2 down, 2 to go

Hi

Well its all starting to go really fast now, just three and half months to go here, and it will be a very busy time. Over the past week we implemented 2 more branches, that leaves just 2 to do – one of which RIC will do themselves so that I can leave confident in their abilities.

The major implementation in the past week was in the branch at Mutengene, which is on the coast between Douala and Limbe – a really small town, where we have a correspondingly small branch with around 100 customers, 150 accounts. However it was still a challenge as this was the first time we have tried to implement a whole branch in one go (as opposed to the staged approach adopted so far). I am glad to report it all went really well and we left after completing 5 days where everything balanced. The only problem was the mosquitoes – I finally found a place where I am bitten! I hope that there was not a malaria carrying one amongst those that feasted on me, it would be a real shame to pick up a bug so near the end.

The other implementation was in our newest branch, in the capital, Yaounde – this is so new that we do not have premises yet, so I implemented on the sole staff member’s laptop – literally a bank in a box! When we get premises in a month or so it should then be easy just to transfer the data. Doing it this way avoids the complication of take on of existing customers etc. so its easy all round (I hope).

Just before I left town to do these implementations, my son Chris and his partner Claire arrived in Bafoussam for a couple of days at the end of their birding trip to Cameroon. They did really well, surviving 5 days on Mt Cameroon plus several days in the rainforest around Mt Kupe – the photoes are courtesy of Chris. They did all their travelling on local transport, which was brave considering neither speaks much French, so well done them. We had a great night out in Bafoussam with some of my work mates, and they managed to squeeze in a quick tour of the Chefferie here, so they experienced a good flavour of the country. But of course the main thing was the birds – after me saying I reckoned there were very few birds left due to the locals predilection for eating them, they managed to rack up over 150 new varieties – not a bad haul in ten days.

As ever, I would love to hear from some of you, what’s happening in your world – and the next time I write we will know Chelsea’s fate s in the Premier and Champions Leagues – so come on ye Blues!

cheers

Strangers in Paradise

Hi

Just a short note to prove that Chris and Claire arrived ok, and we made it to the beach and Botanical gardens at Limbe – as you can see from the picture they might usefully pick up a tan while here.

Apart from the pleasure of seeing me, the main attraction of course is the birdlife, so after a couple of days in Douala and Limbe, I dropped them at the foot of Mount Cameroon, where they still are, on a 5 day nature trek. Rather them then me, I have distinctly bad memories of that particular lump of rock, just looking at it gave me the shivers!

Rioting has died down, lots of muttering about the government, Biya has promised salary rises and price cuts – whether or not this will be enough to save him we will see.

Fuller update in a couple of weeks, when I hope to report back on the rest of their visit, plus the next branch implementation, which will be in the town of Mutenguene, our newest branch, very small number of customers so far, so I hope to complete that in a week at most.

Anyway, that’s all for now – Chris and Claire due here in a few days, assuming they get off the hill, so maybe next time I will have some pics of Cameroonian wildlife as well.

Cheers

PS – these palms and ferns are gi-normous!

Marching for the RIC women

Last Saturday, as I am sure you know, was International Womens Day. The RIC women asked me to march with them, which to be honest at first I thought was a set up, especially as it involved getting a special jacket made from this years specially printed cloth! IWD is az big thing here, so after assurances that there would be plenty of other guys expressing solidaity I agreed.

Well, on the day there was ONE other bloke, and to just make sure everyone saw me I was dulty elected to lead our team, carrying the Cameroon national flag. This I did, and fairly strutted my stuff - its amazing, I have not marched with a flag since I was a Boy Scout - but it all came back and I fairly pounded along, to great cheers from all the assembled throng!

It was not a set up, so I took great pleasure in doing this, and have already been told that I must lead the RIC delegation on May Day, so I must have been all right! Sorry about picture quality btw, but obviously I did not take this one. The group of RIC women at the top of the page is clearer I hope. thats it for now, I am in my last 100 working days, so the dowhill slope is in sight!

cheers

Rioting , a conference, a wedding and nearly a funeral

Hey

There has been severe rioting here over the past few days, sparked off by a rise in fuel prices (which are government controlled). Sadly, there have been several deaths and a lot of destruction of property – concentrating here in Bafoussam on the offices of the French gambling company PMUC – who people blame for taking their money and sending all profits back to France. I guess you may not have heard about any of this as the government imposed a news blackout alomsot straight away. So far thankfully there is no indication of any anti white feeling, but VSO have been very good at keeping in touch with us all and have contingency plans should things get really bad.

Apart from all of this, the last few weeks have been a very busy here, starting with my attendance for the third time at the RIC management conference. This was held this time at our most remote branch in Andek Ngie ( see above) , which is high up in the mountains north of Bamenda – takes about 6 hours to drive there up an increasingly difficult road, but with spectacular scenery to compensate.

The conference was a one day affair and much to my surprise started on time and finished only a couple of hours late – this was a marked improvement on the first two which both finished around midnight. So I felt all my efforts in improving timeliness, introducing standard reporting formats and so on were bearing some fruit. However, it does not do to get too complacent – as we had left 5 hours late on the Friday to go to the conference – this was a more typical piece of Cameroonian time keeping!

Work continues to go pretty well, although I have had to slip my plans by a month as it has become clear that there has not been enough discipline and checking when taking on the Loans and Current Accounts and it is only now that several errors are coming to light – so we have decided rather than roll out to the other branches we will spend another month documenting procedures and making some further changes to the system to tighten things up. I am still hopeful of getting around all the other branches before my time is up, but it is now starting to look a little tight.

The Wedding – this was a very elaborate affair. One of the daughters of Mr Abiyah, the overall boss of RIC, was married to a chap she met a few months ago – it was almost an arranged wedding as the procedure here is for the man to approach the women’s parents and ask for the daughter, if the parents agree then it’s a done deal in most cases. There were over 500 guests and the Bride and Groom were attended by:-

• 6 pastors
• 2 choirs
• 4 god parents
• 4 witnesses
• 18 Parents of Honour
• 1 maid of honour
• 1 best man
• 6 brides maids
• 6 grooms men
• 1 bride pilot (there were no planes involved, I think this was probably the driver of the wedding car)
• 4 flower girls
• 4 page boys
• 1 little bride
• 1 little groom
• 3 spray girls (spraying perfume around everywhere!)
• 1 cake designer
• 3 decoration committee members
• 7 food co-ordinators
• 6 usherettes
• 1 security man
• 1 camera man
• 1 video man
• 1 musical director
• 10 arch bearers (carrying moveable ceremonial arches)
• 8 ladies of honour
• 13 fathers of the day (i.e. elderly folk like me!)
• 10 directors of protocol
• 5 drinks coordinators
• a chairman
• 2 masters of ceremony
• 1 bridal wardrobe person
• and last but not least 5 wedding co-ordinators!

Needless to say, we all had a good time!

Oh yes, the (nearly) funerals. This was on the way back from the conference, around 9pm. The driver not exactly sober (as per usual when travelling we had to stop several times to greet friends / family – which invariably involved a beer or two) – when suddenly there was an almighty bang and the car which had 5 adults and a one year old child on board, skidded to a very noisy stop - fortunately on a quiet stretch of road. The back axle had collapsed – if it had gone a few moments earlier we would probably have gone over the edge of a cliff!

So there we are, less than 5 months to go, the next big thing is my son and partner coming over at Easter to see me and do some serious bird watching here, plus hopefully we will spend some time on the beach at Limbe – hope all well with you wherever you are, do send me your news.

cheers

Je suis malade comme une parrot!

Ah well, at least they got to the Final!

I should be happy for that I suppose, as my adopted country got a lot further than my real country will ever do! Still, it was very disappointing, I had been really looking forward to the celebrations!

So, back to supporting Scotland for WC2010!

Salmon chanted evening

Well another month passes, and now there are less than 6 months to go, suddenly I am starting to run out of time to do everything.

Work wise it has been a slightly frustrating month. Everyone has been tied up with closing out 2007 in the manual system, which as you can imagine is a very tedious task. So to a degree I have been spinning my wheels a little - no one is available to do much work on the new system. Still, it continues ok in parallel run in the 3 branches and the plan remains that this month we hit two more branches so I will be off and travelling around for a couple of weeks at the end of the month I hope.

There have been a couple of compensating factors though – football with the advent of the African Cup of Nations – which is a big deal here – much fun has been had watching Cameroon’s games in the local pub – quite an atmosphere although what will happen if they do not win the whole thing – which I doubt they will – remains to be seen.

Another welcome distraction was a VSO course for the best part of a week, which took me away from Bafoussam and it was good to meet up with some of my fellow volunteers. It was a real morale booster hearing about some of the great things they have achieved in all sorts of areas from AIDS support to bee keeping – look out for the first batch of Cameroon honey in a health food shop near you sometime in 2009!

There was also the RIC “start of year” party, which will typical Cameroonian timing finally happened on the 18^th! To compound this, it was scheduled to start at 6pm sharp – so I turned up at 6.15 to find two other people there –the rest drifted in around 9. The boss was not at all pleased (he turned up at 7 by the way) and had a big post mortem on the Monday about poor time keeping. He then asked for suggestions on how it could be better next year, and I actually was cheered for suggesting that they might consider getting in outside caterers rather than rely on the women staff to do all the catering – which involved then being up at 6am to start cooking – no wonder they were late!

The reason for the musical title btw – try singing it – was that whilst in Bamenda for the VSO course I found a shop that sells all sorts of “European” goodies – at exorbitant prices by Cameroonian standards – so I treated myself to a Toblerone, a Bounty, a packet of Scottish shortbread and the big treat – a large tin of John West’s best wild Canadian salmon – which is the first salmon I have had since leaving the UK – it was marvellous. Its amazing how a simple treat can work wonders!

Just in case any of you a re worrying about the situation in Chad, no problem, that is at the other end of Cameroon from where I am, but there are quite a few VSO volunteers up near the Chad border, who may well have to be evacuated if things get worse, lets hope they sort it out. What with that and the situation in Kenya it's all very depressing.

Finally, thanks if you have got this far, I know I have been away for a long time, and it was my choice, but it would be really great to hear how 2007 treated you and what plans you have for 2008 – news from home has dried up a bit recently and I am feeling a bit homesick – so drop me a line when you have a moment!

Flora and some small fauna

Thought you might to see some of the flora and a few choice bits of fauna that are here in Bafoussam. Nice eh?

However, before you get the idea that I am lazing around in some tropical paradise, I should point out the town itself is a living hell in the dry season, hot and very dusty – so I went for a walk outside town last week to get some relief from it, and took the flower pictures.

The fauna side is also pretty limited – anything bigger than these chaps was eaten long ago by the locals – bush meat as it is called – and even the insects are in danger if there’s a spot of nourishment on them! Apart from these two, I also have a little lizard (Lennie – I might have mentioned him before) in residence but he is extremely camera shy! I do not include the mice in this category, they remain my worst enemies, have given up trying to catch them, they are just too fast, do my best to ignore them - it’s the only way

Anyway, not missing British weather, but increasingly looking forward to coming home, six months and 5 more branches to go!!