My Grandmothers!!

My grandmothers - Mami Cecilia (extreme left) and Mami Francisca (Extreme right).

Mami Cecilia is my paternal grandma and Mami Francisca is my maternal grandma. I have some very good memories of these wonderful, hardworking women. I practically grew up my first few years with Mami F. And I spent lots of good times with her, when she was a trader, in the kitchen watching her cook huge pots of food, trailing her wherever she went.

As for mami Cecilia, their home in Bafut (my dad's village) is located on a gorgeous hill surrounded by lots of palms, plum trees, mango trees, and red roses. We will go up and down these hills as we accompanied her to fetch water, food from the farms, or just visit the neighbors. They are way stronger than their years, these women, and if you see how much farm work they did and how big the food bundle they brought in from the farms, you'll be amazed. I owe them both a lot.

By their sides are my mom and Dad, Betty and Larry. And my sister, Clau, in the middle. That was her graduation day. Then of course, little brother Mushu is stooping down below. I love this picture!!! Thanks, Mus, for having it.

Grandpa Nwana's Memorial Service

October 19-21, 2007. - This marked the 11th anniversary of the passing of my grandfather, Pa Moses Nwana, who passed away in July of 1996.

The weekend was terrific!!!!!!!! Celebrations started on Friday - welcoming people at my aunt Kona's gigantic home, a wide array of African dishes to eat and lots to drink, catching up with old friends, picking up people arriving at the airport...etc. Saturday early morning, I went and had my hair done in golden kinky braids. There was more cooking, birthday cakes for a couple of people...preparing for the program later on in the day. 5:30pm was church service. And the best you ever did see. Lots of friends, most of them in the "Ashwabi". The MC, Ma Lilian, was soooo good!!! She sang, led in the singing, everything was in the beautiful color-printed program (which had my grandpa's picture infront). Some of the highlights of the church service included my aunts, Angeline and Kona , reading, all the grandchildren reading the prayers that end with "we pray to the Lord, Lord hear us" and everyone answers: "Lord graciously hear us". Starting with me praying and thanking God for the time our grandfather had here on earth and hoping that we will live the good example he set for us etc, and then my other cousins present, first Samgwa and then Samgella, then Sigala, Leh, and lastly Feh, all read. They prayed for the community, the friends who had come for that event, the world, the church, and Feh lastly prayed for world peace. It was so cute because Feh is only 4 years old, and she had memorized her lines just that day, so she was looking at the paper but saying her lines from memory!!!! It was sooooo cute!!!! The pastor was a woman, and just awesome!! And then lots of singing during offertory time, lots of dancing, and during the "sharing peace" time, everyone just went around hugging and kissing, it was so nice!!! The Bali boys were drumming away to the music like crazy!!!!

Well, after that, we went to the hall. It was a great big basket ball gym, but how beautifully it had been decorated!! Colored baloons hanging to the sky from the tables, beautiful clothes, ornamental bowls of nuts in the center...etc. The DJ was awesome...well, in short, the hall was just waiting for us. Highlights of the evening included the biography I read. I broke down a couple of times crying...so fond was I of my grandfather that it was almost unbearable remembering some of those good old times. See his biography at E:\Personal Docs\OBITUARY_PaMoses.htm. [Copy and paste the link on your internet browser.] Okay, moving on...And then family shared stories about him; then there was an actual "cry-die" with us family members in the middle of a big circle holding his picture and dancing to the Bali music and drums that played. The older bali women led us through song after song. All the other Bali people formed a big circle around us and danced. The men were drumming and dancing as well. We were all genuinely crying and laughing again later. It was beautiful. Then of course lots of eating later, every single conceivable Cameroonian dish you can imagine, lots of jokes, a decale dance presentation by some girls from Dallas, Texas, (they were soooo good...they danced so well), and then dance, dance, dance. Notebooks/calendar were distributed as souvenirs with my grandfather's name and years on this earth engraved in front. The last people left the hall at 5:00am.

Sunday again was barbecue at my aunt's home. Boiling groundnut ooh!!! We chop am so tey!!!! Uncle Richard - a family friend - who does soya as part of his business, I mean, he's a specialist, came all the way from California to do the soya!! It was awesome!!! Chai!!!! Then doughnuts, food, all kind thing. Chop again ooh. Aaron and I could only sneak away on Saturday night because otherwise we will never have had any alone time together. He and his sister and her kids had to leave by 1pm on Sunday, though, coz Aaron had to return to Houston. But ooh, we had fun, fun, fun!!!!!!! I saw sooo many friends and family I hadn't seen in quite a while. Everyone was looking so good, beautiful hairdo, clothes,... especially when people changed from the traditional clothes for the dance part later on Saturday evening. Betrand, Aaron's younger brother, the one who's in high school and lives with us, was so glad he came!!! Everyone had such a good time. Oh by the way, we had t-shirts to wear on Sunday. Beautiful red, blue, and green t-shirts (blue was for children, red was medium, and green was large) and they were so pretty, with my granddad's name on it too, and what the event was. And so everyone was in jeans or short pants and these t-shirts on Sunday. Well, what else, can I say, the event was a huge, huge success. My mother said my grandfather was probably smiling broadly from where he was. I agree. We left for Arkansas at about 5pm that afternoon. My aunt later told me that the last of them left her home at 11pm at night.

Fun during Summer '06.

Oh, it's a collection of good memories from early through late summer of 2006. It's never too late to load up good pictures, is my philosophy!!! So don't mind me that my dates for different entries on this blog are all jumbled up throughout 06 and 07.


For starters, here's Aaron's mom in the first picture. I love her dearly. She's a very sweet person! Which,...I probably shouldn't say...but I will.:-) I was going to say: which is more than you can say for many mother-in-laws out there!!! I mean, when a girl prepares to go to her future home, while she prays that her husband remains the wonderful man he is in the beginning, she also prays, just as ardently, that her mother-in-law is one of the good ones!!!! Hehehehe!!! Know what I mean, eh, young married ladies??!!!! Well, mine is one of the really good ones!!!! With Aaron's family at the table
With the happy couple - Leyla and Bate Bate - married October 2006
Me and Marshellese Baha'i friends at the Springdale Center in Arkansas

Aaron and some of the Marshallese kids. At our Baha'i Center in Springdale.
Aaron's former work place - Bio Engineering Resources
Me at Aaron's job site looking like a scientist...and obviously knowing nothing!!!:-)
At the wedding
With friends at the wedding - Bernadette and Sayena

"Cafiage" Aaron and grande soeur - Doris
ARKANSAS PICTURES ~

An outing at Beaver Lake in Arkansas. A very beautiful place. Eva and Shuya came to visit us that summer, for the weekend, from Kansas city! We had a really good time with them!!

Shuya threatens to fall in!!!!
Below the overhanging rocksI liked to visit the Beaver lake in the morning. Notice the fog on the lake.
Aaron's former apartment in the Shiloh complex. In the second picture, I am looking up at Aaron from downstairs.

Aaron's former car - his cute green toyota echo!!!Aaron...and my blouse:-)
Aaron, I'm sure you could afford a better face while munching on that salad!!:-)
If you click on the picture and look closer at my eyes, you'll see how red they are. I had an eye infection. Was quite uncomfortable. Aaron and I went to the movies!!! There's my old green mazda. I finally got rid of it after several accidents. Sahar had warned that the car might be jinxed!!!:-)Eureka by night. One of the oldest, most picturesque and antique-filled towns in North West Arkansas.Showing of the University of Arkansas to Eva & Shuya

The next few pictures are at different locations at the beautiful and extremely big (by my standards) university!!!!

My hubby and me
Outside the Union At the university library
Holiday Island...a beautiful, beautiful town. And here's the first convertible I ever rode in. It was fun. Of course my hair was braided so I was okay!!! Heheheee, you know how that can be with the wind and everything!
A clearer picture of the bridge over Beaver Lake. I had to cross the river in my car to go to work during that summer while I worked in Holiday Island.

Celebration of Race Unity Day at Bella Vista. I'm sitting with my Baha'i friends in front and in the back is a renowned choir group that traditionally come to perform at this occasion.

There they are again, and btw, they are awesome!

BACK TO EDMOND, OKLAHOMA ~

Lounging out by the pool with the Smiths, Rocky Moncho, Charles and Charles' parents - Tom and June Dunn.
At the Dunns pool with Sera and Amy. Evan is in the background.

Caroline and I went to the mall for shopping

Juliet and I and the other youth of the Edmond Baha'i community had some really good times together.

With Niaz Adu at a dinner at the Ferdowsians ~

Cameroon!!

I was born in this beautiful country. They call it "Africa in Miniature" because it has such varied vegetation, from desert to forest, grassland, savannah, and veld. Don't ask me...we were taught thus in school... Primary School geography... and, amazingly, Mount Cameroon in Fako has at least three of those vegetations on the one mountain - forest, grassland and savannah. It is truly amazing. To see pictures of the mountain, just type mount cameroon, fako, in your google search box, and you will be able to find some really good pictures there.

Well, I was born in Bamenda, which is in the North Western Province. There the vegetation is grassland, and the soil is very rich and dark brown. Bamenda has very gorgeous hills, and rivers that weave in and out of them on the outskirts of the town. As a teenager, I climbed these hills quite a bit and we enjoyed hiking up them, mostly just for fun and to enjoy the view from atop them. On these hills, you sometimes found nomads or the Fulanis with their goats or cows. You sometimes got fresh milk from them to drink. It was always fun on those hills.

Anyway, back to the country. I wanted to share some pictures with you. However, in order to avoid illegally copying over pictures of Cameroon from internet sites, whether to avoid problems of security breach or authenticity, I decided to use pictures taken by my friend, Sahar, during her trip to Cameroon a couple of years back, and a few from my dear friend, Miranda, on her recent trip too. Miranda is one of my best friends ever!!!

Food!!!!!!! Oh, that's one thing we all miss from back home. It's one thing that brings people together quite often. After a hard day of work in the offices and the fields, people often visit together and there's usually food to eat. It is customary to offer your guests something to eat. And I mean EAT!!! The food is healthy and not processed, so there's nothing to fear. The soils in Cameroon are so rich, we grow all the food we eat, and there's a lot of that too. In some of the pictures you'll glean corn fields and rice.... Big, big pineapples straight from the farms and the market. Very juicy...I wish I had some photos. Papaya, mangoes of all shapes and taste (all of these straight from the farms), tomatoes, pear (what you call avocado in the U.S., but much bigger and with smooth skin), bananas, corn, plums (totally different from plums in the U.S.), and all types of vegetables...plantains, cocoyams, yams, potatoes, cassava, and a broad variety of vegetables. Oh, as far as food goes, I come from a blessed land. I am going to get Sahar to send me some pictures of fruits and veggies in the markets. Oh, and did I mention how cheap these things are?

Like I mentioned earlier, I have Sahar to thank for the majority of these pictures. And so you'll see her and her family in many of them...but also notice the land and the vegetation. The first several pictures are of food...andI must say that they do not begin to cover the vast spectrum of food variety we have in that country. I will name them as we go through them.

Roasted plantain (in the right hand) and roasted plum (in the left hand) ~ A dish of Ndole (which is vegetable cooked with egusi - a protein from pumpkin seeds - and tomatoes, onions, meat, seasoning, and other african spices) ~
Home-grown chicken in tomato stew ~Achu (my tribal dish. Each tribe has a different staple dish) ~ I have to say this, and everyone who knows my mother knows that I am not bragging. She is an excellent cook. Achu is from my father's tribe, but my mother has mastered the art of cooking that meal. She can cook just about anything just as well, and her dishes are just...yumm!!!! I miss that. Her three sisters are all the same way too... gifted cooks.

How Achu is eaten. (the pounded cocoyam is laid out on a plate (or warmed plantain leaf if in the village), and the soup is served in the middle of it ~ Egusi Pudding (wrapped on a leaf) - this is a protein dish ~ Sahar toys with a bobolo (this is cassava wrapped in a leaf) Bobolo eaten with roasted fish ~

Now for some scenic pictures

Banso Hills. My friend, Mirry's, village is situated in these hills. Miranda and her boyfriend, Ken, and friend, Ayuk~
Mirry & Ken on the rocks by the sea ~With her friend and one of her brothers in the botanic gardens ~
Fog on the hills

River Nyong

The sea in Limbe. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
The roadsides as you drive between provinces

Cows graze by the roadsides ~
Public Transportation can be tedious ~
Often loaded to capacity (especially from villages where cars don't go often because of difficult roads and terrain) ~Sahar and her family visit the botanic gardens and the hills. Notice how very green, tropical, and lush everything is. [And may I sidetrack to say Sahar's family is like my own family. We all grew up together and they are an awesome family, well-known and very neighbourly. They also are great Baha'is, not only in words, but in action too. It is my pleasure to know them.]

This is one of their pieces of land. And they have no mortgage on it!!! It's amazing, there is no such thing in my country. You just own land or you don't...and most people do.