The Curinier Family in Gabon

Cocktails on the beach

2009-06-01T17:09:00.004+01:00

This weekend we decided to watch the sunset at the beach with some friends...too bad it was cloudy. We had a great time anyway and the kids enjoyed being at the beach at night.

Stella's 6th Birthday Party on 23rd May

2009-06-01T15:45:00.006+01:00

Here are a few pics from Stella's birthday party at the swimming pool. There were 10 kids in total and they all seemed to have a good time even though it rained a bit. The good thing about living on the equator is that it is still warm even when it rains so the kids were able to swim anyway.

The girls are waiting for the guests to arrive.

The birthday cake!

Present time...

The best part is eating the cake!

The birthday girl herself.

The egg race.

The diving contest.

My little mermaid, Emilie...

2009-04-13T16:59:00.003+01:00

Easter Monday at Cap Lopez

2009-04-13T16:38:00.003+01:00

We went picnicing at Cap Lopez today to finish off Easter weekend. Vincent and the girls had a great time body surfing in the waves.

Easter weekend and the Rallye Surprise

2009-04-12T17:07:00.010+01:00

Hello everyone! After a long hiatus... here are some pics of the recent goings on in Port Gentil! Sunday morning, we participated in our third Rallye Surprise. We had a good laugh and thankfully had Stella as a member of the team... thanks to her we won the potato sack race! We'll find out in a couple of hours how we did...

Because of the rallye this morning we had to send an email asking the Easter Bunny to come on Saturday. He was kind enough to oblige us. The girls had a great time trying to find all the hidden eggs. A special thanks to Nana for the "non-candy" items she bought last summer. I think Stella and Emilie almost liked them better than the chocolates!

Halloween Party

2008-11-05T11:36:00.002+01:00

Here are a few pics of the girls' Halloween party last week. The kids had a great time bobbing for apples!

Once again at Cap Lopez...

2008-10-28T09:51:00.004+01:00

We spent Saturday at Cap Lopez... for those of you who know Port Gentil, it is "the thing" to do! We had a great time with the girls. It was low tide and there were lots of amazingly warm tidal pools for Stella and Emilie to play in.

GSR Picnic

2008-09-21T18:43:00.004+01:00

Sorry it has taken so long to get going on the blog again... since I started back to work, I feel like I have almost no spare time left!!! So this week I'm taking advantage of the school holidays to catch up on a lot of things. voila. Here are some pics of the girls and Vincent at Vincent's department picnic. This year there were dancers. The girls loved watching the dancers so much that they followed them off "stage" to where they changed clothes and were thus invited 'impromtu' to dance with them...complete with makeup and grass skirts. I realized that day that I have two little "African" girls...you should have seen the way they can shake those bottoms!

Keep checking the blog....we're going to Loango on Friday and if we're lucky we'll get to see hippos, elephants and buffaloes swimming together in the sea!

Playing at Cap Lopez

2008-05-29T14:18:00.001+01:00

Just a few pics of the girls' adventures at Cap Lopez!

"Roadtrip" in Gabon

2008-04-21T14:18:00.008+01:00

We recently took a "roadtrip" in Gabon with another family and visited La Lope National Park and Lambarene. I've put roadtrip in quotes because I'm not so sure you can call what we did a real roadtrip given the state of the road for the majority of the journey! Since there is no road that connects Port Gentil to the rest of the country we had to put the cars on a ferry to the capital, Libreville, where we picked them up the following day...it's over a 19 hour ferry crossing! Needless to say, we took the plane to Libreville! We spent the night there before heading out on our adventure. Due to the state of the road, it took us rather a long time to reach La Lope (over 10 hours!) We cut the trip in half and stayed overnight in Ndjole. It was interesting for us to go to Ndjole because it is in this village where the wood that ends up in Port Gentil begins it's journey. It is put in the Ogooué River and floated down to the sea.

We spent a lovely time in La Lope and were even lucky enough to see a family of elephants, several types of monkeys, gray parrots, and wart hogs. After La Lope we headed to Lambarene. It is a small city set on the Ogooué and surrounded by spectacular lakes and virgin rainforest. We visited the area by boat and saw many types of birds and even a hippopatomus path! Thank god we didn't see any hippos! Our boat was so small, that a hippo would have tipped us over instantly! Travelling this way in Lambarene made me think of how life must have been like before, when the sole means of communication/contact between villages was through boats. In many ways that is still the case today. We really had a wonderful experience because we were able to see a part of Gabon that we do not see here in Port Gentil. I realize now what a wealthy city Port Gentil is. Poverty is rampant in Gabon. It is sad given the fact that the population is so small and the country is so rich in natural resources. The president needs to stop buying palaces in France and start building infrastructure! Anyway, here are some pics. I hope you enjoy them.

This is the ferry arriving in Libreville...our cars made it safe and sound!

The next three pics are of the traffic and the road in various states of disrepair!

Ndjole

The majority of the traffic encountered were these huge trucks transporting timber.

The rainforest...

La Lope Hotel, where we stayed.

Stella and Theo waiting for the safari to begin.

The next set of pics are of Lambarene. This is the boat we took. The kids had a great time and were very well behaved considering the size and time we were on the boat! We definately have little adventurers!

Stella is looking at palm nuts which are used to make palm oil.

Pelican in captivity. We saw many in the wild however.

This is what a typical village used to look like.

Monitor lizard swimming in the water.

Manioc being made in one of the villages.

Sunday at the pool

2008-03-31T14:17:00.003+01:00

We spent Sunday afternoon poolside...the girls had a fabulous time jumping into the water and Stella is becoming better and better at swimming without floaties. We definately have two little mermaids!

Easter weekend

2008-03-25T14:42:00.005+01:00

These are the final pics of our busy Easter weekend. The Easter bunny was able to come and the girls had a great time looking for the hidden eggs. Just after that we spent the afternoon at the beach. The weather was gorgeous and the water crystal clear...not too bad!

This is one of Emilie with her friend Luc. They were a bit tired at the end of the day so they put on pyjamas and read books side by side for almost an entire hour!

Emilie's ready to find those eggs!

Finding easter eggs is serious business for Stella!

Everyone had a great time at the beach jumping off the boat...even Papa!

Rallye 2008

2008-03-25T14:14:00.003+01:00

This weekend we participated in a Rallye. It wasn't a race but rather a chance to do off-road driving outside of Port Gentil. Every so often there were stops with different games/races and a scavenger hunt. Stella was able to participate in a couple of the races and had a great time as you can see her smile! We really enjoyed it and are looking forward to next year!

Vincent is doing one of the "games." He had to wear snorkeling gear and run backwards at the same time! He actually had one of the best scores at 27 seconds to complete the course!

Here's Stella and Vincent racing against friends Cédric and Cillian.

Here are the winners! Stella is just beaming with pride!

Here's another one of Vincent getting ready to do the 4x4 driving obstacle course.

As you can see, he did a great job and was one of the only people not to get stuck!

St. Patrick's Day

2008-03-25T09:22:00.003+01:00

Thanks to Louise, the only Irishwoman on the island, we were able to celebrate St. Patty's! She organized a terrific evening of pub quizzes, Irish music, and even a bit of Irish dancing. She was even able to teach clumsy me how to do the "Walls of Limerick" for a mini-demonstration the night of. It was all great fun and I do believe we did Ireland proud!

This is a pic of Gwenn and I acting as "bouncers" at the door.

Here's another one of Gwenn and myself with Louise.

This is Josselin and Cédric (Gwenn and Louise's husbands) practicing for
the "Walls of Limerick"

This is all of us dancing!

Last bit of carnival fun at school!

2008-03-13T13:24:00.005+01:00

Last but not least...the girls had a party for carnicval at school. Each class did a little dance they had been practicing. Emilie was a bit overwhelmed by the loud music and decided not to dance. Stella got in there and did a great job doing the "Hokey Pokey!"

Carnival for Mom and Papa!

2008-03-11T11:17:00.006+01:00

Here are some pics from the carnival party for adults! The theme was the 70s/80s. We had a great time trying to recognize everyone...some of the costumes were that good!

Carnival on the Compound

2008-03-10T14:08:00.005+01:00

A carnival parade was organized for all the kids last Saturday. The kids met up and paraded behind the "king" who was later burned... Don't really know the story behind the tradition, but the King is always burned at the end. Stella was a bit disturbed at first because she thought the King was actually a living person and couldn't understand what he had done to warrant being burned! She finally understood in the end that the King was just a dummy. The girls had a lot of fun and I daresay even a bit too much excitement for Emilie who fell asleep half way through!

Ozouri

2008-03-03T11:50:00.005+01:00

Here are some more pics... On Sunday, we went to Ozouri located on the delta of the Ogouée River. It is about an hour south of Port Gentil (off piste since there is no road!). We parked the cars at the river bank and a boat came to pick us up and take us to the other side of the river where there is a little restaurant and a beautiful beach. We had a great time and are looking forward to going back.

2008-03-01T15:13:00.002+01:00

This week the girls had some friends over for a "Princess Tea Party." There were seven princesses in all...things went well (no fighting) but I think next time we will limit the number of princesses! I gave the girls a princess makeover, we did some princess dancing, colored our favorite Disney princesses and finally had Pink Princess tea cakes and "tea" of course! The girls had a great time and Stella is already asking for another tea party!

Here are the princesses ready for the tea party.

Here are pics of all the princesses at the table.

more weekend pics

2008-02-18T14:28:00.003+01:00

Here's a pic of the girls with two of their good friends...Cillian and Luc are bilingual French/English like the girls, but since they all go to school together they usually speak in French!

What Ingenouity!

2008-02-15T15:59:00.002+01:00

We went on a picnic last weekend at the mouth of the Ogouée River. Without any adult input, the kids came up with the idea of making a homemade see-saw out of sticks they'd collected! We were all very proud of their creativity and teamwork!

Birthdays, birthdays and more birthdays!

2008-02-08T10:35:00.000+01:00

We've been back in Port Gentil for almost three weeks now and are back in the swing of things...school, work, birthday parties, beach. Emilie even gave the birthday a boy a kiss! They girls have another party this weekend and the following weekend...they have more of a social life than mom and dad!

Emilie celebrated her 3rd birthday while we were in France and once back home she had her first party with friends. She loved being the center of attention and believe it or not there was absolutely NO fighting!

Pics of Port Gentil

2008-01-18T08:47:00.000+01:00

This is the main market.

"Parc des Bois" Trees cut from the mainland are sent by river to the bay,

where a boat them comes to load them for export throughout the world.

A typical village just outside of town.
One of the main streets of Port Gentil...it is one three paved routes!

This is one of my favorite spots for a cup of tea or a meal.

Life in Port Gentil

2008-01-16T17:53:00.000+01:00

For those of you interested...here a few pics of Port Gentil and the surrounding area. Port Gentil is in fact situated on a pennisula, however it is disconnected from the mainland by a river making it in reality an island called Isle Mandji. It is named after the mandji tree which grows in abundance on the island. There is no road to and from the mainland so people travel to and from Port Gentil by either boat or plane. The population is around 80,000 with 3,000 of that being either French expats or French families that have settled in Gabon for several generations. The climate is equatorial and to my surprise (I always thought that the equator was the hottest place on Earth) the temperature is around 30 degrees Celcius (85 F) all year long with lots and lots of rain! It's not called a rainforest for nothing! 3/4 of the country is uninhabitable due to the density of the rainforest. Needless to say, wood exportation along with oil are the main industries. There are not a whole lot of animals on the island as most of them have been hunted and pushed back to the mainland. There are some monkeys...we've only heard them and once seen a severed tail after a hunting expedition. We once saw a monitor lizard about 5 feet long, but other than that not much on Isle Mandji. On the mainland, there are leopards, forest elephants, mandrills, chimpanzees and lowland forest gorillas. In fact, Gabon is one of the last places where one can see gorillas in the wild. Gabon happens to have a unique spot where one can see hippos, buffaloes, and elepants bathing in the sea at the same time! It's a place called Loango where the forest almosts jets into the sea. One of these days we would like to go, but we need to wait until the girls are a bit older. Anyway, here are the promised pics.

Christmas in Port Gentil 2007

2007-12-25T14:31:00.000+01:00

Merry Christmas from Gabon! We decided to spend Christmas here again this year... and leave on the 28th (tickets are MUCH cheaper just after xmas day). I have to say that it doesn't quite feel like the holidays here on the equator...we spent Christmas eve at the pool and this afternoon we're headed off to the beach.