Well the first month has been and gone and I am still enjoying myself here in Bafoussam (home of Geremi the Chelsea player by the way!). Time is beginning to pass a little quicker as I establish a routine and feel more or less settled now.
The main thing is the work I am doing, which is proving very enjoyable and quite a challenge – as I mentioned in my first email the outfit I am working for is completely manual, they have tried twice before to computerise and failed, so no pressure! They currently have 5 branches spread around West Cameroon, and want to open 6 more over the next 2 years, so I will have plenty to do I think. Apart from the bank work, they are also heavily involved in local charitable works, and I am going to be getting involved in that as well, helping them to fund raise, which I have done a little bit of over the years so hopefully can add some value. One interesting difference is their attitude to interest rates – they think it’s perfectly ok to charge 108% per annum to give an overdraft to someone if they are lucky enough to be working and earning a regular salary, whilst charging almost nothing to low earners – a sort of Robin Hood attitude to banking I suppose!
Working here is more or less the same as the UK but with some cultural differences of course. One that has struck me several times is the attitude to discipline – if someone is judged to have fouled up in some way, the bosses feel no problem about tearing strips off the culprit in front of whoever else is in the room – reducing people to tears in one instance. The next moment it’s all sweetness and light again, very odd to my eyes. Their attitude to bad debt is quite interesting as well – basically they call up their own private heavy and send him round to “discuss” the situation. I suppose this makes sense in a society where if you are caught stealing in the street you will be chased by a mob and beaten up. I guess this happened in the UK a few hundred years back – here it is an odd mix of the very modern and quire archaic it seems. The only cultural problem I have felt personally so far is the rather too high level of deference people show to me, because I am old (in the locals view only of course!) and more importantly white – I was in a minibus the other day that stopped to pay a toll (which happens all the time – seems to be private enterprise!) and the guy collecting the money gave the driver a lecture about driving carefully (some hope!) because there was a white man on board! Hard to explain how that makes me feel, but it’s not right!
Weather continues wet and humid most of the time, but there are signs of the dry season coming, should be here by the end of the month apparently, so next news I will probably be complaining about the heat!
My accommodation has improved a lot over the month, it’s been painted, I have HOT water – at least when the water is on – every day either the water or the electricity or both go off for several hours at a time – and a TV with CNN and BBC World, plus at the weekend I saw Scotland thrash (well ok I exaggerate but we are top of the group!) France! I also have hopes of seeing the odd Champions League games when Chelsea are involved, but that is probably only if they are playing a French team, as this is a very Francophile part of the country. Coverage of the Premiership is patchy which has been a surprise to me as every other country I have visited so far in Africa had it. It’s a tough life! Rats and cockroaches continue to keep me on my toes, I have resorted to poison for the rats (and there was I thinking of becoming a Jain), a trap having failed miserably, the little blighters eat the bait but leave the trap unsprung, cunning little devils, so far they have (or something has) eaten some of the poison, but if they are keeling over as a result then its out of my sight so far, which is probably just as well, although I will have to keep nose awake for bad smells!
Food wise, I am getting used to shopping every day, as keeping food in this climate and bug level is quite difficult. The vegetables are mostly ok, but tend to come in gluts, like the past week everyone has been selling cabbages – and there is only so much you can do with cabbage I find. Still, I am feeling very well health wise, and so far no problems at all, which is really good news, I had expected to have at least one bout of travellers tum. I have also found one or two quite good restaurants that serve a good mix of Cameroon and French style food – the omelettes are particularly good here, so I will not starve.
So anyway, enough from me, I will end with my usual plea, if you have managed to read this far, thanks, why not hit the “Reply” button and send me a note, it is great to get feed back and all news is good news for me when I am so far away!
Cheers for now, come on ye Blues (that’s Scotland and Chelsea for now!)
No comments:
Post a Comment