Cameroon

Hey All

Home safe after 2 weeks in Cameroon. The Lord was very gracious and there were no mishaps, injuries or stomach bugs! But it is very nice to be home in a 1st World Country and with spiritual family again! There's no easy task going to live in a third-world, foreign-speaking culture and my respect to all those who give their lives for the Lord's work in such areas. There are many social and environmental challenges that drain you every day in such a place. You definately need a clear calling from the Lord (and 2 angelic visitations!) before packing up and moving to such a place.

Well, the place is lovely. I have had a good dose of rain forest - there's miles of it - as well as mountains: in the first week I stood on the two highest points in West Africa - Mount Cameroon (4 090 m) and Mount Oku (3 011 m). Mount Cameroon is an active strato-volcano and one of the largest active ones around apparently. All we saw were 2 vents emitting steam. The lower slopes are rainforest and the middle slopes grassland and a type of fynbos ("heathland"). The upper slopes are a sparse grass cover and a shrubby Helichrysum. You definately feel the altitude - above Hut 2 (2 800 m+) every step is effort and you feel tired doing silly things like getting up too quickly. As long as you just chill and walk slowly you're fine though. The hike is also enhanced in that about a third of it is at a 45o angle!

Mt Oku is much easier. Its the height of the Drakensberg but you wouldn't notice! There's forest almost all the way up - and we saw spectacular birds.

About birds - well - had 62 positive IDs of which 38 species were new for me. They included Great Blue Turaco, Bannerman's Turaco (endemic to Mt Oku forests), Banded Wattle-eye, Yellowbilled Turaco, Rock Pratincole, Mount Cameroon Speirops (endemic to Mt Cameroon) etc. etc. Haha! It was great!

The conference - the actual reason I went - was cool. Met people from all over Africa. Had encouraging comment on my poster and work. Praise the Lord for that!

Photos & video-clips are viewable on http://sneeuberg.multiply.com.

Love Ralph
(maybe I write more as get time but for now this is all!)