28/10/7 Truth Telling Tortoises

Hey

Just finished a great week showing around Bob and Susan and their two sons – Alex and Andrew - who were good enough to come and visit me here in Cameroon.

I think it is fair to say they saw the good and bad sides of Cameroon in their week here. Starting with the bad – the mud, the heat, the flies - passing over a large amount of cash just to get through customs, having to bribe a police officer one day when we forgot to take their passports with them and many , many times waiting for ever in restaurants for our food. All of this I had seen before but it was interesting for me as well to see it through their eyes. It is funny how quickly you get used to things. Even the toilets were beginning to become acceptable by the end of the week – the boys were sent on in advance and reported back with a scoring system – anything lower than a five and Susan just crossed here legs!

The good things I hope far outweighed all of this however – the weather was largely excellent – although the wet season has not totally given up yet – and we visited some very interesting cultural sites, especially the “chefferie” here in Bafoussam, which I had not had the tour of before. This is a still fully functioning 900 year old kingdom, with its own very distinctive culture, social and legal system – including as a last resort if no one could decide who is telling the truth in a legal dispute – the tortoises are deployed – if they walk away from a witness then the witness is lying! We also heard about a very practical test of a new kings suitability – upon being anointed he is sent into a special wood for two months with a selection of wives – if he does not manage to impregnate at least one of them then he is deselected! More fun than voting I would imagine, even if you lose!

My work colleagues also made them very welcome, including throwing a party at the boss’s house, with a great spread of Cameroonian delicacies, lots of wine of course and dancing.

All in all a great week for me and I hope them. This will set me up nicely for what is going to be a very busy period work wise – we plan to implement Current Accounts and Loans in the next few weeks, which will be the biggest test yet of the system we have developed – if it all works then we will have completed here in Bafoussam – fingers crossed.

As ever I welcome your news. Until the next time

A bientot

15/10/07 - How to spend a Sunday in Cameroon!

Hi

This is my first real time blog entry (the others below are historical) so I will keep it brief - but thought you might be interested in how seriously the folk here take their religion. The occasion was the inauguration of my boss - Mr Tata - into the CMF - Christian Men's Fellowship.

The church service started at 9am - sharp for once - and continued until 2pm - that's five hours of prayers, songs , sermons , catching of souls for redemption - once again they missed me - a lot of church! I actually enjoyed most of it, as it is quite a spectacle and nothing like the rather dour Scottish services I vaguely remember! There are a number of choirs present, each of which has their own place in church, their own strictly observed, very colourful dress and their own style of singing - plus lots of audience participation.

After the service there was then an item on the agenda called "Item 11"" - which turned out to be slang for a bit of nosh and a drink! Excellent grub as usual, fed about 300 people in half an hour!

The rest of the day and the night was back at Tata's place, lots more to eat and drink - I bailed out about 7pm - the rest went on until about 4am apparently - and given most of the RIC staff were present- not a lot of work happened today!

The picture shows some of the old gods - who are still venerated alongside Christian gods.

Anyway, this is blogging, please feel free to comment - see the bottom of the page - just remember whatever you write is public! If you want to contact me privately then of course just use email as normal

ta ra

September - October '07 - There and back!

Unbelievably, I am one month into on my second year here, the time is now beginning to pass very quickly, which is a good thing I suppose!

Work wise the project has been going faster since I last reported – we now are fully parallel / live on Savings, Fixed Deposits and Share accounts. The system has generally performed well, with only a couple of minor live errors surfacing – so far so good. The supplier has also almost finished delivery of the new function. This will allow us to complete the implementation with Current Account and Loans – I hope to start these next week, they are quite complicated and will take the rest of this year to complete, leaving me 8 months in 2008 to roll out to all the branches – that’s the plan, sounds quite easy really! We’ll see.

Also on the work front, I attended the second annual get together of all branch managers, which took place in the town of Nkongsamba, which is a 2-hour drive from where I am. This was a daylong conference, and I was quite pleased, as they had taken on board some of the recommendations I had made following the first conference I attended last year. Having said that, it still was pretty drawn out and could still be much improved – I will get to go to one more of these before I leave so will see if next years is even better. Oh to have had this much influence in Lloyds TSB!

The main thing I have been up to since last time has nothing to do with Cameroon – I went back to the UK for a couple of weeks to have a holiday and see family and friends – including of course my beautiful granddaughter Esme. I had a great time, managed to see all my family and quite a few friends. This meant travelling up to Scotland as well (it is beautiful; I had forgotten quite how lovely it is). I also crammed in a visit to Stamford Bridge (little did I know that would the Special Ones last league game in charge – disaster), plus lots and lots of eating out – several people back here have commented on my weight gain – cannot be possible in two weeks surely – but there again I did eat Italian (3 times) Indian, Chinese, Spanish, Turkish, British and sundry other meals so perhaps a little Cameroon rectitude is in order. Oh and I also stopped briefly in Zurich to catch up on my friend Michèle – that included another couple of spectacular meals, including a cheese based breakfast – fantastic.

Upon my return, the bank had kindly arranged a driver to collect me at Douala airport. What was not so good was that he turned up completely pissed, so much so that he could not find his way out of the car park, when we managed that he could not remember how to get to the hotel, luckily I could. Then the next morning he turned up to discover he had managed to lock the car with the keys inside. Fortunately, after an hour of us trying to break in, a local passer by did the trick in 2 seconds with a coat hanger (methinks he had done it before).

One amusing incident just before I left for the UK – I was attracted to a large crowd gathered around a chap selling what turned out to be local medicines. Although he was speaking in Pidgin, I got the drift quite quickly about the product – basically the local version of Viagra – as he was demonstrating its efficacy with the assistance of an enormous wooden penis – which became magically erect when he mimed taking the medicine! If he could have guaranteed the effect on size as well as performance then I might well have been interested -not that I particularly need any help of course :-)

One other big change when I got back – the bus station I have been living in the middle of for the past year had disappeared – the local council (bless ‘em) had decided it was causing too much congestion and moved it to the outskirts of town. Whilst overall a blessed reduction in noise and pollution, it does mean all the street traders have moved as well, so the local area is now rather quiet!

And so life goes on here, the rainy season is still with us (that’s since April) but it is getting warmer by the day, the end is in sight and I have my good friends Bob and Susan with their 2 boys due for a visit towards the end of October so life is fine.

Hope this finds you well, hear your news soon I trust

Cheers

Duncan

Ps “Necks of Kings” – the correct answer was “next of kin” – the prize was won by Polly Rastall, who kindly suggested I donate it to a charity here, which I will do.

August '07 - Elections Cameroon style

Hello

Another month has zoomed by, the rainy season continues unabated – which seems to be a worldwide phenomenon these days – wonder why that is? – and its time to drop you all another note to prove I am still alive!

Commiserations to those of you in the UK that have been hit by the unusual weather – although I have to say I found the reaction all a little over the top. Every day here, most folk are without access to clean water and a regular power supply, or in many case any power supply – I do think the western media should keep things a little more in proportion at times!

What should have been an important event took place here a couple of weeks back – national elections, combined with local government elections. I say should have been because the universal view of everyone I talked to, and the local news was one of deep cynicism – the outcome is a foregone conclusion, most people don’t bother to vote, if you try to protest you will get beaten up – very depressing. The event itself was on a Sunday. My colleagues omitted to tell me that everything is closed on election day (apparently to stop riots) – including travel – so at first I wondered what was happening when I awoke to absolute silence – you may recall I am living in the middle of a 24x7 bus station – went out for a look and to buy some grub – nothing. I eventually found one bakery that was allowed to be open – let them eat cake I suppose being the philosophy – so I spent a very weird and hungry day strolling the streets, looking into the mainly empty polling stations. It is sad, because the country definitely needs a change of government. Roll on the revolution!

I had another fascinating evening discussing how prevalent witchcraft is here. I know it sounds a real cliché – but folk really do believe in this stuff. I was talking to an accountant and a lawyer so not uneducated or at all stupid. They were trying to convince me that I could be struck down by lightening on demand by the local shaman, or that he could make or stop rain (so why not stop the rainy season I wondered) and all sorts of very strange black magic related sexual beliefs which modesty stops me from retelling! Another tale related to one guys Dad who fell out with his neighbour, who then turned into a snake, bit him, he whacked the snake on the head with his stick – the next day his neighbour died of a head injury which he didn’t know how he had got! Its magic!

Last weekend was a very interesting one – sadly again revolving around death. This time it was the wake (overnight on the Friday, all night vigil, viewing of the deceased laid out in some splendour in an open coffin spiced with lots to eat and drink), funeral on the Saturday after a 3 hour church service – I am becoming quite an aficionado of gospel singing - then “cry die” Saturday night – more food and drink - until early Sunday morning. This was all for the aged mother of my boss’s wife – I had to go as a mark of respect. It was a huge affair, must have been around 200 people there – traditional dancing – loads of booze consumed – but not at all sad really, more of a party! Makes our funerals seem very tame affairs.

So that’s about it for this time apart from a brief mention of work – sorry to say the speed of implementation has not increased and I am now detecting a slight element of fear of change, they seem to find it very easy to putting things off until later. I am still confident we will succeed, but its all taking soooooo long.

Will probably leave my next news until after I get back from my UK trip (last two weeks in September), to see the grandchild!

I will finish by offering a prize of 1000 Fcfa to the first person who emails me the correct translation of the title of this piece – the only clue is that it is a legal phrase I found in some of the banks documentation!

See some of you in a few weeks

A bientot

July '07 - We are a grandfather!

Hi everybody

Don’t know about you, but the months seem to be passing faster and faster recently, suppose it means I am really quite settled here – anyway I am now in my eleventh month, almost a year up!

June was an extremely busy and good month for a couple of reasons, one personal and one work related.

Taking the latter first, we finally have gone live here in Bafoussam, in two branches, with customers, fixed deposits and part of the General Ledger. To be honest it is all a little on a wing and a prayer, as we have been let down in a big way by our software supplier. We started the parallel run early in June in the expectation at that time that the remaining new function and fixes were due in mid June. WRONG – they instead announced midmonth that we might not get anything else until end August – sacre bleu, jings crivvens help ma bob, much gnashing of teeth etc - so we had a choice of stopping everything or pressing on regardless – which we have decided to do and try and work around the resulting rather less than perfect situation. Just as well I have been in rather similar circumstances more than once before! The job is proving a challenge because I have to think of everything from the physical infrastructure right through to how to migrate from a manual system and make sure the books still balance – with very little informed help as there is no one here who really understands the total picture, or who has done anything remotely like this before. As a final hurrah and beneficial use of all the knowledge I have accumulated over the years it is proving a hard experience to beat – but by the end I think I will be quite content to hang up my IT boots as it were!

The other work situation I have had to cope with has been a rather explosive staff confrontation between two of the guys that work directly for me – almost turned into fisticuffs – all about territory and who does what. Did manage to sort it out, but only in the end by threatening to sack them both – so much for just acting as a consultant here!

On the social front I took great pleasure in declining an invite to celebrate the Queens Birthday at a garden party in the British Embassy in Yaounde. The invite annoyed me by referring to me as a citizen – so my reply pointed out that until I did reach that elevated status, as a mere subject of her indoors I felt disinclined to celebrate. No doubt, I will not be allowed back into the country.

Nothing else of note this month on the Cameroon cultural front, apart from an amusing (in hindsight) example of how laid back things can be. My roof was leaking quite badly, so the work crew who turned up to fix it decided to strip all of the roof, then go off for the day, ignoring the fact that it is the rainy season, it duly rained and my flat was literally under 2 inches of water! Actually calling it the rainy season doesn’t really do it credit – it should be called the “total downpour, minimum 2 hours long, every other day, chucking it down season” – I will never complain about British weather again – although I see you have been having your fair share of the wet stuff in Europe recently.

Therefore, to the undoubted highlight of the month – I became a grandfather for the first time! My eldest daughter, Jacqueline, 2 weeks later than expected, and after quite a difficult delivery produced Esme Elizabeth Grange - isn,t she gorgeous!

June - July '07Nice and not so nice celebrations

Well another month has gone by, that’s nine months I have been here already, time is passing quite fast now, which I guess means I feel quite at home.

It does not seem long since I last penned my thoughts, and not much has changed to be quite honest. The project is picking up speed; we now have a live stock control system designed by yours truly, and later on this month hope to start the banking system in a pilot branch. If the software vendor finally delivers the outstanding changes, we hope also to start loading customers here in the main branch, with the target of starting a parallel run in July. Yesterday we visited the only other Cameroon business that is using the system we have selected and it was quite encouraging in terms of the good support they said they enjoyed since going live a few years ago. This is quite a worry as the software is supported out of the Philippines, and managed from Australia, so it is not as if we can have a quick meeting with the vendors if something is going wrong.

There have been two main cultural things happen this month – the first was yet another day of marches, this time for National Day – a really big deal here in this relatively new country. Four hours of parades, starting with the various branches of the armed forces (of which there is a lot - sadly a very large part of Cameroons budget goes on this). Then the political parties – a huge number of Paul Biya (the premier) supporters, wearing outfits festooned with pictures of the mighty leader – eat your heart out TB - but the biggest cheer was for the opposition parties – there are lots of them so at least there is some democracy here. It was all very colourful, especially the schools section of the parade with literally thousands of kids in coordinated outfits, waving flags, whirling batons and generally having a good time. This day was the culmination of a 5-day holiday, which started with Ascension Day, then a day of morning for the victims of the plane crash, then National day itself.

The other event was a much less happy occasion – one of my fellow workers lost her mother – so as is the custom all friends and work colleagues made their way to her house that evening for a “condolences” session – which involves a lot of hugging and crying and loud wailing – all quite moving. This was a couple of weeks ago, the actual funeral and wake – known as a “cry die” - is next week and is a much jollier affair apparently – if I get to go will report back next time.

This is my eighth letter, I think its quite possible that you have not received all of the previous seven, as I continue to have problems with email reliability here – so if you really want them, let me know and I’ll send you the back editions!

I hope as usual to hear back from some of you, I am open to congratulations for Chelsea’s achievements - I reckon 2 Cups equals one League.

Next time hope I will be sharing with you my delight in becoming a Grandfather – my eldest daughter, Jacqueline, is due to deliver said offspring in a few days from now, all very exciting! All going well I will be jetting back to wet the sprogs head around September so will see some of you then.

Until the next time

May '07 - International Labour Day

Hope you all had a good May bank holiday / International Labour Day or whatever you celebrate in your neighborhood. Here it was ILD, another big thing in Cameroon – people here do like parading for sure. The whole bank turned out, resplendent in specially made shirts and caps, including me, then we had to march down the boulevard past the grandstand with assembled local worthies – lots of cheering for “Le Blanc” – who was marching splendidly – any of you who have been lucky enough to see me dance to the Proclaimers will get the picture! The rest of the day was one long party back at the bar next to the bank (which the bank happens to own – very handy) with lots of excellent food and drink. The day was only slightly spoiled by me being offered a live parrot – only £1,000 – and if that didn’t take my fancy, would I be interested in buying two children! The evening of course turned into a major disaster with Chelsea going out of the Champions League to the dreaded Scousers – just have to be a treble I suppose.

In the last month or so there have been quite a few other interesting experiences, the major one being a branch opening / dedication ceremony at one of the most remote RIC branches in a place called Andek Ngie – a 4-hour journey by 4WD from Bafoussam, up in the hills towards Nigeria. This was a major event, local dignitaries, speeches (including one from me!), blessing of the building, tribal dancing, singing, loads of food and drink – a great day out – bit better than the usual dull cut the ribbon stuff we tend to do in the UK. I was a great hit in the dancing apparently – laying to rest that old myth that “les blancs” have no sense of rhythm! It is not just us westerners that have racial stereotypes.

On another weekend, I did my bit to drum up some more business for the bank by going along to a local pig farm, trying to appear as if I knew something about the finances of pig rearing. It was very interesting and afterwards the owner took us to his compound, where there were about 5 wives and umpteen children – then later he took us back to town where his main wife lives in a very smart house – apparently the two sides know about each other but don’t mix much. Polygamy is quite common and accepted here – so the extended family is normally huge.

A rather less amusing cultural incident (well in fact, it could happen anywhere) was being pick pocketed in the market here in Bafoussam. I realised what was happening and without thinking starting shouting “thief” (the French word having quite escaped me in all the excitement), the guy dropped my wallet and legged it – so I lost nothing, which was lucky. It was only afterwards that I realised that if I had held on and the crowd had got hold of him, they would have beaten the shit out of the bloke – not something I would have wanted to be part of, but that’s how a lot of “justice” is dispensed in Cameroon it seems.

Some of you may be wondering how money works out here – the idea is that I should live like a local. Well I am sort of doing that – my income (part VSO, part RIC funded) is around 200,000 Fcfa per month, which is around £200 - so I am living on £50 a week. This might seem like not a lot, but my rent and services are paid by RIC on top of that, so my £50 has really just to cover food, drink and entertainment – which is drink! Given that a beer costs 35p and a meal out perhaps £4 and that would be top end, the money goes quite far. Normally I cook for myself and a typical meal might cost me £1 to £1.50 in ingredients, plus a bottle of wine is around £3 (which the more mathematically inclined of you will have worked out I am not buying every night!). I have not been able to get a good feel for average income, but I am sure I am being very well paid in comparison, the average person thinks very carefully about spending even 50p, and would not dream of eating out except on very special occasions.

You might have noticed I have said nothing so far about the project – let us just say I will be taking up Zen Buddhism when I get back! Progress is being made, but slowly, slowly.

Weather wise the rainy season is now in full swing, and it rains- thunder and lightning, torrential, bouncing off the pavements (if there were any) - most days. It’s actually quite exciting for me, but the locals I’m sure are less enamoured! Only problem is that my roof leaks, so my bed is now strategically placed in the centre of my bedroom to avoid the drips. To think that I used to worry about Feng Shui! Rain seems to have emboldened the local wildlife as well, but I am now quite blasé about the mice / rats / stick insects / roaches / lizards that roam about the flat of an evening – I even have names for some of them (sad)!

Health wise I am fine, my foot is almost healed, no problems – so I look forward to your news – stay well!

Until the next time

March '07 - The hike from Hell

Seems like a while since I wrote you all an update, certainly lots of things have happened here and I hope to hear from some of you in return, whatever has been happening in your neck of the woods.

Since last time, I had just three weeks working after my return from the wedding, then my friend Avril arrived from the UK for a 2-week action packed visit to Cameroon – well that was the plan at least.

The summary could be “started well, went downhill, literally and figuratively pretty quickly”. To explain – we spent the first couple of days in and around Douala, which was fine, although the climate there is grim, very humid. We then set off to climb Mount Cameroon – at just over 4000m about the third highest (I think) in Africa. As we are both pretty fit (well Avril is, I thought I was) and had done lots of similar things before – Avril the Inca Trail, me Kilimanjaro for example – no problem - we thought! We set off to do the up and down in 2 days, which included a 3am start on Day 2, getting us to the summit around 10am I think – we eventually got to the bottom about 5pm – I was the problem – I have never, ever felt so knackered and had to stop every few minutes to rest – what an old plonker! I nearly had to be carried off by one of the porters (which he has done before he informed me, no doubt in an attempt to cheer me up) and upon eventually getting to a bar, after my first sip of refreshing grapefruit juice I promptly threw up – complete humiliation! All I can say in my defence is that the terrain was incredibly rough, I got altitude sickness this time, and I have been desk bound for the past six months – but it was a very scary experience in reality though I can just about laugh about it now!

In an attempt to speed recover from the Cameroon catastrophe, we then headed the next day to Kribi, with the plan of staying a couple of days, then going onto the rainforest at Campo, then up to Bafoussam to show Avril where I am living and enjoy the Women’s Day celebrations (which are a big thing here in Cameroon). Wrong again – Avril picked up a really bad case of travellers tum and we basically spent the rest of the holiday lying around the pool in our hotel (see above) at Kribi, which was conveniently near a loo! As neither of us had planned for this sort of inactivity, it all got a little tetchy at times and we ended the fortnight bored, burnt and bad tempered! We did manage a river trip to see some Baka pygmies (not sure what the PC term is here – short stature people perhaps?) but that was about it, then back to Douala for the flight home. Avril is sure she will not be back, and I do not blame her, it was a pretty grim fortnight in places. One bright note – I introduced Avril to chess which she is clearly a natural at, so that was good fun.

And so for me, last weekend back here to Bafoussam and the project. Things are going well in parts, but it is still painfully slow and I am again reconsidering what I might be able to achieve over the 2 year period. Its not that the folk here are not competent, its just that they are way too busy with the day job of running a busy bank totally manually and getting them to devote time to testing and implementing a whole new system is proving very very difficult. Not helping either is the system supplier, who surprise, surprise is taking longer to make the changes than they originally estimated. My ability to be patient continues to improve however and I have to keep in mind the constant background of illness and family problems that afflict people here. My boss was off for 2 weeks with malaria for example, my IT technician suffers fairly constant bouts of severe headaches which basically stop him in his tracks for hours at a time – so I need to take all that into account and curb my frustration with what I see as minimal work being done at times.

Culturally the experience continues to be very interesting; the mix of the old and the new continues to surprise me. For example – the last few weeks, as the end of the dry season approaches, have been ones where a number of traditional ceremonies take place. Just the other day I was surrounded by a bunch of teenage boys, dressed in not very much, plastered in a mixture of mud and engine oil, carrying large antlers! This was an initiation ceremony of some sort apparently. Another example - the Monday morning prayer meeting at work was led this week by one of the workers who is into some “Christian” cult or other, and proceeded to do the whole speaking in tongues, writhing around on the floor, screaming at the top of his voice thing – in his day job he is the marketing manager! It was not like this at Lloyds TSB!

Gone on far too long as usual, as ever, welcome any news, views from home – Chelsea for the Cups!

A bientot

February '07 - One wedding, no funerals!

Hi all

Just a short report this month, as not a lot has changed here in Bafoussam in January, plus the main excitement for me was my brief return to the UK for my daughter Jacqui’s wedding!

The trip back was full of contrasts, the most stark being the airports – flying out from Douala International airport – one restaurant and two bars, plus a small tourist shop – into Zurich – 3 huge terminals, connected by super efficient underground train, glitzy shops, umpteen bars and restaurants – just a very good reminder that there are several different worlds on this earth – took a little adjusting to.

Anyway, got back to London in one piece, apart from struggling with a broken toe – did this a week before, ten in the morning, sober, fell into a hole in the road – had visions of walking down the aisle on crutches. Luckily, this was avoided by a trip to A&E in Lewisham, massive painkillers and ice packs being prescribed. As I also went to my dentist whilst back felt a little bit of a health tourist!

Also managed to cram in a trip to Chelsea, saw them progress to the next round of the FA Cup, saw my good friends there, plus a booze up with some old work mates on the Monday – felt like I was in a very strange place!

Therefore, to the main event – the wedding – this was held in a beautiful old church in the village of Cam Dursley in Gloucestershire, with reception in a Georgian mansion house next door, which we hired for several days jollity! It all went really well, I have attached a few pictures that I took just so you can see my lovely daughters and rugged son in full Scottish rig – they all looked really great, everyone laughed and a few cried at the right moments in my speech. The whole day passed off really well, ending around 3am I gather, with some frolicking in the hot tub – I had gone to bed by this point!

The next day was one for walks around the countryside – very nice at this time of year and again a complete contrast to the weather here – some games on the lawn, then back up to London for an early flight back – a real short sharp shock to my system! It is odd how we adjust to things – when I got back here it felt like coming home, which I suppose it is at least for another 18 months.

Regarding work, will give fuller report next time, plus news of my first tourist trip around Cameroon which is happening at the end of February - but we are getting there – stock control implemented, payroll installed, and all specifications signed off on the main banking system, still hope to go live in a couple of months with the first products.

As ever, welcome any news, views from home

December '06 - Its hot

Hello again from deepest Bafoussam

Well that’s my first quarter here completed, only another 7 to go, and if that sounds a bit negative well – this has not been my best month so far – mostly for work related reasons, more of which in a minute.

The biggest change since last time has been the advent of the dry season, which finally settled in during the first week of November. It’s hot, probably in the 80s most days, but not too humid, but its also cloudy quite often, so not the most pleasant climate I have experienced. But the main issue the weather has brought on is dust – all the mud lying around after months of rain is now brown, sticky dust which combined with the traffic fumes – and I am talking serious black, smoky exhausts here, there is obviously a good trade in old bangers from Europe to Africa – and the smoke from the many roadside eateries – all of which burn wood, goodness knows how there are any trees left at all – makes the atmosphere quite poisonous most of the time- and for me it has brought back my asthma, which I last suffered from seriously in my teens – so I am back having to use an inhaler every night to get some sleep – plus most days coughing and spluttering – marvellous! This, as you might imagine, is not adding to my good humour right now. I am reduced to hoping that my body will eventually acclimatise but almost one month in it’s not looking good.

And so to work – as I hinted earlier this has not been the best of months, I have been getting very, very frustrated with the difference in attitude to time and task management, even though I knew it was going to very different its only been the last few weeks that I have been letting it get to me. A “short time” means several hours, “today” can quite easily mean tomorrow and as for keeping to an appointed time – forget it! The whole situation was heavily compounded by a major financial crisis at the bank, which led to the suspension of lending and a (fortunately) temporary spending freeze – but for a couple of days I thought the whole project might be cancelled. Finally, the difficulty of what I am trying to do has hit me hard as I have realised that the level of competence is really quite scarily low e.g. a branch manger who does not understand double entry bookkeeping, a chief accountant who appears not to understand what a General Ledger is – all being managed by the guy who is my main contact being the worst manager of time and staff that I have ever experienced - so the whole month has been very frustrating. Anyway, enough moaning, no one ever said it was going to be easy etc, and we did end the month successfully installing the package we have selected in the training room that we have set up, so the month finished on a relative high. Plus I must be able to make a difference I think, given such a low start point!

Just returning briefly to the setting I am in, its difficult to describe really, but imagine a combination of a large bus terminal, combined with a very busy street market and you might get an idea. Add to this constant loud music from either the local shops and / or the many local churches – it’s a people watchers dream, especially as the dress mode is bright, almost blinding colours, combined with every style imaginable from western to Muslim style – its an amazing mix and very enjoyable to watch. Music is hugely important here, for example just down the road from me there are 2 telephone rental companies, on opposite sides of the road, who are waging a constant sales war fought through the means of who can have the largest wall of sound – and I mean loud – with dancers, musicians etc – to try and woo in the customers. Needless to say there appear to be no noise control measures in place – it’s really funny to walk past and be blasted in each ear!

My little flat continues to get better organised – one major breakthrough this month is that I have managed to rent S3 which is the equivalent of SKY – so I can watch as much British football as I like! In fact I am quite comfortable now, apart from the crickets and roaches, which on the one hand drop in to your cooking quite often (the crickets) and on the other hand scuttle out of the most unexpected places (the roaches) e.g. switching my printer on one morning – out pops a roach – I guess they like the warmth or something. One little puzzle on roaches, I often come across a dead one in the flat, which is always upside down – how does that happen I wonder – do they have a final death thro that upends them – can any naturalists out there enlighten me?

I am sorry this is such a long email, I guess I am using this to get things off my chest a bit – I am actually still enjoying this experience believe it or not!

To conclude on an upbeat note I am really looking forward to the next few months – the rest of December comprises another two weeks at work, then one week up in the north of Cameroon (which is quite different, being mainly desert and very Muslim apparently), at the annual VSO conference, then back to work for a couple of days before Xmas which I will be spending lying on a beach in a resort collect Kribi - meant to be very beautiful and laid back. Then in late January I will be back in the UK for a week as Jacqueline is now getting married on Jan 31^st, which will be a great occasion - then in late February I have 2 weeks off on holiday as I have a friend coming to stay, we plan to climb a mountain, hit the beach again and hopefully see some gorillas – so lots to look forward to.

I’ll close now, I guess not many of you will have read this far, if you have thanks, and as ever look forward to news from you – I have received a lot of emails in the past month which is great!

Until the next time, enjoy the run up to Xmas – that’s one thing I am not missing here, all the commercial rubbish in the UK at this time of year – I have yet to see an Xmas advert and have seen only one Xmas tree – I will send you a short Xmas message nearer the time!

November '06 - A bit of local culture

Its me again, reporting in after two months here – time is beginning to pass quite quickly which is a good sign I think.

Over the month I have seen quite a few really interesting things concerning the local culture, as I have spent a couple of weekend visiting the homes of my work colleagues – both of which are in quite remote rural areas, going towards the Nigerian border (indeed both of them were in Nigeria at one point in the past). These areas are very agricultural; everyone makes their living from the land, in some cases purely subsistence, in others as a business venture. The land here is very fertile. It is difficult to describe quite how rural it is – no electricity or running water, no TV, no lights – you get the picture – and very strong family ties. The extended family is hugely important here, and a lot of time is spent meeting and greeting uncles / aunts / cousins/ second cousins / wives (polygamy still a big part of things as well). Last weekend the main reason for the visit was that the guy I was with – a work colleague – was going to ask the family permission to take possession of his son – the mother, who he had not married, had subsequently married someone else, and they had agreed it would be better if the father brought the child up. This involved a very prolonged ceremony, with senior members of both families present, lots of palm wine being drunk, a goat slaughtered, then the father and mother being beat about the head with a live chicken, and chased out the room – the symbolism of this was not really clear!. The evening ended about 1am with agreement that the son could be brought up by his Dad, and then the whole company drank a toast to me as the first white man to visit their village – quite an honour I suppose! Altogether a fascinating night. The next day, whilst waiting to leave, I was handed a “book” to read which turned out to be a description of a recent visit by a local celebrity witch doctor, full of descriptions of all the great things this guy had done, curing illness etc, discovering local bad magic and driving it out – my host explained that this was all genuine, and that it complemented their strong Christian beliefs – very odd, but that’s rural Cameroon I suppose.

The other major highlight of these visits has been the chance to eat some really local food, which I have liked in most cases. The people find it very odd that I do not eat meat, which is a big luxury here, and have gone out of their way to supply local non meat specialities – one of which was crickets in a sort of sweet brown sauce – I tried these as they were offered as a great delicacy – they were delicious although I have to say the sight of their little legs, wings and antennae sticking up through the sauce was a bit much to handle! Even if I was meat eater, the local butchers would be a bit much as well, forget any thought of nice pink pieces, resting on a nice blood absorbing bit of blue cloth, covered in cling film – here it is the whole animal presented in its component parts – the head, the skin, the guts, the tripe and the body, chopped up into one or two sections, which you then select your piece from – all covered in gore – charming! Goats head is particularly popular here – I saw a chap eat one in a restaurant the other day, the horns made handy tools for picking it up and getting a good gnaw.

For you IT freaks out there, a quick update on the project – its going well if a little slow – I have had my recommendations accepted regarding hardware upgrades for all the branches (those years in IT infrastructure came in useful!) and selected a software package, which the suppliers have agreed to upgrade to include a basic current account for a reasonable price – so if all goes to plan we will have computerised the bank by about the middle of next year. More on work next time regarding the cultural differences.

One major piece of personal news – I am going to be a grandfather next year, all going well – my eldest is expecting next June – so I will be coming back to the UK for a quick visit around then – or maybe earlier if Chelsea get to the Champions League final!

Thanks to all of you who responded to my please for news from home by the way, keep it coming, it’s very welcome. I also finally started to receive my copies of the Guardian Weekly and my first parcel of books arrived from the UK – well done Jenny – although all mail seems to take about a month to get here. I will not be sending Xmas cards this year!

October '06 - Settling in

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!)

September '06 - First impressions

Sorry for delay in sending email, but getting internet access has proved a little difficult to date, but I am now sorted so here is my first news!

The journey out proved quite eventful, we were due to fly direct from Brussels to Yaounde (the capital), taking about 6 hours, arriving around 4.30 pm. In the event, the previous days flight had been aborted due to an engine failure, so our flight doubled up going first to Douala, then Kinshasa in the Congo before doubling back to Yaounde – adding a mere 3000 Km to the trip and about 9 hours given the extra landings and take offs – so we arrived about 1 in the morning rather frazzled.

Anyway, the first week was then spent having our in country training, issues around culture, language, health, security and so on. This was ok, but actually mostly pretty boring but it was good to meet my fellow volunteers – there are around 30 in total in the country now, 15 of us new this trip – although no one else is in my town, nearest are about 2 hours away by bus so will see them occasionally if at all. We were staying in a monastery (no end of fun when you go with VSO!) but managed a few evenings out, including one fantastic night at a local cabaret where the speciality was erotic dancing – most enjoyable and quite tastefully done – no nudity just plenty of body movement. As ever there was audience participation and yes I made a prat of myself as usual, but it was a good laugh I think for the audience.

So last Saturday, I met my employers for the first time and they took me to my new home for the next 2 years, here in Bafoussam, which is in the West province, population around 200,000 and growing and is a busy, noisy city. My employers seem great so far and have made me feel very welcome and valued for my expertise – more of that and what I have been asked to do in my next email but suffice to say I think I will be starting from a more or less completely manual system, around 5 branches with no network links - so that will be very interesting and challenging. Today I had my first introduction to all the branch staff in the branch here as well as the general manager – this took the form of a prayer meeting – with their own pastor - then full introductions, hugs and handshakes all round – not quite how I usually start a working day! I was then shown the suite of offices they are getting ready for me – I hope I can live up to their expectations!

As far as my living accommodation is concerned it is going to take some getting used to – good things about it are that it seems quite safe, I have 2 bedrooms, a lounge , kitchen and bathroom, a fridge and a small balcony (for hanging up the washing only!). Not so good things are that it is very, very sparsely decorated, currently has 2 pots (one of which leaks, the other is made of some composite material that almost works like metal), one blunt kitchen knife and NO HOT WATER – so cold showers for the next 2 years unless I can locate a good plumber and get the system upgraded if possible. This lack of hot water has been a feature of Cameroon so far, so this did not come as a total surprise and given that they want me to start at 7.30 each morning I will probably need waking up big time! VSO do give out a grant to equip the accommodation so I will be able to gradually do it up – watch this space for news on home improvements. If you come to visit be prepared to wield a paint brush – the walls are a kind of uniform shitty brown right now – not very nice. The picture shows the front of the building - I am on the top floor at the back!

The weather is also quite interesting – it’s currently the rainy season here, which runs until sometime in October or November (every one I ask gives me a different answer) , then it’s dry until sometime in March, then it’s wet again until next November etc etc! So much for working on the tan. The daily pattern so far seems to be dry in the morning, with some sunshine, then around 1.30 or so it pours down, for the rest of the day, with intensity varying from light shower to totally torrential. I can begin to understand why people get depressed by this, although the Cameroonians seem to take it all in their stride! It also gets dark around 6.30, so with no street lights and shop lights it’s really, really dark – you get the picture I’m sure.