Basic training comes to an end

Yesterday I got bitten a lot. I don’t know if this was because it rained. The 6 of us who are long term volunteers went to get our 6 month residence permits. They have to be renewed every 6 months at some cost. We went to the immigration police and the room, equipment and procedure were like something out of a movie 40 years ago. We had our photos taken and then had to move round 3 desks in a tiny room being measured, having our fingerprints taken and getting the forms filled in and stamped. In the afternoon we had training in what baseline support we could expect from the VSO office and finance.

Various little crises are sprouting up which draw attention to what people can or can’t tolerate, a crawly in the lettuce, no room service for 2 days, no first aid kits we were promised (but I brought one anyway), no air con, no shopping opportunities – mainly from the volunteers coming through the Welsh Assembly who are on 2 month placements. They are nice, entertaining women though.

Today we had 2 long sessions on organizational development which is basically leading a full council review from behind i.e through other people. This is what I am going to be expected to do in Bogo and I’m fine about this as it’s lots of process I have done before without the expectation that as a senior manager I lead from the front. I have found out that there was a woman before me, but she left after 3 months. Apparently they have already decided that if I can’t hack it they will move me to Mora, but they are already commenting that I’m quiet which is more suited to a Muslim culture. It may be that all that previous managers perceived in me as weaknesses will be strengths here. It’s exciting because you can see that if you do this what you would gain in personal confidence is enormous.

We also had another session on culture. Apparently 9 volunteers since 2007 have got married over here, predominantly women in their 20s to African men and men over 50 to African women, although Maude is probably in her 40s and I found out that she left the Far North because she married a Cameroonian driver she met initially on a business trip, got a VSO placement in the Far North, he joined her then hated it because he is from the south which is why she has moved down to Yaounde. The VSO office are very dubious about these marriages especially for the women because the majority of Far North marriages are polygamous although apparently, Mohammed, our trainer, signed up for a polygamous marriage (you do one or the other as part of the ceremony) but has only had one wife for 20 years.

Robert, one of the short term Welsh volunteers (road specialist from Anglesey) has gone down with the trots today. This is quite critical as we move to our regions tomorrow. I catch the overnight train with Iris and Claude (a French male Canadian in his 20s who arrived independently) for a 12 hour train journey and then we have a 6 hour bus ride to get to Maroua so God preserve me from the runs because the toilets are either non-existent or bad.

We will stay in a hotel for further training for another week in Maroua.