Four More Work Days Till I Head Home......

I'm in the middle of a three-day layover and stuck inside the hotel--choice of my room or the lobby where there's wireless Internet. Surprisingly time has gone by pretty fast this job. There have been logistics and scheduling problems througout but the people have been great to work with--something that has always been the case in Africa. We finished up a refresher course with some students I worked with here and in Chad three years ago and I got a photograph out at the training site. Again, I'm the one in the middle.....

In the afternoons we drive out in the traffic practicing the techniques and I always get a good view of the city that most tourists will never see. Douala is a fairly large city and not prosperous, but not impoverished in the way Chad was. We spend quite a bit of time driving down along the coast of the Bay of Guinea and Douala is a very large shipping port--I believe it is the largest in Africa outside the North African countries like Egypt and Libya. To the northeast is Mount Cameroon but unfortunately I've not been able to see it this trip. I am posting a photo I took of the bay from my hotel window when I was here three years ago. It is beautiful and has amazing sunsets as you can see.

This part of Cameroon is tropical with palm trees, heat and humidity. Tropical, though, means lush green plants and trees and when we get into the outskirts of Douala the countryside is also very beautiful. Anyway, enough rambling, tommorow it's back to work for four days then the 20-hour trip back to Houston......