Hello from Carol!

Thank you, everyone, for the birthday greetings! It was simply fabulous hearing from each one of you!

School is going well. We have 19 students-7 girls and 12 boys-ranging in age from 5 years to 13 years! We just had our first day off. We found out just about three days before that it was going to be a public holiday.

It was a real treat having the day off. Now I can't remember what I did-oh yes, I slept in for once! And I swept and mopped our church since it was our turn to clean the church.

For the past two weeks Steve has been supervising the improvements on the house we rent. By the end of the day tomorrow, all the floors will be concrete and all the walls, inside and out, will be plastered. After negotiations over the course of two months with various people, we finally found two young men who are dependable, knowledgeable, and trustworthy.
Besides the work on the house proper, the two young men poured concrete lids for the septic pit after Steve built the frame and the reinforcing meshwork.
These lids were large and heavy and had to be carried into position by about
12 men. It was quite a job! Now in order to complete the indoor restroom, we need to buy pipe, fittings, glue, and a toilet and sink from the closest town. It will be sooo nice to have a private indoor restroom. You guys take even the simplest things for granted! Yes, you! Thank God for your bathroom! The bathroom will not have running water, but at least the water will drain to the septic.

We will be joined in three weeks by a Bible Worker. We are looking forward to working with her encouraging our small congregation and reaching out to the unreached. It will be fun to have another friend.

Yesterday, Sunday, Steve and I planted our small garden in front of our house. I am so excited about the different veggies and fruit we planted.
We planted chard, beets, green onions, lettuce, spaghetti squash, green beans, kale, tomatoes, bell pepper, spinach, and zucchini. But, the most exciting thing we planted was watermelon! This is a small variety that is supposed to be sweet. Small will be nice since we do not have refrigeration. This will give us more variety than we have had. Now, I am not complaining-I am enjoying cabbage, okra, and jama jama, but it will be nice to have more variety. Jama Jama is actually a nice green, much like spinach, however it takes quite a while to prepare because the small green leaves need to be pulled off of the stems and then washed twice. It can take an hour just to get the greens ready for cooking.

I want to tell you a little about our 19 students. We are really getting to know them and enjoy them. We have five students that live near the school.
The girl who lives closest to the school, Juley, is our one and only Muslim.
Her mother told us she is 13. She doesn't look more than 10, but she is very small and thin. She is very sweet and shy. She never gets in trouble.
She speaks another dialect which I didn't realize until after a few weeks of school. The other teacher will sometimes try to translate into her dialect but most of the time he does not. She is learning English quickly. Lately she has been bringing avocadoes to sell to us. They are very good, and we are happy to buy them. Today her mother came to school during lunchtime and brought us teachers some food-corn fufu (like cornmeal mush) and a meat sauce. The fufu was excellent, but I let Naphtali and the children eat the meat sauce.

There are two brothers who live near the school-Zachariah and Ignatius.
Their father has been studying the Bible with Steve for a couple months. We really enjoy their whole family. Frequently their little brother who is about three years old comes to school with Zachariah and Ignatius. The little brother is very well behaved as are the two older boys.

There are a stepbrother and stepsister (Promise and Beli) who also live near the school. These kids are "step" because they are from "sister wives," if you know what I mean. The little girl has a powerful and beautiful singing voice. The boy is a bit shy. They have both attended school previously and are doing well in handwriting.

Naphtali has a five-year-old daughter, Onoria, who has the biggest smile.
She is quite expressive, mischievous, and very energetic.

There are five boys that live quite close to us. The first two, Kenedy and Leonard, are cousins; their mothers are sisters. Leonard's mother is a regular member at our church. Both Kenedy's mother and father are living in separate towns, neither of which is Lassin. About three weeks ago Kenedy "moved" to Leonard's compound/house quite on his own, I believe. He was in his father's compound living with his father's mother and a brother, Julius.
Then one day he went home with Leonard. Kenedy and Leonard, but especially Kenedy, are frequent visitors at our house. They have a special place in our hearts and sometimes at our table. It seems as if they do not eat breakfast regularly and they hardly ever bring lunch.

Then there are the three boys who live in Naphtali's father's compound. One boy is Naphtali's junior brother (Bless) who is about six years old. The other two (Rodrick and Isaac) are both about the same age as Bless and are related, but I'm not quite sure how. These boys are neat children. If one is behind, it is usually Isaac, often because he is so fascinated with the motorcycles that frequently drive past. Bless is very industrious and often carries home firewood. Rodrick knows the most English of all the students in the school.

There are two girls, Lucia and Blessing, whose mothers are good friends.
Lucia is about 7-8 years old and Blessing is 5. Lucia is quite sassy and can be a tease. She has been to school before. I think Blessing has been to nursery school. (We see toddlers as young as three years old walking down the road by themselves heading off to nursery school.) Blessing is a sweetheart and is quite energetic. I heard this morning that she was in the clinic with a fever. I sure hope she doesn't have malaria. Two or three of our students have had malaria just in the past three weeks.

Jacenta and Christian are brother and sister. Their father is one of the many tailors in town. Their mother is very gracious and sweet. She helped cook the food for our PTA meeting. Jacenta is about 8-9 years old. She is one of the tallest in the class. She is definitely a "ring leader." She adores me (I don't know why) and frequently wants to hold my hand as we are walking. Christian is five years old. His 2 mile walk to school tires him out sometimes.

Julius is Kenedy's junior (little) brother. He is about five years old.
When I first saw him, I thought to myself, "No way; he can't be in school.
He's too young." Oh, well, we decided that if a child was at least five years old, we would take them; that is the age for first graders here.
Julius is a sweet little kid; he's never in trouble. He loves to hold Steve 's hand. As mentioned before, he's a bit of an orphan. The aunt of Julius and Kenedy is a regular member of our church.

Joshua and Betila are brother and sister. Their father Franklin is the very muscular carpenter in Lassin who made our dining table, chairs, and a kitchen work counter for us. Joshua is about 8-9 years old and has attended school before. He is doing well. Betila is a 5-6 year-old sweetheart who is trying hard. The walk is difficult for her, but she is now getting used to it. Steve has been studying the Bible with their father.

Ransom is our newest student. If I thought Julius was way too young, I thought Ransom was barely out of diapers! We found out that he is really, truly over five years old. He is a nice boy who is doing his best.

When I say a student is over five years old or about 8-9 years old, it is because I don't think any of them could tell you the day he or she was born.
They (and their parents) are just fortunate to know in which year they were born. Also, frequently no one (not even the parents) know how to spell their child's name. I guess it is just not that important. This indicates custom and literacy only, NOT intelligence.

School is never boring with our group of students. Naphtali and I have been talking about the special "Youth Day" coming in February. All the schools gather together at the Catholic school and participate in activities which include marching, choral singing, traditional dances, and athletic events.
This could be good publicity for the school. One of our friends told us that if we wanted more students all we had to do was feed our students and their parents well after the Youth Day events! The kids are learning English very quickly, and it is very nice to be able to talk with them.

Our communication situation is not that great. I was really hoping for a good way to talk to you back at home. At least we can do limited email; that is a blessing. Our new cell phone does have a decent signal about three quarters of a mile from home. On the bright side, we don't have to 'check our messages' when we come home. No telemarketers interrupt our meals. The phone never wakes us.

Local news you may have heard. About two weeks ago Cameroon's football (we call it soccer) team won a match with Morocco. This puts Cameroon in the South Africa Cup games next spring and also some other play offs earlier in the year. This is very exciting for the Cameroonians. They love to watch their team play, just like people love to watch football back home.

Love, Carol