Things Have Calmed Down Now.......

The evacuations are pretty much finished now and the attention is turning to aid for the thousands of Chadians flooding into Cameroon although that doesn't affect us directly here. Today we drove out into the countryside and Cameroon is really beautiful--in my previous trips I never got to see anything but the urban areas. As you might imagine, since Cameroon is a poor country the villages are expecially impoverished. We went through an area that is a major lumber processing area and most of the labor is done by hand--even the sawing of boards. The villages are often without electricity but all have buildings dedicated as schools so literacy is considered important here and I think a high percentage of the citizens read and write French fluently. I found it really interesting that all the villages had communal water pumps--each little village has a public pump that is shared by all the families. Almost every pump was located under a large cross so I guess the people here are expecially grateful for safe drinking water and I've read that Africa is one of the fastest growing areas of Christianity in the world right now. The US Peace Corps has worked here since the early 1960s and the pumps were one of their contributions in this area. Unfortunately, no photography is allowed so I got no photos. I'm half-way through this job and head to Egypt this weekend--I'm really excited and looking forward to it.