April Fool, Cameroon

The sharing of cultures…

Me: So, April 1st tomorrow, do you call it April Fools Day too?

Colleague: Yes, it’s always very funny –  last year the people on the radio told us the president had died.

On what it is to volunteer

I recall some serious discussion emanating from the in-country HQ during my first VSO posting about the “volunteer” title.

In short, the argument was that the title immediately demeaned the individual in many people’s eyes.

You’re working for free – therefore your input is devalued.

The V word meant that people overlooked the experiences that VSO recruitment demanded.  It overlooked what qualifications you had.  It also meant that in some cases employers didn’t feel that they had the right to demand standards of under performing staff – because they were just volunteers.

Of course the suggestion was – we weren’t volunteers we were consultants.  Potentially trading one label with a stack of baggage with another.

So the truth is we do get paid – although it tends to be referred to as an “allowance” rather than a wage.  But as I sit here right now typing this, my colleague who sits across the room, gets a quarter of what I do. And my allowance is just for food and bills – hers must also cover housing, health care and family commitments.

By local standards we have a good lifestyle but even in a town where the most luxurious item I can buy is a tin of tuna, I can only just about live on my wage.

Call ourselves consultants and there’s an immediate promotion in our standing. But don’t consultants just tell you what you should do whereas volunteers do it?

On one occasion at KOTO we had “real” consultants in.  I was, one of half a dozen volunteers each chosen for their expertise and experience.  In my case it was a dozen years in others it was over 30.  The consultants, however, couldn’t see past our titles – referring to us in a report as “well meaning amateurs”.

Guess how angry we were?  And of course what they meant was – there should be less of volunteers and way more expensive consultants like them.

Having said that,  what’s expected of a consultant rather than a volunteer perhaps best fits the VSO model.  Capacity building, sharing knowledge, not so much doing as showing people how it can be done.  Then again, the most effective volunteers I have met are the ones who’ll pitch in whatever the job.

I recall Michael of Blue Dragon in Hanoi saying that the best volunteers wouldn’t quibble at having to clear up sick if one the kids they work with was ill.  I’d certainly go with that.

Those KOTO consultants are not the first I have come across who were snobbish about the volunteer tag.  Another NGO worker I met referred to us as the “plankton of the NGO world”.  Even back home not enough is understood about VSO  and potential employers can come to conclusion that you’ve essentially just been travelling for the past two years – or worse – growing dreadlocks, being flaky and “finding yourself”.

Even VSO itself can often seem to forget just how stringent its recruitment is.  Next month we have been informed we will be paid 15 days late.  I’m not happy and have argued for a reasonable explanation.  It would never happen in the VSO London HQ so why should “volunteers” at the sharp end, surviving on a pittance, have to suffer it?

In the interests of balance I should say that we have been told we are entitled to a small loan to tide us through.  But would that ever happen in London?  Sorry, can’t pay you right now but, tell you what, we’ll bung you a few quid till we’re flush again.

Is it because we’re just volunteers that we don’t get the same rights? Three years into VSO work and I am yet to find a way of raising concerns with VSO head office.  There’s no 360 degree reviews here. We can be complained about – but we can’t complain.

Going back to the titles – maybe volunteer consultant is the best of both worlds.  The gravitas of the C word and humility of the V one.

On the reflection though I’m somewhat proud to be a volunteer.  Where VSO works, it works because it’s grass roots.  We don’t come with fancy titles nor SUVs.  We don’t furnish people with instructions and leave them to get on with it.

On the whole we are here for at least a year – though that is changing and much shorter posts are now becoming available

But maybe it’s time organisations and individuals were challenged to rethink their thoughts on what a volunteer is.

A letter to a new VSO volunteer Pt.2

You can find part one here.  (Part one covered the practical stuff – this is the touchy feely bit).

Dear new VSO volunteer,

In my two VSO posts I feel like I have witnessed the highest highs and the lowest lows of volunteer life.

The highest…hitching a lift on the back of a motorbike in Hanoi, following the ridiculous urge to hold my arms out, arching my back and letting the smell of autumn blossom fill my lungs.

The smell somehow further boosting my euphoria.

Whizzing around Hanoi was often when I felt happiest. I could see it all fly by me – the markets, the chaos, the colour, the people.

I could further remove myself from it and see me – right in the middle of it all – on that bike. Living a life that after a dozen years in an office, I really thought belonged to other people.

To be able to have that thought – this is me doing this. Me.

In no time you’re no longer the newbie. New volunteers arrive and you’re showing them how to get around, how to haggle, where to eat, where to buy what you need.

And the “this is me”, never far away.

I suspect most people like me had a life plan already mapped out – it’s not something we made a conscious decision to do, but school, work, marriage retirement, all in the one country, was what we expected.

Those people who did volunteer work overseas were the stuff of local papers. Local boy in Asia.

The word I use most is “lucky”. I seemed lucky. Lucky because the existence of VSO meant I could be there and hopefully I could help. Heartbreakingly lucky because I had been born somewhere affluent and developed and I’d never have to deal with the problems that the kids I worked with had. I even felt lucky to feel lucky – if I hadn’t seen this for myself then I might have known just how blessed my life is.

And the lows – in both Vietnam and Cameroon it’s hard watching the efforts of local people being undermined by corruption.

It’s hard to witness the rights that we take for granted not being there without money to grease the wheels.

In Hanoi I never wanted for a social life. It was a double edged though – I also felt suffocated by that expat village. I also felt uneasy with the walled-compound and SUV crowd when I worked during the day with people who had so little.

But even in Hanoi it was still easy to feel lonely at times. It took me a while to recognise it but not having easy access to “home” can be harder to deal with than you think. On the occasions when life was tough it was hard to escape. It was hard sometimes just to find support and reassurance.

Cameroon, in that respect, is harder still. Ten hours to the nearest airport – only a handful of other volunteers in town – it’s hard not to feel that the rest of the world is a long way away.

I’ve had evenings that have gone on forever. I’ve had hours where I’ve willed my phone to bleep. I’ve switched on my laptop and been genuinely depressed to find no emails and nobody online.

Other times the electricity has been off from the time I woke up on a Sunday and the day has unfolded in front of me with seemingly nothing and no one to fill it. Boredom and loneliness together are the worst.

But, as with Vietnam, I never stopped feeling lucky. Even lucky that I had this experience – even if it hasn’t all been positive. Lucky that, as hard as it gets here, it will make future plans and future experiences seem so much easier.

Lucky that I have seen for myself , in a very small way, how people live in one of the poorest countries in the world. Lucky that I’ve met people for whom this isn’t context or an experience – this is life and they are coping with it the best they can.

VSO as a rites of passage? Absolutely.

I strongly believe that if you can do it – then you should.

Good luck.

Tap dancing

On Friday night I returned home from work ready for our usual start of the weekend drinks.

Before I left I filled up my largest pan and boiled it for my customary bucket bath. I wash.

Later I return and go to straight to sleep.  I awake on Saturday to no water.

That’s no surprise.  More often than not Sunday is both dry and electricity free but you can expect either to go missing any day, any time.

I have a big drum of water stored – I use half of it to wash.

So, when I returned from market and there was still no water – I was irritated but unsurprised.

Next day, Sunday there is still neither.  Again, myself and my VSO neighbour Charlie, have come to expect everything to be switched off on the traditional Cameroonian day of rest. I’m even more annoyed although I pretty much expected it.

I just go smelly but by this time the toilets are in drastic need of a flush.  The house is starting to smell like the less savoury areas of a rock festival.  The dishes lie unwashed in the sink and the mice are having a field day chewing away at the scraps.

That night I go to bed leaving the tap turned on in the adjacent bathroom.  If the water returns, even for the briefest moment during the night,  I will know about.  This time I won’t take it for granted that it will remain – I’ll refill the big drum again.

So lying in bed, sweaty and stinky my mind starts to wander.  In Cameroon you tend to blame all problems on infrastructure.  But what if, this time, that isn’t the problem?

We are at the tail end of the dry season – maybe there simply is no water. What if, not just the water luxuriously pumped to my house, has gone?  What if all the pumps are dry too?

What if we really have used up all the water? I start to imagine the horror.  The stampede.  The smell.  The dirt. The illness.

My sleep is troubled.

Water charities – you want to make a lot of money?  Ask your supporters to go without water for a weekend.  Don’t let them wash with it, nor flush with it, nor drink it.  Then watch the money flood in.

On Monday I used up the final couple of litres of stored water to have a very unsatisfactory wash.  I’m horrified to see on close inspection, little black creatures swimming in it.  I try not to think about them  as I clamp my mouth shout and ladle the water over myself.

At work I am delighted to hear that mercifully everyone else has water.  On returning home that night we talk to our landlady about it and she checks and tells us, we’ve been cut off. We hadn’t even been billed.

This morning I washed my armpits in  half a bottle of mineral water, put talc down my shorts and head off to the water company.

I pay our outstanding bill and ask when we’ll be reconnected.

Reconnected?

Yes, you have cut us off.

She asks if I am sure.

I am.

I’m irritated that they did the deed and yet  I am supposed to provide them with evidence of it.  Surely they must have records.

After some confused looks and lots of talking behind the desk they find me a technician.  No big water company van – I have to pay for his and my taxi to the house.

We walk around to where the water meters are and he opens up the orange cage that houses them

No spanners, no tools – he turns the tap.  I can hear water running in the house. It’s a beautiful sound.

Turns out we hadn’t been disconnected, though it’s an easy mistake to make when homes in Cameroon regularly do go weeks without water.

It seems instead that the local kids must have been playing with the taps.

I flush the toilets and head back to work.

Tonight I wash.

* Just wrote this and remembered the Twitchiker – travelling the world and raising cash for Charity:Water.  Inspired by my waterless weekend I’ve made a very small volunteer-sized donation – it would be nice if others could too.

New blog

Just a quick note to say that I’ve started a new blog Our Man on Planet Earth.  The aim is to ensure that all my other thoughts get their own space and I can go back to all-Cameroon-all-the-time here.

The first post entitled: “Traditional media doesn’t like “us” very much” is now available to read.

Meanwhile, Cameroon status update: Power all weekend – no water for the last 36 hours. I’m getting stinky.