Life could get harder

Kribi harbour view

Jane, the peace corps volunteer with me in Bogo told me that the irritating peace corps person from the elephant mango book out near Kaele where Gwendoline is

  • Was actually shagging the doctor after he was married NOT as in the book before he was married
  • That the colleague went home early because they were both shagging the doctor
  • That she was a fruit cake

See what an excellent judge of character you are – you said you didn’t like her.

I am definitely feeling an after the festivities lull. This may in part be because of the staff change I told you about – the guy who was keen for me to come back has gone to work temporarily in another country and a volunteer has actually got the temporary position above the Cameroonian staff – and this may mean my hopes for next year do not reach fruition. In the meantime while I don’t know for certain, I can’t plan properly what exactly I should be packing up to bring home and whether I should be shutting the house up and giving away all my sheep and chickens. It also makes me edgy because if I do go home now I am not sure what I have really achieved. I believe lots of volunteers feel like that here who even stay longer! Slowly, slowly – I want to be saying ‘give me some decisions’, but people here don’t work like that. They don’t have a European sense of urgency.

The lady who has been looking after Sean the horse can’t afford to do it any more, so I need to sort him out when I get home particularly if I am going back. I had absolutely no responses to my 15 job applications which gives an indication of how hard it will be. I looked on several temps sites yesterday and just cringed at the roles and the money! Life could suddenly get much harder.

The guy who was supposed to be coming to Bogo with the new vso group this January pulled out. Gwendoline, my 65 year old vso buddy stayed here at Christmas and then it was obviously too much as she has booked to go home for a month and leaves tomorrow. She has a big pension though and has been home 3 times since she has been here. If I could keep paying for my return flights I could come and go as often as I want, but I don’t want to use my limited resources for that.