance

2007-12-26T12:19:00.000Z

The end of the year dance at an elementary school here in town. This is where Ines' kids go to school, so a it's tad more traditional than the type of dances Jourdain and Cecilia perform at their schools!!

An African Christmas

2007-12-24T07:33:00.000Z

While real Christmas trees are flown in from France and sold at the high-end supermarket in town, Olivier is strongly against the idea of killing trees for our own pleasure, and I myself enjoy working with local plants each year to get a similar, yet slightly African effect. When looking for ideas this year though I kept wishing I could just decorate the very odd pine-looking tropical tree in our back yard (still must look it up to see what the heck it is). Unfortunately though we've had such terrific rain storms over the past few weeks that I just didn't dare.

The idea I got then was to just use the top of the tree as our own indoor Christmas tree. This, of course, involved having it cut off, which Amadou proudly told me he could do with his machete.

With the help of handyman Abdoulaye and a very taaaaaaaall ladder, Amadou shimmied right up to the spot I had been eyeing for a few days. As you can see, Cecilia was right there with them to give them her advice:

Here's Amadou in his handy orange coveralls, and if you look carefully you'll see his machete aiming straight up in mid-chop:

I guess he keeps the darned thing sharp, 'cause in no time our Christmas tree came crashing down!
Some of the branches on the left broke off during the fall (landed halfway in neighbors' yard, much to their curiosity)...
but when I potted the whole thing I managed to stuff one of the broken branches in to fill the tree out...
And with a bit of decorations we've got ourselves a truly African Christmas tree!! I've since added tinsel and put Christmas hats on two bronze Pigmy statues guarding it. Will post the final "look" later tonight with the presents under it!

When it rains...

2007-12-21T08:13:00.000Z

it definitely pours. Here's the road out in front of our house at the tail end of a good rainfall the other day. Strangely the camera kept trying to focus in and out on the raindrops, so it's a bit painful on the eyes. Sorry!

Gone Fishin'

2007-12-18T07:38:00.000Z

While fishing is a brand new sport for him, Olivier comes home once in a while with a whopper. This fella was his very first catch, which has definitely proven to be beginner's luck! This one's a barracuda, which we've since learned is absolutely juicy-licious on the BBQ!!!! I won't go into the details of how Olivier actually got it out of the water into his boat, but his story involved a huge stick (presumably to club the poor thing) that the fish grabbed and chewed in half . All I know is Ol's enjoying learning a new sport, and while I'm happy to have fresh fish from the African Atlantic coast, I also prefer to remain ignorant about how it gets on my plate!

Sunday at the beach

2007-12-12T19:48:00.000Z

Art Dealers

2007-12-12T18:24:00.000Z

Fulla

2007-12-11T16:21:00.000Z

Every morning Cecilia adds her pink, furry Hello Kitty bag to the neat row of bags outside her little preschool classroom here in Port-Gentil. With the majority of expats in town working in the oil industry, her classmates include many Gabonese children as well as kids from every corner of the globe. No one blinks an eye at names such as Pelenatita (a girl), Keziah (a boy) or even MacArthur (used as boy's first name and pronounced as if it were traditionally French).

When it comes to children's tastes in school bags, however, international marketing seems to win out, and there is much less variety. The majority of girls at the school carry pink bags, usually with a smiling Dora the Explorer (or l'Exploratice in these parts) looking out at you, while many others seem to prefer Barbie -- an American classic.
Of course Barbie seems to meet all the aesthetic requirements necessary to please most 4-year-old girls world-wide, but I stopped dead in my tracks the other morning when out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of someone I'd never met before.....
Religious requirements aside, it seems tastes really don't differ much do they?

The Fire

2007-12-07T12:54:00.000Z

Amadou, our guard, friend and dedicated playmate to Cecilia lost his every belonging two days ago when his house burned to the ground here in town. He's an immigrant worker from Mali working in Port-Gentil to send money back to his family each month. We've given him clothes and a place to stay for now, but he's most upset over losing all ID papers as well as his entire additional cash stash from his two years of employment with us. He's very religious, praying 5 times a day, and tells us that Allah not only gives but takes away, so clearly this was Allah's choice for his life to take this turn. It's amazing to see that through all of his troubles, someone who had very little to start out with keeps on smiling even though he now has even less.

Images in Town

2007-12-04T20:15:00.001Z

This is a brother-sister team I see every day in their school uniforms waiting in the same spot for their mom to pick them up for lunch. Kids of all ages at all Gabonese state schools wear these uniforms.

The typical car size here is due to the crater-sized pot holes around town. I would hate to be in a sedan - ouch!
Hey - what's up with the two makeshift stop signs before the intersection and waaay over to the right of the road? I'm not sure I need to take them seriously.
Wood is an important industry in Gabon, and one of the views we have year-round is of the thousands of tree trunks (I'd call them logs, but they seem too big) being floated in and out of the bay each week in the center of town.
We all use bottled gas in our houses for cooking, so this is a common scene.People may not be rich, but everyone has a cellphone, thanks to Celtel.

The temperature inside my car yesterday. I think the AC is broken...
Cigarette vendor on the left, very popular lottery booth on the right, and a typical wall in the background that was most likely painted just a few months ago. Sitting pensively in the back seat of the car one day Jourdain, watching buildings go by out his window, asked me why paint never stays on walls. I tried to explain to him that in life there is something called "quality", and that the amount of time the paint stays on depends on the level of quality. I do think he got the concept in the end, but it sure makes me chuckle that in his little 6-year-old universe no one has yet figured out how to keep the paint on buildings.

Port-Gentil Art

2007-12-03T07:10:00.000Z

The Grand Village neighborhood of Port-Gentil is filled with fabulous storefronts painted with advertisements, or more exactly, images of what's for sale inside. This is a favorite of mine, with a sportswear store on the right and a barbershop on the left.
Closeup of sportswear store:

And here's the barbershop, with your choice of hairstyle before you enter the establishment:
And this piece of art below is the centerpiece of the town's largest traffic circle (while it's far from being an actual circle -- with roads shooting in and out from every angle and traffic lights flashing on and off simultaneously -- I don't know what else to call it). The man depicted here is Gabon's first president, Leon Mba (last name pronounced "mmmmmm-Ba"). The whole setup here is typically Gabonese, with a streetlight turned directly toward him for nighttime illumination, some random tile formation acting as a base for the painted plywood structure, and my guess is that the antenna-like object above his head was meant to one day be covered with some waterproof material, providing shelter from the rain. You'll also note that some of the city's electric wiring is dangling precariously behind Leon's neck. I'll have to look again next time I drive by, but it's very likely that poor Leon is being used in place of an actual electric pole to hold that up.

There are many more great images out there that I'll try and catch over the next few days!

Noah's Magic Trick

2007-12-02T20:14:00.000Z

This was mastered just yesterday.
Sorry about the shaky camera work.

Beach Baby

2007-11-22T20:35:00.000Z

Noah first arrived in Gabon at age 2 weeks and was kept indoors for a solid week before we finally decided to attempt an initial beach outing with him.

It was only once we got to Cap Lopez, the windy Atlantic coast, that I realized how delicate Noah really was and how mad I was at myself for bringing him out to a place where the sand would tarnish his perfect little newborn skin. I quickly wrapped him up from head to toe in a towel and took the following pictures as proof for him later in life that he really was at the beach at 3 weeks of age.

This one I quickly realized proves nothing,

so, trying desparately to keep him from being unnecessarily exposed to the elements out there, I snapped a shot with beach background,
and then one of his dad and siblings playing off in the distance. (Double click for more detail)As time went on though we got more daring. When Noah reached 7 weeks of age, Olivier and I decided he was plenty ready for his first boat outing.
The best safety precaution we could come up with was Baby Bjorning him underneath a lifevest that I would wear while on the boat. And off he was to our weekend island gettaway! (See the below for experienced older siblings waiting patiently in the boat)
By the time we reached the island and our cabana, the rather loud roar of the boat's motor had coaxed Noah into a deep slumber, so he was set up on our dining table in his anti-uv baby beach tent bought back in France with this exact outing in mind.
Unfortunately, at his age he couldn't fully enjoy the view overlooking Jourdain and Cecilia playing in the sea.
We eventually woke him up for a diaper change, but I'm still not convinced he was terribly interested in the new beach setting. Maybe with time he will learn to enjoy life out here in Gabon as much as the rest of the family does! (Not that he's complaining)

By Popular Demand

2007-11-19T10:16:00.000Z

Printable pics of family members with Noah:

Mango Mania

2007-11-16T21:20:00.000Z

As summer approaches here the mangoes start to drip and droop down from the fabulous tree in our back yard. From late October through to Christmas we tend to collect between 15 and 30 of the things a day. And that's not including the ones the neighbor kids reach through the fence to steal or the few Amadou the guard saves for himself before giving us the day's collection. I've been freezing most of them to use throughout the year in my banana-mango bread.

I'm told that snakes like mangoes a lot too and that we might want to pull the swing set a bit forward so as to avoid an unwanted snake-on-head-while-swinging type of incident, but then there just wouldn't be any shade for the kids. And doesn't the American swing set just look so pleasantly out of place under a mango tree?

Here's a bunch I'm just waiting to grab when they fall:

Every morning Amadou strolls around and picks up the masses of mangoes on the ground. If you're in the vicinity you can hear them fall when they hit. I guess it's just a matter of time before one bonks a swinging kid on the head. Will make for a wonderful childhood memory, though. (The best story I myself have is of a bird pooping on my head while walking to school one day - much less exotic.)

Here he is with a few from the morning's harvest:

And this is what we got this morning. Yummmmm. Definitely worth dodging the mosquitoes for!

Birthday Guy 2007

2007-11-14T20:09:00.000Z

African Halloween

2007-11-12T08:40:00.000Z

I'm a bit late in writing this up, but this year we actually celebrated halloween with trick or treating!! Last year when I tried to organize something with the French neighbors on our street most answered that they weren't American and it wasn't their tradition. I guess they forgot to notice that we weren't in France either, and that as a multicultural community it can be nice to celebrate new tradtions with others...

This year however, Deanne, a very motivated young Texan mom whose French hubby works for the French oil company Total, single-handedly organized a halloween party followed by good ol' trick or treating on the Total compound where they live. All were invited and we weren't going to miss it!
Noah and I had just flown back from Paris the night before, and that morning I surprised Jourdain and Cecilia with the news that it was Halloween. They were more than excited to dress up, and quickly invited our housekeeper Ines' two boys to come and join in the fun. Boy were THEY excited to come along when I told them they were dressing up as a pirate and a king. I still don't think those two boys have the slightest idea as to what it was all about except that a whole lot of French people gave them candy when they knocked on doors. Their mom says they're not complaining though, even though she made them give most of their candy to other less fortunate kids in their neighborhood the next day.

Yann the king (or knight I guess since we had no time to make a crown!) went home a happy boy.

And Etienne took his role as a pirate (with American flag bandana no less) quite seriously.

At age 4 Cecilia has reached the pink princess stage in life.

And Jourdain was just happy to wear whatever his mom gave him! (No time to get a cowboy hat and the gun's all wrong, but hey - what does he know? He lives in Africa.)

The climate at the party was a few degrees warmer than what I grew up with, allowing many to go barefoot.
Deanne had the great idea to teach everyone the about bobbing for apples. I think I was the only guest who'd ever heard of such a wacky idea!!
The evening wound up with trick or treating in the Total apartment buildings. I sure hope Deanne sticks around Port-Gentil for a few more years! (Creepy eye effect on mom in picture here is not Halloween related - I just don't know how to fix it in my picture software.)

In the end we were so busy having fun that we never had time to carve up watermelons. I just may have them do it this week anyway.

And After School...

2007-11-09T17:15:00.000Z

It's Friday night and Jourdain has karate with his buddy Yann!

Noah's Halloween Trick

2007-11-06T09:55:00.000Z

So Noah enjoyed his very first Halloween this year, as can be seen by the smile on his face and the inscription on his little suit (a present from Kristy, our Floridian-American friend in town).
Well, at least everything seeeeeeeeemed to be going well for him on the 31st...
....until he began to get that little pensive look in his eye. I could tell he was up to something.
Definitely planning something devlish. Something he had most likely been planning out for a long time that day. Something to both scare and surprise his mama, maybe. A Halloween baby trick, perhaps? Hmmmmm........
Yep. Trick or treat. Let's hope there's more treat next year.

Sunday at the Beach

2007-11-05T18:56:00.002Z

Yay! The Blogger people have made it easy for me to post a film now!

Here's a scene of Olivier and Jourdain from our day yesterday at Cap Lopez beach on the Atlantic coast. Next weekend we'll head over to our little island off the other coast (the calmer bay side) and I'll try and get a good clip of what our Sundays are like there in our cabana.

Broken Toe

2007-11-05T07:03:00.000Z

I must remember to never again brag about how men can't manage more than one activity at a time while we women are great at multitasking and can change a diaper, write a business email, talk on the phone and color with Cecilia all at the same time.

Owch.

I blame motherhood.

Smack the Baby

2007-10-05T11:19:00.000Z

Imagine you're sitting comfortably at home in the evening with a five-week-old baby snoozing calmy in your arms. It took you a while, but he's fallen asleep, and with the house finally quiet you figure if you're lucky he'll keep sleeping and you just might be able to watch at least part of a movie on TV tonight (something you haven't done in five weeks).

Then, out of nowhere, without catching even a hint of a buzzing noise, you spot a mosquito closing in slowly, stealth-like, on the back of the baby's motionless, sleeping head. A sub-Saharan African mosquito. The kind of mosquito that comes out only after sunset and might be carrying the malaria virus. And you love that baby. But you want to watch the movie too. What do you do? Shoo the mosquito away and hope to be able swat him later, before he sneaks back up and bites the baby when you're focusing on the movie? Or do you smack the baby right on the back of the head as the mosquito lands? Right. You smack the baby. Which is exactly what I did last night - and I missed the damned mosquito too.

Let's Hope So...

2007-09-19T13:57:00.000Z

From the BBC News website:

Being bilingual 'protects brain'

The findings are based on tests on 104 people

Being fluent in two languages may help to keep the brain sharper for longer, a study suggests.

Researchers from York University in Canada carried out tests on 104 people between the ages of 30 and 88.

They found that those who were fluent in two languages rather than just one were sharper mentally.

Writing in the journal of Psychology and Ageing, they said being bilingual may protect against mental decline in old age.

Previous studies have shown that keeping the brain active can protect against senile dementia.

For full article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3794479.stm

Poopy Pants

2007-09-18T07:25:00.000Z

The day I came home with Noah both Jourdain and Cecilia followed me around the house, watching wide-eyed as I changed his diaper, nursed him, and rocked him to sleep. At one point Cecilia sat down calmly next to me on the couch to watch the baby nurse. After a bit there came a slow, gurgling, gaseous sound followed by a long bubbly-liquid noise emanating from Noah's diaper area. With a look of concern on her face, Cecilia sat up straight, stiffened, and shifted her eyes from right to left without moving a muscle in her body. Feeling her unease I explained that babies always poo when they nurse so that they can make room in their tummies for more milk. A look of great relief came over Cecilia's face as she shifted to look at me and said, "Oh. I thought that was me."

Gabonese Baby

2007-09-17T08:01:00.000Z

Before Noah was born I had to explain to the kids that no, we could not choose the sex of the baby, nor could we choose his eye color, hair color or even type of hair. That was a tough concept for them, and while Cecilia took quite a while to digest this information, she finally accepted that she would be getting a baby brother rather than a sister, and that while his hair might turn out curly like hers there was a pretty good chance it would end up straight like "everyone else" in the family (a major hang-up for her for most of her short life thus far).

Just a week before Noah's birth we were all riding in the car together when from the back seat Cecilia asked, "Mama? Can we choose the color of the baby's skin, or is it going to be black like the other people in Gabon?" Stifling a laugh I calmly explained that a baby's skin color comes from the mama and papa, and that we were not actually Gabonese, so in our case, no, the baby would not have black skin.

Olivier leaned over from the driver's seat, looked back at Cilia, and announced "He'd better not have black skin, Cecilia".

Noah David Doeff

2007-09-05T19:08:00.000Z

During our four blissful days in silence at the hospital I kept whispering to Noah that before he knew what hit him our snuggle-fest a deux would be interrupted by

non-stop kisses and hugs
and endless touching and cuddling from his older siblings.
Luckily for all, Noah is proving to be a very calm baby, taking everything in stride thus far. I'm just sorry he slept right through the 0 year birthday party held for him once he and I were back home.
Now all that remains to be seen is how he adjusts to life back in Gabon where we'll try to keep him awake for his 2 week birthday party...

Noah is here!

2007-09-05T12:01:00.000Z

Here's a shot I took looking down at Cecilia and her little brother about 2 months pre-birth:

Here's Noah and me just a week or so pre-birth:

And here he is weighing in at just over 4 kilos at 12:05 on August 24, 2007!!

Still waitin'

2007-08-15T13:13:00.000Z

for the next addition to our family. It's gotta be any day now, and BOY am I ready... No picture here as it may shock you. As it is, all heads turn these days when I enter a restaurant, store, or even pass by an outdoor cafe, and at 9 months pregnant I am under the impression it's not my cool outfit they're all checking out... The only benefit really is that traffic stops instantly when I even look at a crosswalk. My mom's thinking of packing a pillow under her shirt once I've left town.

Curly Girl

2007-07-08T21:38:00.001Z

And this is a girl who wishes she had STRAIGHT HAIR!! What I would do to have hair like that...

Twin Aunties

2007-07-08T17:47:00.000Z

Luckily for me, my sisters understand the seriousness of their auntie responsibilities when they come visit. They were here recently, and both quickly discovered, for example, that in order to maintain peace in our household, SOMEONE must be coloring with Cecilia at all times, non-stop. Around the clock. The moment this stops all hell breaks loose, and to be honest, I'm pretty much all colored out. Here's Auntie Cate taking things pretty seriously. (As a side note I should mention that Cate continued coloring in that book LONG AFTER Cilia was in bed each night. Maybe it's a genetic disorder?)Alissa took on a prominent role as "Great Answerer to all questions religious" after touring the local church in La Chapelle-en-Vercors one sunny afternoon. Since we lost 1 dog and 3 cats over the past year to what I can only assume is Gabonese road rage, both Cilia and Jourdain haunt us all with questions like: "When I die, can I bring my face with me?" and "Will I have the same voice in heaven?" and "Do you think our puppy Koumba will remember me when I die and go meet her?" My not-so-philosophical answer to these questions tends to be that I'd just rather not talk about it right now. Here's Alissa sharing some precious religious tidbits with her niece and nephew outside the church:

Of course the Aunties took J&C for myriad walks in the countryside...
and dared numerous river crossings.
In the end fun was had by all,

many flies were swatted,

caves were visited,and grumpy faces were turned to smiles with the help of the Twin Aunties!

UH-OH

2007-06-30T20:38:00.000Z

It appears that we've got a bit of a viper problem in our yard in France. Yep - vipers. Hmmm. I'm told once the house is "lived in" and all unnecessary rocks are taken away from the immediate area they will go away. I sure am counting on it.

Viper alive:

Viper dead:

Summers in France

2007-06-27T18:04:00.001Z

As it turns out, Port-Gentil empties out almost entirely of its non-working expat members (ie spouses and kids) during the months of July and August. Although these are the winter months in Gabon, and thus the coolest (or should I say the least hot) and most mosquito-free, pretty much every single mom takes her kids back to the "home country" to reconnect with family and remember what it's like to be in a place where the electricity never cuts out, fruits are plentiful and refreshingly varied, and the stores are filled with ANYthing your heart desires. For me this pretty much means two months of trips to the supermarket without being able to use my special Gabon weapon on the kids: "Awwwww. Sorry sweety. We just can't buy it since the store has run out. We'll have to wait until next month to see if they get more in." I just know that this summer there's no way I'm going to be able to get Cecilia to enthusiastically try peaches or strawberries at snack-time in France when they're in direct competition with that ever-possible Nutella jar. At age 4 now her radar can pick up on the Nutella aisle pretty much the minute we walk into any supermarket outside of Gabon. Jourdain is more of a Honey Nut Cheerios man, but I consider that much less of a threat.

After having to break the news of our extended departure to Martine, our family's personal fuit vendor in Port-Gentil (see below), we headed off to France. I took this picture just moments after telling her the kids and I were flying out that same evening and would only be back in September. As you can see, she was not particularly happy to see her best clients go. (She walks all over town each day to find me, catching me in front of our house, in the supermarket parking lot, or even here, in front of Jourdain's school. But that's another whole post in itself I'll save for another day.)

So in an effort to create some semblance of stability in our kids' lives during all this moving around we seem to be doing, Olivier and I recently purchased a house in the middle of the woods in France. On a mountain. Far from everything. But it really is a beautiful area and our aim is to spend summers there with as many friends and family members as possible each year once the restauration works have been completed in a year or two! Here's the nity-gritty:

Our house is just outside the village of La Chapelle-en-Vercors. This area is located up on the plateau of the Vercors, which can be seen when looking east from Valence and west from Grenoble, and is in the Drome department. The house is right on the edge of a large nature reserve, allowing Olivier to leave directly from our front door to head out on long hikes and camping trips climbing up into the Alps, all while the kids and I take it easy and enjoy the green around us! In the winter we can reach the ski slopes within 15 minutes. The views in the area are pretty spectacular, with jagged mountain tops, cliffs, waterfalls and beautiful gorges and caves surrounded everywhere by beautiful green forests reminding me of New England. A 45-minute drive south of us drops us off in the town of Die and on to the Provence.

-The Vercors is located here on a map of France: http://ww w.bedandbreakfast.dk/maps/4/178.jpg

-Map of the plateau: h ttp://www.golf-vercors.com/img/a cces2.gif

Our house has a section that was beautifully renovated by the British couple that sold it to us, and a much larger section (barn attached to the main house by a smaller building) to be entirely renovated. Unfortunately the renovation process is taking forever to get off the ground, with our initial architect taking weeks to respond to about 1 email out of 5. I've just now found a new architect and hope he'll prove to be more on the ball!

Based on the speed (or lack thereof) of works getting done right now, I am afraid that the section of the house planned to accommodate multiple friends and family members simultaneously will only be ready as of summer 2009!! GRRrrrrr!!

And now for some pictures of the interior of the house:

The Terracotta House

2007-06-25T20:04:00.000Z

When our landlord in Gabon recently made the move to have our house painted I jumped right away at the chance to give it a bit of color! I don't know how many years the poor thing had been a shade somewhere between grey and cement, but I went out and got the landlord a sample of the terracotta shade I thought would look nice. Well, no questions asked the guy had the whole damned thing painted in terracotta - wooden fence and all. With its new roof of the same color the house kinda jumps out at you as you drive by, but what the hell....at least it's not boring!

Here's Amadou to show you around the front:

Shopping in town

2007-03-01T07:01:00.000Z

While there are a number of things you cannot find in the supermarkets here (peanut butter is rare, soy milk impossible, Special K and Cheerios are brought in on special occasions), one thing you can buy with great ease are machetes. You will note in the picture here that they can be found in all different lengths at Supergros supermarket in aisle 1, right as you enter the store, between the sets of cutlery to the left and the pet food to the right.

Scenes from Port-Gentil

2007-02-28T21:33:00.000Z

Just a few general shots to give you an idea of downtown.

Now you see it, now you don't!!

2007-02-28T21:23:00.000Z

So take a look at this picture, and see if you can see anything different about our lovely yet pig headed daughter in the shot below. Think she should have listened to her parents who tell her daily not to CLIMB UP ON TOP OF FURNITURE? (You might need to double click on the picture below for the full effect)

All I can say is that there was a lot of blood involved.

Truckin'

2007-02-28T13:33:00.000Z

Where I come from people use straps, rope or bungee cords to attach important items to the roof of a car or the back of a truck. In Gabon they use, well, people! This is one of many shots to come proving the versatility of human arms, hands, and even butts.

Childhood in Gabon

2007-02-28T12:45:00.000Z

I often tell people here I sure wish I had had MY childhood in Gabon! Constant sun interspersed with fabulous tropical rain storms that you splash around naked in, never have to wear a sweater (not to mention snow suits), swimming pools, birthday parties, afternoon social time with moms and kids -- and then there's AMADOU, the "guard" at your house, who carries you to the store and back to go get bubble gum!!

Here's Cecilia and best friend Kanzy (half Dutch half Egyptian) on their way back from a trip to the store
A rain storm is always welcome in the heat here, and makes for loads of fun when you're 5!!

Private swimming lessons year-round when you're 3 .........
No need for shirts at the table, even when guests come to dinner. (This is Jourdain's best friend Johan.)

Ines to braid your hair and take you to birthday parties.....

and then braid your best friend's hair too.

You're never limited to playing with your train set indoors.....
or to playing indoors period!!

It sure is a nice place to be a kid!!

Sweet Home Africana

2007-02-27T18:30:00.000Z

In an effort to catch up on these last 3 months (gasp!) that I haven't posted, I thought the best would be a whole series of pictures based on themes, showing a bit more clearly what things look like for expats in West Africa.

First up - exterior of our house: Here's the front (with Cilia down in right-hand corner)

And the front yard

Back yard........ (with big mango tree)

Mangoes up close from said tree

Our Gabonese mutt - named Mooie (means "little girl" in Malian language)

The pool

Back porch

And my Dutch BFF Monica with Cecilia's BFF Kanzy on the street in front of our place

We made it on Google Earth!!

2006-12-05T07:38:00.000Z

For most of you the idea of being on Google Earth is old hat, but those of us in Port Gentil (used to gazing at a hazy whirl of cloud when looking for our town) are now sending emails back and forth with glee about the fact that we can now ZOOM IN to our little world down here! Join me in my excitement and take a look:

So this is Gabon, with our town of Port-Gentil sticking out into the ocean on the tip where I've placed the yellow circle.

And here's that point up close, which is called Mandji Island. The east side of the island (looks like peninsula here in pic) is where Port-Gentil is located. As you can see, the Atlantic coast is on the western side of the island, and the town itself looks out onto a very large bay to the east that eventually leads to the mainland (which is too far to see with the eye when at the beach). The island itself is only a few kilometers wide and maybe 25 kilometers from north to south.

And our house is the brown roof, just below the yellow circle. For those who care, our roof was redone this summer and is now similar to an orangy Italian or French terra cotta tiled roof. I'm looking forward to getting a new-and-improved Google Earth one day that shows the new roof and the swimming pool in the back yard (which is OLD, so this picture dates back a while, for sure).

But more importantly is our private island (which still needs a name) that looks out onto that magnificent bay!! As you can imagine, the white edges in the pic are the sand and the dark curve is the vegetation. Our cabana wasn't yet built on it when the picture was taken, but I hope it too will one day make it onto Google Earth! (See blog post entitled Island Cabana for pictures of us on the island)

So that's pretty much all there is to show here since our little town is less interesting from above than from street level. I'll get some shots of downtown Port Gentil in here soon! Meanwhile, plan that trip to come play on our island with us!!

Exotic Myasis!!

2006-12-04T19:12:00.000Z

So is it just me or does the name Exotic Myiasis sound quite, well...exotic? And lovely. Could be the name of an island, right? Or a delicious recipe from Greece. Or perhaps even the name of a new kind of bathing suit. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING but THE LARVA FROM A FLY THAT IMPLANTS ITSELF UNDER YOUR SKIN AND GROWS INTO A MAGGOT!!!!!!!!!!! Right?

Well, anyway, you get the point, and after one year in Gabon this crazy maggot thing has now started happening to us!! It started when I decided that having our maid wash, machine dry and iron my bathing suits was a bit over the top and that a simple rinse and re-wear would be just fine for me (I mean, I'm far from the J. Lo of Africa). To be honest, Ines looked at me funnily when I told her to stay away from my bathing suits, but I thought nothing of it at the time. Turns out you in fact DO need to have your bathing suits (and underwear and socks and sheets and pajamas) washed, machine dried and ironed in order to avoid any possible Exotic Myasis occurring to you from larvae lurking in the fibers. Well, I won't tell you where my larva ended up implanting itself exactly, but suffice it to say that I was wearing a bikini when it happened.

Then about a week after I managed to pop the MAGGOT out of myself (still alive, mind you), Jourdain started to show signs quite similar to the itchy bump I had acquired, but this time on his wrist and on the lower left side of his head. Two at the same time--the poor kid!! After loads of poking, squeezing and very loud screaming from numerous family members at once Olivier and I managed to pop two Exotic Myasis (or is Myases the plural?) right out of our little 4 year old. The worst is when you pop it out and the damned thing just keeps on wiggling. OK, OK, I'm sure that's enough description for many of you.

In an effort to better understand what it was that was invading our bodies over here I ran to that handy Google icon in my toolbar and typed in "Africa fly maggot skin" and came up with the very pleasant sounding "Exotic Myasis". With 133,000 sites mentioning all or some of these words I guess our little family problem isn't all that rare after all. I felt in good company if the people at Google knew what this was all about!

Below here I've copied an abridged version of one particularly descriptive site I found. I say abridged because I've pasted the drawing of the beast rather than the actual photographs they also show. The link to the entire site is at the bottom of this post for the more curious and strong-stomached among you. - ENJOY!

(PS I'll be sure to post more pictures of us at the beach next blog in an effort to help take your mind off this one)

EXOTIC MYIASIS
Introduction

Myiasis is the invasion of living tissue or organs by the immature stage (maggots) of flies. Every year several species of exotic diptera are imported into Australia in the subdermal layers of the skin of overseas travellers. Patients returning from overseas present to their doctor with painful furuncular lesions, often unaware that the cause is a maggot.

http://medent.usyd.edu.au/fact/myiasis.html

Free Toilet Paper Anyone?

2006-12-02T12:46:00.000Z

Living in Africa you can easily see what life must have been like long ago for our ancestors in Europe. One example of this is that I'm often hit with the original meaning behind many commonly used expressions that are so old they've become nothing but quaint expressions to most of us living in the developed world. Take "it fell off a truck" for instance. The other day I was driving along behind yet another truck that was about to kill me and the kids with its unattached goods floating around in the back. At first the bouncy packs of toilet paper seemed harmless and I even calculated how much money I could save this month if a few packs met with my windshield (prices here for such luxury items are probably 4X the price they cost back home). It was, however, the large bags of rice staring at me as they hopped up and down in the back there (to the right in the picture here) that made me nervous enough to pull over to the side of the road for someone else to take my spot facing the firing line.

As I grabbed my camera to catch the truck in action I realized that when you get a hold of something in Africa that "fell off a truck" you're definitely dealing with stuff that fell off a truck.

The Case of the Missing Tail

2006-11-30T12:54:00.000Z

Now I don't want to blame any one dog in particular, but recently (and I am willing to accept that this just may be a coincidence) while we were dog-sitting Lilly for our friend Carla our cat Moushi's tail got mysteriously broken. The vet told me it looked like the result of a bite and he wanted to amputate the thing down to a stub as he thought it would look prettier. I informed him I preferred to think of Moushi's comfort and balance rather than worry about my social status reflected through the cuteness of my cat's tail. Luckily for Moushi (aka "Moushi-Mout-Mout") my persistence paid off, and he ended up only loosing 1/3 of his tail and has everything bandaged up nicely like this:

Twin brother Pousse (or Poes if you're Dutch) is less than impressed with Moushi's new look, as you can see here:
While I know many people might say that it's a bit unfair of me to blame Lilly the visiting dog for poor Moushi's predicament since we too have our very own dog (Mooie who replaced Koumba after she met with a car one dark night). In an effort to clear any confusion though I thought I'd let you make up your mind by having a look at the two dogs in question. First up is Mooie, who clearly could never harm a poor kitty tail:

And then there's Lilly:

Well OK, so she doesn't look exactly like that, but you get the picture.

African Jack-o-lanterns

2006-11-15T12:33:00.000Z

During the week leading up to Halloween I began a search for pumpkins by asking around if anyone had seen any for sale or did they perhaps know someone who would know. (Pretty much everything here is carried out through word of mouth.) I remained optimistic until the very end, as a number of Gabonese actually knew which vegetable I was talking about and mentioned that they had seen them for sale in the past, but couldn't remember where or exactly when it was....

The day before Halloween I gave up the search though and went for the next best thing - watermelons. Our Wednesday replacement guard Hervé was in for a surprise that day when he was told we needed his help in creating a spooky-faced-hollowed-out-watermelon that we would later put a candle in and place on the fence in front of the house. Once I drew a picture of the face he understood generally what it should look like but still seemed confused as to why anyone would do this and what was that candle idea all about?

See here for Hervé's bemusement:
I wasn't too sure what the final result would be once it was dark out and candles were lit, but we all had a lot of fun working on our new jack-o-lantern concept. Of the 4 of us though only Hervé likes watermelon, so he lucked out and got to eat all the contents.
He may not have understood why we would waste such a perfectly good fruit, but he sure was a good sport! Here is our first creation:

And our two halloween beauties that afternoon (Hervé got really into it and came up with the idea of carving out a hairline, as can be seen on our friend on the right)
When I first set them out in front of the house to "scare the neighbors" -as Jourdain and Cilia had explained to Hervé'- I was moderately satisfied, thinking that somehow orange just looks better and these are not terribly authentic looking.....until I set the candles in them and .........

in the end they looked just as good as any I had ever made in the past!!(With the exception of Hervé's hairline which was in fact a great idea!!)

Loango Park II

2006-11-15T11:17:00.000Z

More scenes from Loango. Come see it with us!!

Above - on the river Below - spot the croc!

Getting to the lodge can take longer than expected

Above - stuck in deep sand Below - driving into the river to board our boat
Looking over the list of activities upon arival at the lodge I saw a canoe coming towards us from a distance. While watching them approach I complained plenty to Diane that we were not informed by staff that this was an option for us and that I really would love to canoe through the mangroves too, blah blah blah and how unfair. Within just a few minutes I realized the ladies I had been watching were possibly not canoing down the river for leisure purposes....

A true mix of French and African cultures in a village en route to the lodge

Birthday Guy

2006-11-14T21:54:00.000Z

I sure wish I knew how to get this film to work, rather than post this as a picture!! Anyway, happy birthday, Papa/Bubba from the 4 of us in Gabon!!

Loango Park I

2006-11-09T14:34:00.000Z

A while back Olivier and I spent the weekend with our friends Didier and Diane walking through the jungle and savanna at Loango Park, a (or should I say the) nature reserve here in Gabon. As you can see here, it was elephant season that period, and while I may look all giggly here hangin' with the elephants, I was in fact pretty scared and telling Ol to hurry up and take the picture already! These guys are known as "forest elephants", which are chocolate brown in color and live in the jungle most of the time, coming out in the savanna to graze from time to time. While they are not as large as the grey elephants from Eastern Africa I'm used to seeing in children's books, they appear slightly less cuddly in person than what I had imagined, and they made threatening noises and gestures when we approached at times. Needless to say, this is the only picture of me and elephants in the same frame.

The resort itself is first rate, and definitely a surprise gem in the middle of this country (with oil reserves why bother to seek out tourists?). While the water in the river was brown, it had a golden tint given off by the numerous minerals that give it its color. For any of you planning to visit, this is definitely the place to spend a long weekend, as each season brings with it a new set of wild animals to see (leatherback turtles in Dec/Jan, elephants in March/April, followed by hippos and later whales and dolphins in August/September). The jungle treks are quite an experience too, with monkeys jumping from tree to tree up above throughout your walk.

The Dutch man (former Shell Oil hotshot I hear) who owns the resort has set up many projects to protect the local animals, including what they call "Gorilla Island", which is an isolated area where gorillas caught in the wild to be sold on the market are taken and slowly rehabilitated with the cooperation of a Dutch gorilla/monkey zoo in Holland. It all sounds nicer than what we saw (they are cooped up on the island), but it was amazing to see these lowland Gorillas up close. When trying to cuddle with a 3-year-old gorilla (Cecilia's age and not much different in temperament) I got smacked and bitten a bit, as can be seen here below. Luckily Cilia never got into biting very much.

They've got a wonderful site too, so spread the word and maybe tourism in Gabon will one day be affordable:
http://www.operation-loango.com/

PEGS!!!!!

2006-09-24T15:45:00.001Z

While in the States this summer Cecilia received a package in the mail from her Zha Zha enclosing what has become BY FAR the most fabulous thing she has ever received (from her viewpoint, in any case). As the packaging was Italian and I couldn't figure out the actual name of the toy, we just decided to call this "The Pegs". Anyone and everyone slightly related to her was coerced either through unadulturated pink-cheeked cuteness or incessant harassment by our little dictator to "COME DO PEGS WITH ME NOW! PLEAAAAAAAASSSSEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

After two full months of Cilia partnering up with every grownup she could find, I have now painstakingly gone through all photos of pegs in action and am single-handledly awarding the gold medal in peg playing to: my sister ALISSA!!!! (please see above photo to see true peg-talent)

And here is a sampling of Cilia and relatives in action (either with The Pegs or enjoying other arts and craft projects):

Island Cabana

2006-08-28T13:48:00.000Z

While I was in the States with the kids a group of very active friends here in Port-Gentil managed to rent an island just off the coast (part under the Drablier name and the other section under Doeff), gather lots of wood, palm leaves and ideas and begin (with Olivier and two other couples) to build a beach cabana on our very own private ISLAND!!

Now that I'm back I've joined in the construction process by um.... helping the other women glue shells all over the posts in an effort to decorate our weekend gettaway! (See pic of my incredible efforts). More explanation later, but for now, enjoy the pictures and start planning your visit soon!! (PS the pretty decoration featured below is not my own creation. I'll need a bit more practice before getting as good as my friend Diane who has done this kind of thing before)

Beach life

2006-06-27T12:37:00.000Z

So here is a shot of my foot and the "crowds" at the beach here the other day. (Double click to enlarge and see this man is throwing out a fishing net) I'll be offline for a few days traveling to the States with the kids as of this afternoon, so thought I'd leave you with a few pictures of our weekend activities (and where Olivier will be spending his spare time when the kids and I are gone!). This is to show you why we actually don't complain about the potholes and traditional African architecture you saw in my past posts here. Weekends here make up for a lot of the African inconveniences!

World Cup - African Style

2006-06-26T08:03:00.000Z

Here's so you can get a feeling of what the World Cup viewership is like in town here. If you've read my Amadou & Mamoudou blog below you'll know this is Mamoudou and his buddies from neighboring houses.

While many of you sit around on cozy sofas with drinks and snacks, or others are inside a neighborhood pub enjoying the general friendly football atmosphere, we here in Port-Gentil don't need to actually watch the matches (thank God). I just check in on these guys out in the street to see what the score is every once in a while. Or even better, I send Jourdain and Cecilia out for me.

Le Grand Village

2006-06-25T14:06:00.000Z

I tend to take loads of pictures of us all lounging at the beach each weekend, but until yesterday I had never attempted taking shots of the daily African life we see in Port-Gentil. Many friends and family have asked me what things LOOK like here, so I loaded the kids and Ines up in the car yesterday and drove into her neighborhood where she took shots of her neighbors and the local market from the passenger seat while I drove on pretending I didn't know what she was up to. Needless to say, we got yelled at by plenty of people who thought we were trying to take pictures specifically of them. (Click on picture of woman selling bananas to get a feel for this.)
We stopped the car numerous times to show them that no, we were actually taking a picture of the FOOD in the market, or the BUILDING that people just happened to be walking in front of. It wasn't an easy sell, but having Ines with me helped (two small kids in the back seat didn't hurt either).

One exception was a man who came up to us and asked us to take a picture of his boat in the canal (first canal picture, closest boat) and was then so excited by the image on my digital camera that he asked me to please be sure to print out a copy for him. I told him I would do so as soon as I got to my father's, where I'll be heading next week for a vacation. The guy can't wait for my return.

Keep in mind this is a part of town you have to actually go into to see, as the main street of Port-Gentil and the areas the expats (and middle and upper class Africans) spend most of their time in don't look nearly as "traditional" as this. You might also want to know that when Olivier reads this blog tomorrow it will be the first time for him to see this part of Port-Gentil too!! The kids and I go to this area--called "Le Grand Village"-- almost daily, to drop Ines and her children off at their house or to buy local products or veggies at the market. It's entirely safe, with the only offence ever carried out against me or the kids being a SERIOUS price hike as soon as we step out of our car.

Amadou & Mamoudou

2006-06-23T22:58:00.000Z

After our first week here in Port-Gentil Olivier told me he found it "a bit scary"as to how long it took me to get used to having domestic help. In my opinion, though, it's not the getting used to that's worrysome, it's the going back to real life that scares me! We'll have to do all those things everyone hates doing - like bringing out the garbage (or washing your car, mowing the lawn, sweeping up fallen leaves, or even making your own bed..... the list goes on and on!) We have friends in town here who've been traveling the world like this for some 25 years, and they tell me the hardest part for their kids when they went off to college was to understand that their dorm rooms were not the "self-cleaning" type they had always known.

So, this blog is dedicated to two men who have become very important to our family in the short 8 1/2 months we've been here so far - AMADOU and MAMOUDOU. Since everyone knows how we got here, here's the short history as to how these guys ended up here.

Port-Gentil is a small, calm town located on the Atlantic coast, at the tip of what from a distance looks like a peninsula. The land is actually cut off entirely by rivers and waterways (including a beautiful, seemingly limitless bay), making this a very small island (30 miles north-south by 15 east-west I believe) populated by the local Gabonese, the expat oilfield peronnel and their families (us), and a few thousand men from much less affluent African countries, all here to carry out the "non-office" work that the Gabonese refuse to do. And that's where Amadou & Mamoudou come into the picture. They were hired by Olivier's company to "guard" the house, which in some countries I can imagine it's essential, but here it's more a form of providing employment and ensuring your guard mingles with the neighbors' guards and provides a general feeling that all is well and there's not much to steal in our house anyway.

Amadou (from Mali) works at our house house during the daylight hours. In addition to 'guarding" the front gate, his tasks include pushing the kids on their swings, taking Cilia for a walk to the local store (small shack down the road) to get a lollypop, watering the plants (as seen above), feeding the Koumba the dog, washing our cars, and much more.
Mamoudou(from Senegal) arrives in the evening and takes his TV set out into the road in front of the house, invites all the other guards from the neighboring houses, and watches the kids play in the dirt while watching TV (World Cup right now). I've learned it's best for me and my nervous system not to actually watch Jourdain and Cilia play out there, but to tell them not to drink anyone else's water, and then give them a good scrub when they come in. I just assume everything is cool if they don't have diarrhea the next day. All I know is they go out looking like little foreigners and come back as dark as the Gabonese kids they play with.

As for Olivier, he's completely confused as to which guard has which name, and shouts out a general "BONJOUR/BONSOIR (mumble mumble)MOUDOU!!" when he comes home. I try to explain "AMA during the day, MAMOU at night." Nothing works.

For a map of Port Gentil and its location on Manji Island, click here:

Weekend Beach BBQs

2006-06-23T15:48:00.000Z

Many people ask us how we're handling life in Africa, assuming, it seems, that we live in a grass hut. In answer to that I must say that life is actually not bad at all here on the equator! We're enjoying this crazy expat life filled with social activites like meeting with friends at one of our homes for a wall-projected movie each week (closest movie theater is a plane-ride away), or last-minute sunset barbeques with friends, kids and all the newly-adopted stray puppies we've taken on. It's a bit like being back in college, only the food's better and there aren't any mid-terms. It feels a lot like I imagine life on those US sitcoms where neighbors pop cheerily in and out of each other's kitchens to snack and share the latest chit chat. Very social, and very laid back. What more could we ask for, really? Even if we do have to live in a grass hut.

Cilia HAIRDOOOOOOOOOOs

2006-06-23T07:24:00.000Z

The humidity in Africa gives Cilia's naturally curly locks a life of their own! (See below - Here she's sporting a look I tried desparately to acheive in the 80s with a curling iron every morning.) Luckily for Cecilia, Ines (shown below), is a trained hairdresser and loves to give her little African girly hairdos, taming her wild curls and making all Gabonese mothers and grandmothers stop and admire "la petite blanche avec des tresses africaines!" - Needless to say, Cilia rather enjoys all the attention.

They have Become Inseparable

2006-06-22T21:29:00.000Z

How are we going to get them off to separate schools in September?

Jaco the Parrot

2006-06-22T16:31:00.000Z

He was here when we arrived at the house, and now thanks to him we'll need to ensure we have grandkids one day. How long do these guys live, anyway?

We're working on his English, and he can now say "Hello!" Just like my grandmother Meema!! What would she ever think of THAT?!

Two New Kittens!!

2006-06-22T11:46:00.000Z

Knowing I can never say no to a snuggly ball of fuzziness, Olivier called me after work the other evening to tell me there were two furry things cuddled up against a wall in the Schlumberger parking lot. Did I maybe want to come bring them home, he asked. Didn't take long before our newly-adopted puppy (Koumba) was welcoming the kittens in her mouth.

To give them African names we had our day guard Amadou from Mali name one Moushi (cat in his language), and Ines our multi-tasking cleaning lady/babysitter name the other Pousse (Cat in her language). Now we just have to teach our parrot Jaco how to scream out their names as well as he does Koumba's all day and night! (picture of Jaco in separate link)

Life in Gabon

2006-06-22T09:21:00.000Z

In an effort to do a better job at keeping family and friends in touch with our daily events and expereinces here in Port-Gentil, Gabon, I'm starting a family Blog filled with stories and pictures that I will try to update very regularly. (Note I don't dare say daily - yet. Neither my organizational skills nor our African Internet Provider make daily updates a sure thing!)

We've been in Gabon for almost 9 months now, so we've got plenty of pictures and stories to tell! Now if I could just figure out how to make separate links, each with a theme. Hmmmm.....

Will be back soon!
Sarah