Well, Hev's had all the excitement with the snake yesterday, an interesting phone call:
Me: Hi honey
Hev: There's [traffic noise], not sure what to do?
Me: Sorry, what? Can't hear you...
Hev: SNAKE, there's a SNAKE...
Me: Oh right! I'll be right there, as soon as I find someone who owns a machete...
I didn't even get to se the Snake.
After the uncertainty of the Visa extension debaccle (we have them now, we are illegal aliens no more) and the excitement of my parents' whistle-stop tour of the country, normal service has resumed (after limping through last week somewhat with a stinking cold each). I'm teaching my Web Design class again next week (only three students signed up so far, maybe word's got round that I don't magically transform you into professional web designers in three weeks?) and have been doing revisions to the material. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I think I've ironed out most of the gitches.
Jan 29th - Feb. 3rd Our journey to Korup was another interesting one. The first leg is a two/three hour bus ride to Kumba, followed by a quick taxi ride from one bus park to another. The tax driver tried to over charge us (of course), but Hev quoted him the correct fare and told him "We've got friends here, you can't cheat us", and they say I'm the mouthy one, one of these days she's going to get me lamped ... From the other bus park, we got a car to do the four hour run up to Mundenba.
Jan 26 - 28th
After nine hours of travelling from Bamenda, it was nice to arrive at Seme Beach Hotel in Limbe, even if their attempts at being a European-style posh hotel do sometimes contrive to give you the worst of both worlds (the restaraunt has all the formality of a posh restaraunt, but not the atmosphere or the food - the only really nice thing i've had there was a chicken biriani, bizarrely...)
Jan 22nd - 26th
Our visas have finally been approved and issued! It took quite a while, and delayed our trip to Bamenda by a day, and involved Genesis travelling to Douala at the crack of dawn to collect our passports off a bus from Yaounde and then rendez vous with us en route to Bamenda (oops, too much French? - Bon Voyage!) We are illegal aliens no more...
Jan 20th - 22nd
So we're back from our trip to Yaounde to sort out our visa situation, and the result is...
...
wait and see...
We've put in an application for a visa extension, and we should hear on Monday, which 'handily' is the day our visas expire...
If we get them, fine, if not, who knows...
Clear? No, me neither. I'm sure it'll work itself out one way or t'other...
We're still trying to resolve our Visa issue, and time is running out - they expire on the 15th. We're off to Yaounde today. We'll stay overnight and try and find the right people to speak to tomorrow. Genesis will be coming with us, which is handy, as dealing with Cameroonian bureaucracy can be difficult - doing it in the French-speaking province will be impossible for us!
I'm not sure exactly what will happen (we never are), but we'll get it sorted one way or the other. Here are plans A through to G:
The bulk of my work on the Hint website is now complete. I'll still be working on a few things, but basically it's a complete and live site, take a look:
I've just read on the BBC Oxford news pages that my old primary school headmaster, Huw Evans, has been given an OBE in the Queen's New Year Honours list. He's just recently retired from being Headmaster at Watchfield Primary School, where he'd been head for, I don't know, a loooong time.