Transportation Cameroonian Style.  Predictably unpredictable.  Adventure filled.  Often overly exciting.  Our sometimes unatainable goal is an uneventful trip.  This can best be illustrated by the following story.  We only have a bit part in this story, but you will get the idea.

Two German nurses boarded the train in the far North for an overnight trip to Yaounde.  The train was scheduled to arrive at 6 a.m.  They were spending the night at Shiloh and catching the night plane back to Germany the following day.  Well, that was the plan anyway.  There were many set-backs and delays with the train, and even a breakdown thrown in for good measure.  The 6 a.m. train finally rolled into Yaounde at 8 p.m.  The two ladies were safely tucked into their beds here at Shiloh before 10 p.m. and enjoyed a good night's sleep.  They ate breakfast the following morning, complete with Jim's famous eggs and all sorts of other goodies.  They spent a relaxing day at Shiloh and were grateful for our hospitality.  The taxi picked them up at 7:30 p.m. and off they went to the airport.  One of the nurses was flying on Air France and the other on Brussels Air.  And thus began phase two of their predictably unpredictable trip back home to Germany.

Just to give you a little background information, the Daoula airport is closed for three weeks (or so they say...three Cameroon weeks can stretch into an uncounted number of weeks.)  They are re-paving the runways in Daoula.  All the airport staff has been sent here to Yaounde to help out, and all flights have been re-routed to Yaounde.  So overnight our relatively small airport turned into a major airport with flights coming and going at all times day and night.  Truthfully we are not equipped to handle the big influx, but everyone is making an effort.

So back to the story of our two nurses.  The Air France flight  took off as scheduled.  The Brussels Air flight was the next one in the line up.  The baggage was loaded and the passengers had all gone through the final security check point at the gate.  Just to help you have the full picture, there is only one gate at our airport.  That is to say, there might be a second one, but we have never seen it in all these years.  The waiting area at the gate is a very large room with lots of rows of chairs.  Fortunately for our story, there are also restrooms (an extremely rare phenomenon here in Cameroon.)  Just as it was time to board, the announcement came on, informing the passengers that the plane had some mechanical problem. A part would have to be brought in from Belgium. Everyone would have to spend one more night and another day in Yaounde.  Chaos broke out as the hours slowly drug by.  Nobody was permitted to leave the boarding gate.  Children were crying because they were hungry and thirsty.  There is no such thing as a drinking fountain in Cameroon.  Parents were getting upset.  There was only one employee among all these people.  A crowd of angry people surrounded him, each one shouting their complaints.  It was getting ugly.  Finally it was time for the next airplane's flight.  Those passengers began arriving and going through security.  Soon they added to the confusion.  As that flight began boarding, it was time for yet another planeload of passengers to come through security.  The once large room was now getting quite crowded.  Finally our German nurse was able to secure permission to leave the room and try to get back to Shiloh somehow.  At that moment a fellow passenger (also a German woman, but a complete stranger to her) had a melt down.  She began screaming and crying in utter despair.  It was awful. Our nurse made her way through the crowds over to this distraught woman, put her arm around her and began praying for her. It  turned out that this lady had been in Cameroon for two weeks.  She did not speak of a word of French and she had nobody to help her.  And thus it was that two German ladies arrived at Shiloh at 3 a.m. today.  They slept a few hours and then ate breakfast.  The new lady was so grateful to be with us.  She speaks fairly good English so we could communicate.  They spent the day on line and making phone calls.  They took naps and went on a walk.  Finally they got word that the airplane was fixed and scheduled to take off at 11 p.m. tonight, just 24 hours late!  So once again they left Shiloh at 7:30 p.m. hoping to actually take off this time around.  Our nurse promised to send us a text message when they were actually flying.  We trust they have an uneventful flight back to Germany.

We are grateful to be staying here in Cameroon while the Daoula Airport repaves their runways.  May we not have to take any flight to anywhere until things settle back down to normal.  "Normal" is exciting enough!